The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1883-07-18
THE BAD BOY DISC0URSES.
he UNBOsOMs HIMSELF TO THE
GROCERY MAN.

HE uNBosoMs HIMSELF TO THE
GROCERY MAN.
And After yentiluting His Mind on Various
Serious Matters Leaves n Sign for His
Listener to Ponder Over.
"What you sitting there for half an
hour for, staring at vacancy" said
the grocery man to the bad boy, as ne
sat on a stool by the stove one Of these
foggy mornings, when everybody feels
like quarreling, with his fingers clasped
around his knee, looking a. though he
did not know enough to last him to
bed. "What you thinking about any
way" -.
II was wondering where you would
have been to-day if Noah had run his
ark into such a fog rs this, and there
had been no fog-hOrn on Mount Ara
rat. and he had passed by with his
excursion and not made a landing, and
had tloated around on the freshet until
all the animals starved, and the ark
had struck Il snag and burst a hole IN
her bottom. l tell you, we a all
congratulate ourselves that Noah hap
penedt to blunder on to thathigh ground.
When | think of the narrow escapes
we have had, it is a wonder to me that
we have got along as well as we have.
"Well, when did you get out OF the
asylum said the grocery man, who had
been standing hack with open mouth
looking at the boy as though he was
crazy. "What you want is to have
your head soaked. You are getting so
YOU reach out too far with that small
mind of yours. In about an other
year you will want to run this world
Yourself. I don't think you arc reform
ing very much. 1t is wickedfo a boy
of YOUR size to argue about such
things. Your folks better send you to
college"
"What do 1 want to 60 to college
for, and be a heartless hazer and poor
baseball player. I ar be bad enough
at home. The more l read the more l
think. l don't believe l can ever be
good enough to 60 to heaven, anyway,
and l guess I will 60 into the newspa-
per business, where they don't have to
be good, and where they have passes
everywhere. Some boys can take
things as they read them, and not think
any for themselves, but l am athinker
from Thinkerville, and my magma
ton plays the dickens with me. There
is nothing 1 read about in old times but
what I compare it with the same lire OF
business ut the present day. Now,
when | think of the fishermen OF Gall
lee drawing their seines, l wonder
what they would have done if there
had been a law against hauling seines,
as there is in Wisconsin to-day, and l
a see a constable with a warrant for
the arrest of the Galilee fishermen,
| taking them to the police station in a
patrol wagon. l know it is wrong to
think like that, but how can l help 1t.
Say, suppose those fishermen had been
out hauling their seines, and our min
lister should come along with his good
clothes on, his jointed rod, his nickel
plated reel, and his silk fish line. and
| his patent fish hook, and put a frog on
the hook and cast his line near the
Galilee fisherman and 60 to trolling
for bass? What do you suppose the
lone fishermen of the Bible times
would have thought about the gall OF
the iointed rod fisherman? DO you
suppose they wouldhavethrown stones
in the water where he was trolling, or
would they have told him there was
coed trolling around a point about a
half a mile up the shore, where they
knew he wouldn't get a bite in a week,
the way a fellow at Muskego lake lied
to our minister a spell ago? l tell
you,b loss, it is a sad thing for Il boy
to have an imagination" and the boy
put his other knee in the sling made
hv the clenched fingers of 10th hands,
and waited for the grocery man to
argue with him.
Il wish you would go away from
here. l am afraid Of you," said the
grocery man. 81 would give any
thing if your pa or the minister would
come in and have Il talk with You.
Your mind is wandering" and the
grocery man went to the door and
looked up and down to see if somebody
wouldn't come in and watch the crazy
boy while he went to breakfast.
"Oh, pa and the minister can't
make a first payment on me. Pa gets
mad when | ask questions, and the
minister thinks I am past redemption.
Pa sail yesterday that badness was
caused in every case by mems wearing
plug hats, and when l asked him
where the good Elijah (whom the
boys called go up old bald head and
the bears had a free lunch on them
got his plug hat, pa said school was
dismissed and l could 60. When the
minister was telling me about the good
Elijah going up through the clouds in
a chariot of fire, and l asked the min
lister what he thought Elijah would
have thought if he had met our Sun
day-school superintendent coming
down through the clouds on a bicycle,
he put his hand on my head and said
my liver was all wrong. Now, l will
leave it to you if there was anything
wrong about that. Say, do you know
what l think is the most beautiful
thing in the BibleT"
mo, l DON'T" said the grocery man,
"and if you want to tell it will listen
lust five minutes, and then l I'm going
to shut up the store and 60 to break
fast. You make me tired"
Well, I think the finest thing is
that story about the prodigal son,
where the boy took all the money he
could scrape up and went out West to
paint the towns red. He spent his
money in riolous living, and saw every
thing that was going on, and got full
of benzine, and struck all the gangs of
toughs, and his stomach went hack on
him, and he had malaria. and finally ne
got to be a cowboy, herding hogs, and
had to eat husks that the hogs didn't
want, and got pretty low down. Then
he thought it was pretty good scheme
TO be getting around home, where they
had three meals a day and spring mat
t~rcsses, and he started home, beating
his way on the trains, and he didn't
know whether the old man would
receive him with open arms
or pointed boots, but the
old man came down to the depot to
meet him, and right there before the
passengers and the conductor and
brakeman, he wasn't ashamed of his
boy, though he was ragged, and looked
as though he had been on the war
path, and the old mar fell on his neck
and wept, and took him home in a
hack and had a veal pot-piefor dinner.
That's what | call sense. \ good
many men now days would have put
the police on the tramp and had him