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The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy, a novel by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 13 |
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_ CHAPTER XIII THE BAD BOY A THOROUGHBRED--THE BAD BOY WITH A BLACK EYE--A POOR FRIENDLESS GIRL EXCITES HIS PITY--PROVES HIMSELF A GALLANT KNIGHT--THE OLD MAN IS CHARMED AT HIS SON'S COURAGE-- THE GROCERY MAN MORALIZES--FIFTEEN CHRISTS IN MILWAUKEE-- THE TABLES TURNED--THE OLD MAN WEARS THE BOY'S OLD CLOTHES. "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 pealed on on one side, and sat down on a board across the the coal scuttle, and began whistling as unconcerned as possible. "What's the matter with your eye?" "Boy tried to gouge it out without my consent," and the bad boy took a dried herring out of the box and began peeling it. "He is 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 to 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 these 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 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 got it the way I did, it would be a more 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 filled quarter out, and held your thumb over the place where the lead was. The way of the black eye was this. I got a job tending a soda water 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 cheese box, and I guess that's what's the matter. Anyway, she left school, and then it was said she was going to get married to a fellow who is now in the dude business, but he went back on her and after awhile 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 I 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 I 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 know her so well, and she had been so kind to me at school just 'cause the dude wouldn't marry her, but I 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 O, how her hand trembled when she raised the glass to her lips, and how wet her eyes were, and how pale her face was. I choked up so I couldn't 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 is was a nickel or a lozenger she 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 stray, and he made fun of her until she cried some more, and I got hot 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, and any boy who had a spark of manhood should protect her, and then he laughed and said I 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 showcase, and said something mean to her, and she looked as though she wanted to die, and I mashed that boy one right on the 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 up till he asked the girl's pardon, and swore he would whip any boy that insulted her, and then I let him up, and the girl thanked me; but I told her I couldn't speak to her 'cause she was tuff, and Pa didn't wan't 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 came in his eyes, and he said I had got good blood in me, and I did just right; and if I would show him the father of the boy that I whipped, Pa said said he could 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 eye was getting along. "Say, young fellow, you are a thoroughbred," said the grocery man, as he sprinkled some water on the asparagus and lettuce, "and you can come in here and get all the herring you want, and never mind the black eye. I wish I had it myself. Yes, it does seem tough to see people never allow a girl to reform. Now, in Bible times, the Savior forgave Mary or somebody, I forget now what her name was, and she was a better girl than ever. What we need is more of the spirit of Christ, and the world would be better." "What we want is about ten thousand Christs. We ought to have ten or fifteen right here in Milwaukee, and they would find plenty of business, too. But this climate seems to be too rough. Say, did I tell you about Pa and Ma having trouble?" "No, what's the row?" "Well, you see Ma wants to economize all she can, and Pa has been getting thinner since he quit drinking and reformed, and I have kept on growing until I am bigger than he is. Funny, ain't it, that a boy should be bigger than his Pa? Pa wanted a new suit of clothes, and Ma said she would fix him, and so she took one of my old suits and made it over for Pa; and he wore them a week before he knew it was on old suit made over, but one day he found a handful of dried up angle worms in the pistol pocket that I had forgot when I was fishing, and Pa laid the angle worms to Ma, and Ma had to explain that she made over one of my old suits for Pa. He was mad and took them off and threw them out the back window, and swore he would never humiliate himself by wearing his son's old clothes. Ma tried to reason with him, but he was awfully worked up, and said he was no old charity hospital, and he stormed around to find his old suit of clothes, but Ma had sold them to a plaster of Paris image peddlar, and Pa hadn't anything to wear, and he wanted Ma to go out in the alley and pick up the suit he threw out the window; but a rag man had picked them up and was going away, and Pa, he grabbed a linen duster and put it on and went out after the rag picker, and he run, and Pa after him; and the rag man told a policeman there was an escaped lunatic from the asylum, and he was chasing people all over the city, and the policeman took Pa by the linen ulster, and pulled it off, and he was a sight when they took him to the police station. Ma and me had to go down and bail him out, and the police lent us a tarpaulin to put over Pa, and we got him home, and he is wearing his summer pants while the tailor makes him a new suit of clothes. I think Pa is too excitable, and too particular. I never kicked on wearing Pa's old clothes, and I think he ought to wear mine now. Well, I must go down to the sweetened wind factory, and jerk soda," and the boy went out and hung up a sign in front of the store: SPINAGE FOB GREENS, THAT THE CAT HAS MADE A NEST IN OVER SUNDAY. _ |
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