[Ill.u.s.tration: After the earthquake was over 084]

"Well, I swan," said the grocery man, as he put some eggs in a funnel shaped brown paper for a servant girl. "What did the minister say when he come to?"

"Say! What could he say? He just yelled 'whoa,' and kept sawing with his hands, as though he was driving. I heard that the policeman was going to pull him for fast driving, till he found it was an accident. They told me, when they carried me home in a hack, that it was a wonder everybody was not killed, and when I got home Pa was going to sa.s.s me, until the hea.r.s.e driver told him it was the minister that was to blame. I want to find out if they got the minister's umbrella back. The last I see of it the umbrella was running up his trouser's leg, and the point come out by the small of his back. But I am all right, only my shoulder sprained, and my legs bruised, and my eye black. I will be all right, and shall go to work to-morrow, 'cause the livery man says I was the only one in the crowd that had any sense. I understand the minister is going to take a vacation on account of his liver and nervous prostration. I would if I was him. I never saw a man that had nervous prostration any more than he did when they fished him out of the barbed wire fence, after we struck the street car. But that settles the minister business with me. I don't drive for no more preachers. What I want is a quiet party that wants to go on a walk," and the boy got up and hopped on one foot towards his crutcher, filling his pistol pocket with fig he hobbled along.

"Well, sir," said the grocery man, as he took a chew of tobacco out of a pail, and offered some to the boy, knowing that was the only thing in the store the boy would not take, "Do you know I think some of these ministers have about as little sense on worldly matters, as anybody?

Now, the idea of that man jerking on an old pacer. It don't make any difference if the pacer was hundred years old, he _would_ pace if he was jerked on."

"You bet," said the boy, as he put his crutches under his arms, and started for the door. "A minister may be sound on the Atonement, but he don't want to saw on an old pacer. He may have the subject of infant baptism down finer than a cambric needle, but if he has ever been to college, he ought to have learned enough not to say '_ye up_' to an old pacer that has been the boss of the road in his time. A minister may be endowed with sublime power to draw sinners to repentance, and make them feel like getting up and dusting for the beautiful beyond, and cause them, by his eloquence, to see angles bright and fair in their dreams, and chariots of fire flying through the pearly gates and down the golden streets of New Jerusalem, but he wants to turn out for a street car all the same, when he is driving a 2:20 pacer. The next time I drive a minister to a funeral, he will walk," and the boy hobbled out and hung out a sign in front of the grocery:

SMOKED DOG FISH AT HALIBUT PRICES,

GOOD ENOUGH

FOR COMPANY.

CHAPTER X.

THE OLD MAN MAKES A SPEECH--THE GROCERYMAN AND THE BAD BOY HAVE A FUSS--THE BOHEMIAN BAND--THE BAD BOY ORGANIZES A SERENADE--"BABY MINE"--THE OLD MAN ELOQUENT--THE BOHEMIANS CREATE A FAMINE--THE Y. M. C. A. ANNOUNCEMENT.

"There, you drop that," said the groceryman to the bad boy, as he came limping into the store, and began to fumble around a box of strawberries. "I have never kicked at your eating my codfish, and crackers and cheese, and herring, and apples, but there has got to be a dividing line somewhere, and I make it at strawberries at six shillings a box, and only two layers in a box. I only bought one box, hoping some plumber, or gas man would come along and buy it, and by gum, everybody that has been in the store has sampled a strawberry out of that box.

shivered as though it was sour, and gone off without asking the price,"

and the grocery man looked mad, took a hatchet and knocked in the head of a barrel of apples, and said, "There, help yourself to dried apples."

"O, I don't want your strawberries or dried apples," said the boy, as he leaned against a show case and looked at a bar of red, transparent soap.

"I was only trying to fool you. Say, that bar of soap is old enough to vote. I remember seeing it in your show case when I was about a year old, and Pa came in here with me and held me up to the show case to look at that tin tobacco box, and that round zinc looking-gla.s.s, and the yellow wooden pocket comb, and the soap looks just the same, only a little faded. If you would wash yourself once in a while your soap wouldn't dry up on your hands," and the boy sat down on the chair without any back, feeling that he was even with the grocery man.

"You never mind the soap. It is paid for, and that is more than your father can say about the soap that has been used in his house the past month," said the grocery man, as he split up a box to kindle the fire.

"But we won't quarrel. What was it I heard about a band serenading your father, and his inviting them in to lunch?"

"Don't let that get out or Pa will kill me dead. It was a joke. One of those Bohemian bands that goes about town playing tunes for pennies, was over on the next street, and I told Pa I guessed some of his friends who had heard we had a baby at the house, had hired a band and was coming in a few minutes to serenade him, and he better prepare to make a speech.

Pa is proud of being a father at his age, and he thought it no more than right for the neighbors to serenade him, and he went to loading himself for a speech, in the library, and me and my chum went out and told the leader of the band there was a family up there that wanted to have some music, and they didn't care for expense, so they quit blowing where they was and came right along. None of them could understand English except the leader, and he only understood enough to go and take a drink when he is invited. My chum steered the band up to our house and got them to play 'Babies on our Block,' and 'Baby Mine,' and I stopped all the men who were going home and told them to wait a minute and they would see some fun, so when the band got through the second tune, and the Prussians were emptying the beer out of the horns, and Pa stepped out on the porch, there was more nor a hundred people in front of the house.

You'd a dide to see Pa when he put his hand in the breast of his coat, and struck an att.i.tude. He looked like a congressman, or a tramp. The band was scared, cause they thought he was mad, and some of them were going to run, thinking he was going to throw pieces of brick house at them, but my chum and the leader kept them. Then Pa sailed in. He commenced, 'Fellow Citizens,' and then went way back to Adam and Eve, and worked up to the present day, giving a history of the notable people who had acquired children, and kept the crowd interested. I felt sorry for Pa, cause I knew how he would feel when he came to find out how he had been sold. The Bohemians in the band that couldn't understand English, they looked at each other, and wondered what it was all about, and finally Pa wound up by stating that it was every citizen's duty to own children of his own, and then he invited the band and the crowd in to take some refreshments. Well, you ought to have seen that band come in the house. They fell over each other getting in, and the crowd went home, leaving Pa and my chum and me and the band. Eat? Well, I should smile. They just reached f'or things, and talked Bohemian. Drink? O, no. I guess they didn't pour it down. Pa opened a dozen bottles of champagne, and they fairly bathed in it, as though they had a fire inside. Pa tried to talk with them about the baby, but they couldn't understand, and finally they got full and started out, and the leader asked Pa for three dollars, and that broke him. Pa told the leader he supposed the gentlemen who had got up the serenade had paid for the music, and the leader pointed to me and said I was the gentleman that got it up. Pa paid him, but he had a wicked look in his eye, and me and my chum lit out, and the Bohemians came down the street bilin' full, with their horns on their arms, and they were talking Bohemian for all that was out. They stopped in front of a vacant house, and began to play; but you couldn't tell what tune it was, they were so full, and a policeman came along and drove them home. I guess I will sleep at the livery stable to-night, cause Pa is so offul unreasonable when anything costs him three dollars, besides the champagne."

"Well, you have made a pretty mess of it," said the grocery man. "It's a wonder your Pa does not kill you. But what is it I hear about the trouble at the church? They lay that foolishness to you."

"It's all a lie. They lay everything to me. It was some of them ducks that sing in the choir. I was just as much surprised as anybody when it occurred. You see our minister is laid up from the effect of the ride to the funeral, when he tried to run over a street car; and an old deacon who had symptoms of being a minister in his youth, was invited to take the minister's place, and talk a little. He is an absent minded old party, who don't keep up with the events of the day, and whoever played it on him knew that he was too pious to even read the daily papers.

There was a notice of a choir meeting to be read, and I think the tenor smuggled in the other notice between that and the one about the weekly prayer meeting. Anyway, it wasn't me, but it like to broke up the meeting After the deacon read the choir notice he took up the other one and read, 'I am requested to announce that the Y. M. C. a.s.sociation will give a friendly entertainment with soft gloves, on Tuesday evening, to which all are invited. Brother John Sullivan, the eminent Boston revivalist will lead the exercises, a.s.sisted by Brother Slade, the Maori missionary from Australia. There will be no slugging, but a collection will be taken up at the door to defray expenses.' Well, I though the people in church would sink through the floor. There was not a person in the church except the poor old deacon, but who understood that some wicked wretch had deceived him, and I know by the way the tenor tickled the soprano that he did it. I may be mean, but everything I do is innocent, and I wouldn't be as mean as a choir singer for two dollars. I felt real sorry for the old deacon, but he never knew what he had done, and I think it would be real mean to tell him. He won't be at the slugging match. That remark about taking up a collection settled the deacon. I must go down to the stable now, and help grease a hack, so you will have to excuse me. If Pa comes here looking for me, tell him you heard I was going to drive a picnic party out to Waukesha, and may not be back in a week. By that time Pa will have got over that Bohemian serenade," and the boy filled his pistol pocket with dried apples, and went out and hung a sign in front of the grocery:

STRAWBERRIES, TWO SHILLINGS A SMELL;

AND ONE SMELL IS ENOUGH.

CHAPTER XI.

GARDENING UNDER DIFFICULTIES--THE GROCERY MAN IS DECEIVED-- THE BAD BOY DON'T LIKE MOVING--GOES INTO THE COLORING BUSINESS--THE OLD MAN THOROUGHLY DISGUISED--UNCLE TOM AND TOPSY--THE OLD MAN ARRESTED--WHAT THE GROCERY MAN THINKS-- THE BAD BOY MORALIZES ON HIS FATE--RESOLVES TO BE GOOD.

"See here, you c.o.o.n, you get out of here," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in the store with his face black and shining, "I don't want any colored boys around here. White boys break me up bad enough."

"O, philopene," said the bad boy, as he put his hands on his knees and laughed so the candy jars rattled on the shelves. "You didn't know me. I am the same boy that comes in here and talks your arm off," and the boy opened the cheese box and cut off a piece of cheese so natural that the grocery man had no difficulty in recognizing him.

"What in the name of the seven sleeping sisters have you got on your hands and face," said the grocery man, as he took the boy by the ear and turned him around, "You would pa.s.s in a colored prayer meeting, and no one would think you were galvanized. What you got up in such an outlandish rig for?"

"Well, I'll tell you, if you will keep watch at the door. If you see a bald-headed colored man coming along the street with a club, you whistle, and I will fall down cellar. The bald-headed colored man will be Pa. You see, we moved yesterday. Pa told me to get a vacation from the livery stable, and we would have fun moving. But I don't want any more fun. I know when I have got enough fun. Pa carried all the light things, and when it came to lifting, he had a crick in the back. Gosh, I never was so tired as I was last night, and I hope we have got settled, only some of the goods haven't turned up yet. A drayman took one load over on the west side, and delivered them to a house that seemed to be expecting a load of household furniture. He thought it was all right, if everybody that was moving got a load of goods. Well, after we got moved Pa said we must make a garden, and we said we would go out and spade up the ground and sow peas, and radishes, and beets. There was some neighbors lived in the next house to our new one, that was all wimmen, and Pa don't like to have them think he had to work, so he said it would be a good joke to disguise ourselves as tramps, and the neighbors would think we had hired some tramps to dig in the garden. I told Pa of a boss scheme to fool them. I suggested that we take some of his shoe blacking that is put on with a sponge, and black our faces, and the neighbors would think we had hired an old colored man and his boy to work in the garden. Pa said it was immense, and he told me to go and black up, and if it worked he would black hisself. So I went and put this burnt cork on my face, 'cause it would wash off, and Pa looked at me and said it was wack, and for me to fix him up too. So I got the bottle of shoe blacking and painted Pa so he looked like a colored coal heaver.

Actually, when Ma saw him she ordered him off the premises, and when he laffed at her and acted sa.s.sy, she was going to throw biling water on Pa. But I told her the scheme and she let up on Pa. O, you'd a dide to see us out in the garden. Pa looked like uncle Tom, and I looked like Topsy, only I ain't that kind of a colored person."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Uncle Tom and Topsy 098]

"We worked till a boy throwed some tomato cans over the ally fence and hit me, and I piled over the fence after him and left Pa. It was my chum, and when I had caught him we put up a job to get Pa to chase us.

We throwed some more cans, and Pa come out and my chum started and I after him, and Pa after both of us. He chased us two blocks and then we got behind a policeman, and my chum told the policeman it was a crazy old colored man that wanted to kidnap us, and the policeman took Pa by the neck and was going to club him, but Pa said he would go home and behave. He was offul mad, and he went home and we looked through the alley fence and saw Pa trying to wash off the blacking. You see that blacking won't wash off. You have to wear it off. Pa would wash his face with soap suds, and then look in the gla.s.s, and he was blacker everytime he washed, and when Ma laffed at him he said the offulest words, something like 'sweet spirit hear my prayer,' then he washed himself again. I am going to leave my burnt cork on, cause if I washed it off Pa would know there had been some smouging somewhere. I asked the shoe store man how long it would take the blacking to wear off, and he said it ought to wear off in a week. I guess Pa won't go out doors much, unless it is in the night. I am going to get him to let me go off in the country fishing, till mine wears off, and when I get out of town I will wash up. Say, you don't think a little blacking hurts a man's complexion do you, and you don't think a man ought to get mad because it won't wash off, do you?"

"O, probably it don't hurt the complexion," said the grocery man, as he sprinkled some fresh water on the wilted lettuce, so it would look fresh while the hired girl was buying some, "and yet it is mighty unpleasant, where a man has got an engagement to go to a card party, as I know your Pa has to-night. As to getting mad about it, if I was your Pa I would take a barrel stave and shatter your castle scandalous. What kind of a fate do you think awaits you when you die, anyway?"

"Well, I am mixed on the fate that awaits me when I die. If I should go off sudden, with all my sins on my head, and this burnt cork on my face, I should probably be a neighbor to you, way down below, and they would give me a job as fireman, and I should feel bad for you every time I chucked in a nuther chunk of brimstone, and thought of you trying to swim dog fashion in the lake of fire, and straining your eyes to find an iceberg that you could crawl up on to cool your parched hind legs. If I don't die slow so I will have time to repent, and be saved, I shall be toasted brown. That's what the minister says, and they wouldn't pay him two thousand dollars a year and give him a vacation to tell anything that was not so. I tell you it is painful to think of that place that so many pretty fair average people here are going to when they die. Just think of it, a man that swears just once, if he don't hedge, and take it back will go to the bad place. If a person steals a pin, just a small, no account pin, he is as bad as if he stole all there was in a bank, and he stands the best chance of going to the bad place. You see, if a fellow steals a little thing like a pin, he forgets to repent, cause it don't seem to be worth while to make so much fuss about. But if a fellow robs a bank, or steals a whole lot of money from orphans, he knows it is a mighty serious matter, and he gets in his work repenting, too quick, and he is liable to get to the good place, while you, who have only stole a few potatoes out of a bushel that you sold to the orphan asylum, will forget to repent, and you will sizzle. I tell you, the more I read about being good, and going to Heaven, the more I think a feller can't be too careful, and from this out you won't find a better boy than I am.

When I come in here after this and take a few dried peaches or crackers and cheese, you charge it right up to Pa, and then I won't have it on my mind and have to answer for it at the great judgment day. I am going to shake my chum, cause he chews tobacco, which is wicked, though I don't see how that can be, when the minister smokes, but I want to be on the safe side. I am going to be good or bust a suspender, and hereafter you can point to me as a boy who has seen the folly of an ill-spent life, and if there is such a thing as a fifteen year old boy, who has been a terror, getting to heaven, I am the hairpin. I tell you, when I listen to the minister tell about the angels flying around there, and I see pictures of them purtier than any girl in this town, with chubby arms with dimples in the elbows and shoulders, and long golden hair, and think of myself here cleaning off horses in a livery stable and smelling like an old harness, it makes me tired, and I wouldn't miss going there for ten dollars. Say, you would make a healthy angel, for a back street of the new Jerusalem, but you would give the whole crowd away unless you washed up, and sent that shirt to the Chinese laundry. Yes, sir, hereafter you will find me as good as I know how to be. Now I am going to wash up and go and help the minister move."

As the boy went out the grocery man sat for several minutes thinking of the change that had come over the bad boy, and wondered what had brought it about, and then he went to the door to watch him as he wended his way across the street with his head down, as though in deep thought, and the grocery man said to himself, "that boy is not as bad as some people think he is," and then he looked around and saw a sign hanging up in front of the store, written on a piece of box cover, with blue pencil:--

SPOILED

CANNED HAM AND TONGUE,

GOOD ENOUGH

FOR CHURCH PICNICS.

and he looked after the boy who was slipping down an alley and said, "The condemn little whelp. Wait till I catch him."

CHAPTER XII.

THE OLD MAN SHOOTS THE MINISTER--THE BAD BOY TRIES TO LEAD A DIFFERENT LIFE--MURDER IN THE AIR--THE OLD MAN AND HIS FRIENDS GIVE THEMSELVES AWAY-DREADFUL STORIES OF THEIR WICKED YOUTH--THE CHICKEN COOP INVADED--THE OLD MAN TO THE RESCUE--THE MINISTER AND THE DEACONS SALTED.

"Say, I thought you was going to try to lead a different life," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth came in with his pockets full of angle worms, and wanted to borrow a baking powder can to put them into, while he went fishing, and he held a long angle worm up by the tail and let it wiggle so he frightened a girl that had come in after two cents worth of yeast, so she dropped her pitcher and went out of the grocery as though she was chased by an anaconda.

"I am going to lead a different life; but a boy can't change his whole course of life in a minute, can he? Grown persons have to go on probation for six months before they can lead a different life, and half the time they lose their cud before the six months expire, and have to commence again. When it is so alfired hard for a man that is endowed with sense to break off being bad, you shouldn't expect too much from a boy But I am doing as well as could be expected--I ain't half as bad as I was. Gosh, why don't you burn a rag? That yeast that the girl spilled on the floor smells like it was sick. I should think that bread that was raised with that yeast would smell like this cooking, b.u.t.ter you sell to hired girls.

"Well, never you mind the cooking b.u.t.ter. I know my business. If people want to use poor b.u.t.ter when they have company, and then blow up the grocer before folks, I can stand it if they can. But what is this I hear about your Pa fighting a duel with the minister in your back yard, and wounding him in the leg, and then trying to drown himself in the cistern? One of your new neighbors was in here this morning, and told me there was murder in the air at your house last night, and they were going to have the police pull your place as a disorderly house. I think you were at the bottom of the whole business!"

"O, its all a darn lie, and those neighbors will find they better keep still about us, or we will lie about them a little. You see, since Pa got that blacking on his face he don't go out any, and to make it pleasant for him Ma invited in a few friends to spend the evening. Ma has got up around, and the baby is a daisy, only it smells like a goat, on account of drinking the goat's milk. Ma invited the minister, among the rest, and after supper the men went up into Pa's library to talk.