PECK'S BOY AND HIS PA.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1402, 19 May 1884, Page 3

PECK'S BOY AND HIS PA.

HE TAI KS WITH THE GROCERYMAN ABOUT LOVE AND OTHER RELIGION.

' Take care there, you will run right •over the stove,* said the gro'ceryman to the bad boy, as he came along the floor, his eyes fixed as though he was looking into the future about two years, and his mind so occupied that he did not seem to see the stove. ■* What you thinking about? Lately you have got so yon think too much, and by an by you will be one" of :hose -vacancies that dont't know beans. People are getting so they think too ranch, .and especially boys. Nothing liurts a boy so much as to getinthehabit of thinking. What did you have on your mind when you came in ?'

'Oh, I was thinlsng of that feller -down in the Third ward that killed his girl and then killed himself, all on account of their religion being a different brand, so they couldn't marry each other. Gosh, it don't seem as though religion ought to bar a fellow out of the heaven of his girl's love, does it?' said the boy.

1 Well said the groceryman, as he wiped some syrup off his hands on a coffee sack 'You can't, drive two "kinds of religion to the pole, in a family, with any kind of success. You may-drive t\v) kinds of religion single or tandem, but when you hitch 'em up together and they try to travel along at a good road gait, one will go off its feet and gallop While the other trots, and the galloping religion will catch and come down to a trot and the other will break up, and there they are, seesawing, and the air full of creeds, and doctrines, and there is danger they will run away and smash something. No, it is better for the people who ai'e going to marry to have their measures taken for the same kind of religion, and then each can wear the other's religion, and all will be lovely.

' I don't know,' says the had l>oy. taking an apple 'about this thing of waiting till you find out about a girl's religion before yon love her. Sometimes you can't do it. If a girl has not got any sign out warning a fellow what kind of religion she lias got concealed about her person bow is he going to know until it is everlastingly too late. When a young fellow f Jills in love with a girl, it is like falling down on skates. Everthing seems to give way at once. It strikes him like v sand bag, and there he is, asphyxiated the first thing. He knows that she is perfect, and be takes her right into his heart and -wraps .his heart around her. and puts rubber weather strips on all the cracks 80 she can't get out, and her religion p^ullb Ler one svj,y, " and liis

heart pulls her 'tother way, something's got to bust, sometimes it's the religion that bursts, and sometimes it's the heart. I think there ought to be a convention composed of delegates from all kinds of religion, and let them make a law that any religion shall be legal tender anywhere, like a gold dollar. Eeligion ought to be pure gold, good anywhere. If a man comes here to buy soap, and gives you a gold dollar coined in Itonne, or Jersualem, or Califoria, or China, or Kussia, or the Feejee Islands, he gets his soap. But if your son's in love with a Hebrew girl, her religion says your son's religion is counterfeit, and she goes to her grave with your son's love in her heart, and he goes to the devil with her image in hi 3 heart, and both are ruined for life 'cause they couldn't match their religions. A Baptist girl falls in love with a young fellow that is a perfect specimen of manhood, brave, noble, .intelligent, tender to her and as kind as a man can be, and they begin to plan for the day when he can take her to a home and Vie all the world and a small section of heaven to her, when some day a fiiond says to her, ' your lover is out* of the noblest men I ever saw, but it is a pity he is a Catholic ' Then the trouble commences. He believes his religion is the grandest in the world, and she believes her's is no slouch, each tries to induce the other afl opt another religion, but it is a failure and they drift apart in all except the buried love that can never be quenched on earth, or in heaven. I tell you it is pretty rough' to have so many different kinds of religion that can't be made to jibe, don't you think so r !

1 Yes, it is rough,' said the groceryman, .' but a little difference like that hadn't ought to make a fellow kill the girl he loved.' ' Course not.' said the boy. « This feller surely didn't love the girl, else he wouldn't shoot Say, s'pose you loved a girl, regular old spontaneous kind ! Could you pull out a revolver and send two bullets into her pretty cheek, and cord her up against the fence dead ? No, you couldn't. Nor anybody else. He didn't love that girl. He thought he did, but it was something else. You see, if he had loved her, not having any particular religion hisself, he would have let her take him by the hand and lead him to the church like a child, and he would have got down on his knees and prayed with her, and then married her. But he was wrong in the head, and when he found out that she loved her church he got jealous of her religion, that was all, and as long as he couldn't kill her religion, he killed her. By Jinks, if it was some fellows, they would join any church that ever was for the girl they loved. Pa says he knew a man that got in love with a Jewess, and her folks tried to stand him off, but he joined their church and opened a pawn shop, and got a Rabbi to marry them on the sly, and when her folks came blowing around he put up his hand and shook it arid said, ' Hast dogshen. Vot yon going to do about it ?' Ma says she. and pa had a good deal of trouble about their religion before they were married. She was a Baptist and pa was a democrat, but pa kicked when they nominated Greeley, and goes to her church now. Well, I must go down to the morgue and see the lovers that couldn't agree about going to heaven,' and the boy skipped.