The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-12-20
THE BAD BOY.
san.l

ing a scrapping match h car at the de- pot the otheg day r' said the groceEyman to the bad hoy, as be showed up with hts market basket one morning. ~The man at the.depot who sings out tog trains says your pa tried to kiss an old maid and she scratched him, and then your ma jawed him, and he jumped ofF the car and ies your ma 70 on to Chicago. Your pa must be an old heathen," and the gTo- cerymsn took knife and began 10 whit tie the lead out of the bottom of a two pound weight
 "Well, you would a dide if you dad been there" said the bad boy, as he cut o6 piece of sausage and began to un- button its overcoat with knife. "You sec ma was going to Chicago to buy some cheap comfotters for beds, cause she read in a paper that comfoTters that had been in fire, and was watersoaked and smeiled frowy, could be bought at your own price, and she said they were good enough for boaEders. l and pa went dosn to the depot to see her of. We went in the car and got ma A seat, and pa went out so get mas valise checked. | thought pa would come back just about the time the train started, so told ma she better take seat way back in the stern of the car, cause 1t would be out of the draft, and just as she got up to change, an old maid about a hundred years old came in the car with basket and lot sf things, and said, Madame, you can have this seat, and she thanked me and squat,ed down in it. Honest, I hope to die # l thought pa would come in and hug the old maid, but pa is getting kind of nigh-sighted, and when he showed up in the door of the car ny heart dumped so l could hear it. He was walking up to the old maid and look ing smiling, and ma said, You better go and tell your pa thai have changed my seat and l started to tell pa, but didn't hurry. Don't you know a boy sometimes fingers when he ought to be quite sudden Pa says he can see just as well as he ever could, and knew a darn site better. He gets mad every time any of us tells him he is losing his eye sight, and when saw him going sp to that centennial female, looking as though he had known her ever since the war, thought l, would be good time to dem- onsuate to pI that his eyes were htue off. o, but didn't she look sassy at him when he said, Here's a check 1 got for you so you wouldn't get lost Just thel the conductor shouted all aboard, and pa took hold of the strange woma an by both sides of her head and pulled her mouth around and sad, Come back at Sas to your oan chick-a-biddy,' ard then he smacked her so that people in the car all heard IL Honest, the conductor outside heard il and thought it was the air brake busted. Well. don't know the woman hit pa, but 1t seemed as though she must have rared right up and kicked him with four feet, cause he went up nearly to the bell rope, and yelled quit tha,, and the old girl screamed for the police, and pa saw me and said, Where's your mar ? and told him she was back there, and he said, Who's been moving her, and then ma she began to get mad, and when pa came up she did gsve him f'tA She called him lysenshus old ka1oo, and a free lover and A Mormon, and he said she had no business to have moved. He said when a man sat his wife down in seat il was her duty to remain stead Ess. there or whereabouts, or nobody was safe, and our liberties were in danger Ma kride and said pa was great burden to bare, but she gave him her hanker- chief to wipe some blood of his nose, where his mash scratched him. The conductor came in when the woman screamed, and she pointed to pa and said he had tried to rob her, and the con. ductor told pa to get off, and he bid ma goodbye coldly and we went out We'll, l like to didc afore we got to the street car, and pa was looking peculiar, like when he IS thinking, and thought l ought to say something, so after had paid the fare in the street car l sa, down by pa and said, Pa, you aint much of a judge of wimmen. II you wanted to kiss stranger there was a girl two seats back of that old maid as pretty as picter.' Pa kept chewing his gum real fast the way he always does when he is mad, and he said, You hush upp and then after a little he said to me, Look here, young man, if md you got your ma to change seats win that old pair of human clothes -S2rs, jus; to play joke on me, it is going to 30 mighty hard with yos. condum you looked hurt, and asked pa if 1 looked like boy that would deliberately steer his pa into the jaws of death Jus, for fun, and he said 1t didn't seem as though l would, but it looked good deal like it. told him that when a mans eye-sight began to fail he couldn't be too careful about kissing promiscuously around in a coach, and he said his eye sight was just as good as ever. He said if he had looked al the woman he could have told the difference, bu, he just took 1t for granted ma was just where he lett her. And then he found his hand vas bleeding, and he said there ought to be a la~ against women wearing daggers in their hair"
 " How did thsy fix it up when your ma got home r asked the grocery man.
 @Taint fixed up yet," said the boy, as he took up his basket to go home. "Mz has tried ios two days To corral pa, and get an explanation, but he is out every