The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-02-01

James climbing over the tailboard of
the wagon.
Il am the bad boy who choked a
bear to death with my naked hands,
replied James as he put on a bloody
and sinister look.
Its nothing to me how bad you
are. Unhitch your hitch and get off
my wagon or you will reap sorrow"
Il don't have tor
Then the man who had fought in
the Spanish war and killed thousands
of Spaniards and buried them in I'M
marked graves, saw that he was de-
fled, and that his reputation as a
brave man was at stake. He stopped
his horses so as to make jump for
James. and just at that moment the
sawmill took fire. and an alarm was
sent in, and a fire engine came gal
Looping out. The defiant boy saw that
he had gone too far, and all at once
he let go his hitch and dropped into
the street. The Spanish veteran cried
out to him, but he only ran out his
tongue and made up face in reply.
He did not know that the engine was
close upon him until he was under the
heavy wheels.
James Schermerhorn was carried
home and laid on the bed. Several
doctors poked away at him and said
that he would never crawl under the
canvas on circus day again. He was
unconscious for several hours, but just
before he died he opened his eyes.
smiled at his weeping mother and
whispered:
Il wish I had been good boy and
died of the yellow fever instead of
this!''
1t is hard work to be a good boy.
There is no fun in it. You can't rob
orchards or melon patches or break
windows or peg the mayor with snow
balls, but you will live on and be re-
spected, and some day your fellow
seeing
much, will elect you to the legislature
and make your family proud of you.
Henry Harper was another sad case
of how a boy can go wrong. Up to
the age of eight he was praised on
all sides for his goodness. Then a
boy called Terrible Tom lent him an
Indian story written by Blunt Ned
line. 1t told how a lad nine years old
ran away from home and went west
to fight Indians. He killed over 200
and burned their villages and obliged
their squaws to weave red blankets
for him, and then he came home to be
bad boy. If his mother wept over
his refusal to go to the grocery store
for a can of kerosene, he drew his
scalping knife and threatened to take
her scalp. If his father took him by
the collar to lead him out into the
wood shed, he drew his tomahawk
and uttered a warwhoop and was let
alone.
One day, when the village constable
started to arrest Henry desperate.
the youth hid himself in a cider mill and
threatened to burn every widow and or
phan in the town at the stake if he was
not let alone. They coaxed and they
threatened, but nothing would move the
boy. At last when his mother had b >.
come so perturbed that she could no Ions
er keep up the monthly payments on her
sewing machine and when his father
was looking out for good place to jump
into the mill pond and drown himself.
there came a fatal day in this bad boys
history No bad boy ever escaped tha+
fatal day. 1t is as sure to come as that
city alderman gets rich on holding two
terms of office.
A tin peddler drove into the village to
sell his wares, and Henry Harper de r.
termined to add his scalp to his large and
interesting collection. The peddler OBJ
jected to being made a bald-headed man.
Some folks We're inclined to blame hin,
saying that the less hair he mad the less
money he would have to pay out FOR halI'
dye, but in defending his scalp he pushed