The Mineral argus., 1884-01-24
THAT AwFULLY BAD
And How ne Plays It on the Fears
Of Deceived Parent.

OF Deceived Parent,
Peck's Milwaukee Sun.
II guess your pas losses in the silver
mine has made him crazy, h vent
they" said the grocery man to the bad
boy, as he came in the store with his
eye winkers singed off. and powder
marks OF his face, and began to play ON
the hafmonica, as he sat down on the
end of a stick of stove wood and bal
anced himself.
"Oh, l guess not. He has hedged.
He got in with a deacon of another
church, and sold some of his stock to
him, and pa saws if / keep my COM
denim mouth shut he will unload the
whole of it, if the church holds out.
He goes to a new church every night
there is a prayer meeting, and makes ma
go with him, to give him tone, and after
meeting she talks with the sisters about
how to piece a silk bed quilt, while pa
gets in his work selling silver stock. I
don't know what he will order some
more stock from the factory, if he sells
AL he has got" and the boy went on
playing There's a Land that is tairer
than Day"
"But what was he skipping up street
" bAAO ONiACI AAEtL Will Ills HAT OH. RraD-
blng at his coattails as though they were
on fire? l thought l never saw q pussy
man run any faster. And what was the
celebration down on your street about
thattlme? thought the world was COM
ing to an end" and the grocery a
kept away from the boy, for fear he
wOald explode.
20, that was only a Fenian scare.
Nothin' serious. You see pa is a sort o.
half E~nglishnan. He claims to be an
American citizen, when he wan s of.
ice, but when thew talk about n draft he
claims to be a subject Of Great Britain,
and he ava they can't touch him. Pa is
a darned smart man, and don't you for
get il. There don't any of them get
ahead OF pa much. Well, pa has said a
good deal about the wicked Fenians,
and that they ought to be pulled, and all
that, and when | read the story in the
papers about the explosion in the Brit
ish parliament pa was hot. He said tho
damerish was running the whole world.
de didn't say il at the table or our hired
girl would ave knocked him silly with
a spoonful of mashed potatoes, cause
she's a nirish girl, and she can lick n
Englishman III this town. Pa said there
ought 10 have been somebody there to
have taken that bomb and throwed it in
the sewer before i~texploded. He said if
he ever should see a bomb he should grab
1t right up and throw it away where it
wouldn't hurt anybody. Pa has me
read the papers to him nights, cause his
eyes have got splinters in 'em, and after
/ J ad read all there was in the paper 1
made up a lot more and pretended to
read 1T, ABOUT how it was rumored that
the Fenians here III Milwaukee we're
going to place dynamite bombs at every
hnTran vaa ~ IAwlsuk-.. I
at a given signal blow them all up. Pa
looked pale around the gills, but he
said he wasn't scared. Pa and ma were
going to call on a she deacon hat has
lots of money in the bank, to see If she
didn't want to invest in a dead-sure pay
ing silver mine, and me and my chum
concluded to give them a send-of. We
gOtmy big black injy- rubbey football and
painted ~"Dinymight" in big white let
ters on 1T, and tied a piece Oftarred rope
to 1T for a fuse, and got a fire-cracker,
n of those old Fourth of July horse
scarers, and a basket full orb. oxen glass.
We put the football in front of the step,
lit the tarred sope, and got under the
step with the firecracker ami basket,
where they go down into the basement.
Ia and ma got out the front door and
down h steps, and'pa saw the football
n the barning fuse, and he said, Great
God! Hammer, We are bloweI upl" and
he started to run, and ma she stoned
to look at it. Just as pa started to run L
touched off the tirecracker, and my chum
arranged it to pour out tine broken glass
on the brick pavement just as the fire.
cracker went OF. Well, every
thing went just as we expected,
except ma. She had exam,
med the football, and concluded it was
dangerous. and was inst giving IL a
kick as the ~firecracker went of, and the
glass fell, and the firecracker was so near
her that it scared her, and when pa
around ma vas flying across the
sidewalk, and pa heard the noise and
he thought the house was blown to
o, you'd a dide to see him 90
the corner. You could plav GRO
kay on his coat-tsil, and his face was as
pale as mas when she goes to a party
But ma didn't scare much. AS quick as
she stopped against the hltching post
she knew it was us boys, and she came
there, and maybe she didn't maui
me: L cried and tried to gain her SYM
pathy by telling her the firecracker went
OH before it was due, and burned my
eyebrows Oft, but she didn't let up until
promised 70 60 and find pa. | tell YOU.
my ma ought to be engaged by the Brit.
Isn government to hunt out the dy-
Mantle fiends. She would corral them
IN two minutes. If pa had as much
sand as ma has got, it would be warm
weather for me. We'll, me and my chum
vent and headed pa off or | guess he
would be running yet. We got him up
the lake shore, and he wanted to
If the house fell down. He said
would leave it to me if he ever said
lnrything against the Fenians, and told