Year: 1870

-


aid not Come to Grief a moral
sketch which I published five or SIX
years ago) was worthy Of preserve
ton several weeks in print, far
and unprejudiced companion piece
to it would deserve q similar InlAleF-
tality.-EDrroR MEMORASDA:


Once there was a good little boy
by the name Of Jacob Bllyens. lie
always obeyed his parents, no mat
ter how absurd and unreasonable
their demands were; and he always
learned his book and never WIS late
at Sabbath school. He would not
play hockey, even when his sober
judgment told it was the most profit
able thing he could do. None Of
the other boys coald ever make that
boy out. He wouldn't lie, no mat
ter how convenient it was. He lust
said it was wrong to lie, and that
was sufficient for him. And he was
so honest that he was simply ridic
ulous. The curious ways that Ja-
cob had surpassed everything. He
wouldn't play marbles on Sunday,
he wouldn't rob birds nests, he
wouldn't give hot pennies to organ
grinders monkeys, he didn'tseem to
take any interest in any kind OF "a
tional amusement. So the other
boys used to try to reason it out
and come to an understanding OF
him, but they couldn't arrive at any
satisfactory conclusion; as l said
before, they could only figure out a
sort of vague idea that he was "afhict-
ed" and so they took him under
their protection and never allowed
any harm to come to him.


This good little boy read all the
Sunday School books; they were
his great delight. This was the
whole secret of it He believed in
the good little boys they put in the
Sunday School books; he had every
confidence in them; he longed to
come across one of them alive once,
but he never did; they all died be-
fore his time, maybe; whenever he
read about a particularly good one,
he turned over quickly to the end to
see what became of him, because he
wanted to travel thousands of miles
and gaze on him; but it wasn't any
use, that good little boy always died
in the last chapter, and there was q
picture of all his relations and the
Sunday School children standing
around the grave in pantaloons that
we're too short, and bonnets that
were too large, and everybody cry-
ing into handkerchiefs that had as
much as a yard and a half of stuff
in them; he was always headed of
in this way; he never could see one
of those good little boys, on account
of his always dying in the last chap
ter.


Jacob had a noble ambition to be
put in a Sunday school book. He
wanted to be put in with pictures
representing him gloriously declin-
ing to lie to his mother, and she
weeping for Joy about it; and pic
lures representing him standing on
the doorstep giving a penny to a
poor beggar woman with six chill
dren, and telling her to spend it
freely, but not to be extravagant,
because extravaganza is a sin, and
pictures Of him mangnanimously
refusing to tell on the bad boy who
always lay in wait for him around
the corner, as he came from school
and welted him over the head with
lath, and then chased him bone
saying "Hil hin as ne proceeded.
That was the ambition Of Young
Jacob Blivens. He wished 10 be put
in Sunday school book. It made
him feel a little uncomfortable some
times when he reflected that the
good little boys always died. He
loved to live, you know, and chs
was the most unpleasant feature
about being a Sunday school-book
boy. He knew it was not healthy
to be good, He knew it was more
fatal than consumption to be sup
ernaturally good as the boys in the
books were; be knew that none of
them had ever been able to stand it
long, and itpained him to think that
if they put him in book he wouldn't
ever see it, or even if they did get
the book out before he died, it
wouldn't be popular without any
picture Of his funeral in the back
part of it. It couldn't be much of
Sunday school book that couldn't
tell about the advice he gave to the
community when he was DYING. So.
at last, Of course, lie had to make
up his mind to do the best he could
under the circumstanees-to live
right, and hang on as long as he
could, and have his dying speech
all ready when his time came.


But somehow nothing ever went
right with this good little boy; moth
ing ever turned out with him the
way it tnrned out with the good lit
tie boys in the books. They always
had a good time, and the bad BOYS
had the br oxen legs; but in his case
there was a screw loose somewhere.
and it al happened just the other
way. When he found Jim Blake
stealing apples, and went under the
tree to read to him about the bad
little boy who fell out offs neighbours
apple tree and broke his arm, Jim
fell out of the tree too, but he fell on
him, and broke his arm, and Jim
wasn't hurt at all. Jacob couldn't
understand that There wasn't any
thing in the books ike it.


And once, when some bad boys
pushed blind man over in the mud,
and Jacob ran to help him up and
receive his blessing, the blind man
did not give him any blessing at all.
but whacked him over the head
with a stick, and said he would like
to catch him showing him again and
then pretending to help him up.
This was not in accordance with any
of the books. Jacob looked them
all over to see.


One thing that Jacob waited 70
do was to find lame dog enat hadn't
any place to stay and was hungry
and perseeuted, and bring him home
and net him and have that doors