THAT BAD BOY DOES A GOOD ACTION.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1286, 20 August 1883, Page 2

THAT BAD BOY DOES A GOOD ACTION.

" Ah, ha, you have got your deserts at last," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with one eye black, and his nose peeled on one side, and sat down on a board across the coal scut le, and began whistling as unconcernd as possible.. " What's the matter with your eye ? " " " Boy tried to gouge it out without asking my consent." and the bad hoy took a driod herring cut of the box

and began peeling it. "Heis in bed now, and his ma is poulticing him, and she says he will be out about the last of next week." '•O, you are going to be a prize fighter, ain't you," said the grocery ! man, disgusted. "When a boy leaves a job where he is working, and goes to loafing around, he becomes a fighter the first thing. What your pa ought i.o do is bind you out with a farmer, where you would have to work all the time. I wish you would go away from here, because you look like one of those fellows that comes up before the police judge Monday morning and gets thirty days in the house of correction. Why don't you go out and loaf around a slaughter-house, where you would look appropriate?" and the grocery man took a hair-brush and brushed some loose sugar and tea that was on the counter into the sugar barrel. "Well, if you have got through with your sermon, I will toot a little on my horn," and the boy threw the remains of the herring over behind a barrel of potatoes, and wiped his hands on a coffee sack. "If you had this black eye, and had got it the way 1 did, it would be a moi'e priceless gem in the crown of glory you hope to wear than any gem you can get by putting quarters in the collection plate, with the holes filled with lead, as you did last Sunday, when I was watching you. O, didn't you look pious when you picked that tilled quarter out, and held your thumb over the place where the lead j was. The way of the black eye was this : I got a job tending a soda fountain, and last night, just before we closed, there was two or three young loafers in the place, and a girl came in for a glass of soda. Five years ago she was one of the brightest scholars in the ward school when I was in the intermediate department. She was just as handsome as a peach, and everybody liked her. At recess she used to take my part when the boys knocked me around, and she lived near us. She had a heart as big as that cheesebox, and I guess that's what's the matter. Auyway, she left school, and then it was said she was going to be married to a fellow who is now in the dude business ; but he went back on her, and after a while her ma turned her out doors, and for a year or two she was jerking beer in a concert saloon, until the Mayor stopped concerts. She tried hard to get sewing to do, but they wouldn't have her, I guess 'cause she cried so much when she was sewing, and the tears wet the, cloth she was sewing on. Once F asked pa why ma didn't give her some sewing to do, and he said for me to dry up and never speak to her if 1 met her on the street. It seemed tuff } to pass her on the street, when she had tears in her eyes as big as marbles and not speak to her when I knew her so well, and .she had been so kind to me at school, just 'cause a dude wouldn't marry her, but 1 wanted to obey pa, so I used to walk around a block when I see her coming, 'cause I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Well, last night she came in the store, looking pretty shabby, and wanted a glass of soda, and I gave it to her ; and oh ! how her hand trembled when she raised the glass to her lips, and how wet her eyes were, and how pale her face was. 1 choked up so I couldut' speak when she handed me the nickel, and when she looked up at me and smiled, just like she used to, and said I was getting to be almost a man since we went to school at the old school-house, and put her handkerchief to her eyes, by gosh, my eyes got so full I couldn't tell whether it was a nickel or a lozenger siie gave me. Just then one of those loafers began to laugh at her, and call her names, and say the police ought to take her up for a stray, and he made fu.n of her until she cried some more, and Igothot and went around to where he was and told him if he said another unkind word to that girl I would maul him. He laughed and asked if she was my sister, and I told him that a poor friendless girl, who was sick and in distress, and who was insulted, ought to be every boy's sister for a minute, any boy who had a spark of manhood should protect her, and then he laughed and said 1 ought to be one of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and he took hold of her faded shawl and pulled the weak girl against the show-case, and said something mean to her, and she looked as though she wanted to die, and I mashed that boy one right on his nose. Well, the air seemed to be full of me for a minute, cause he was bigger, than me, and he got me down and got his thumb in my eye. I guess he was going to take my eye out, but I turned him over and got on top and I mauled him until he begged, but I wouldn't let him him up till he asked the girl's pardon, and swore he would whip any boy that insulted her, and I then let him up, and the girl thanked me ; but 1 told her I couldn't speak to her, 'cause she was tuff, and pa didn't want me to speak to anybody who was tuff, but if anybody ever insulted her so she had to cry, that I would whip him if I had to take a club. I told pa about it, and I thought he would be mad at me for taking the part of a girl that was tuff, but by gosh, pa hugged me, and the tears come in his eyes, and he said I had good blood in me, and I did just right ; and if I would show him the father of ths boy that I whipped, pa said he would whip the old man, and ma said for me to find the poor girl and send her up to the house, and she would give her a job making pillow-cases and night-shirts. Don't it seem darn queer to you that everybody goes back on a poor girl 'cause she makes a mistake, and the blasted whelp that is to blame gets a chromo. It makes me tired to think of it ;" and the boy got up and shook himself, and looked in the cracked mirror hanging upon a post to see how his eyo was getting along.

" Say, young fellow, you are v thoroughbred," sa id the grocery in:, v as he sprinkled some water on the asparagus and lettuce ; « and you m■ • come in here and get all the lierriii',you want, and never mind the bind eye, I wish I had it myself. Yes, I. does seem tough to see people ne' :'. allow a girl to reform. Now, in Biblo times, 'the Saviour forgave Mary, or somebody— l forget now whab'hc^ name was — and she was a better girl than ever. What we need is more oC the spirit of Christ, and the work! would be better." — « Peek's Sun.'