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The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy, a novel by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 14 |
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_ CHAPTER XIV ENTERTAINING Y. M. C. A. DELEGATES--THE BAD BOY MINISTERS AT THE Y. M. C. A. WATER FOUNTAIN--THE DELEGATES FLOOD THEMSELVES WITH SODA--TWO DELEGATES DEALT TO HIS MA--THE NIGHT KEY--THE PALL OF THE FLOWER-STAND--DELEGATES IN THE CELLAR ALL NIGHT--THE BAD BOY'S GIRL IS WORKING HIS REFORMATION. "Well, how's your eye?" said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he blew in with the wind on the day of the cyclone, and left the door open. "Say, shut that door. You want to blow everything out of the store? Had any more fights, protecting girls from dudes?" "No, everything is quiet so far. I guess since I have got a record as a fighter, the boys will be careful who they insult when I am around. But I have had the hardest week I ever experienced, jerking soda for the Young Men's Christian Association," said the boy, as he peeled a banana. "What you mean, boy? Don't cast any reflections on such a noble Association. They don't drink, do they?'' "Drink! O, no! They don't drink anything intoxicating, but when it comes to soda they flood themselves. You know there has been a National Convention of delegates from all the Young Men's Christian Associations of the whole country, about three hundred, here, and our store is right on the street where they passed four times a day, and I never saw such appetites for soda. There has been, one continual fizz in our store since Wednesday. The boss wanted me to play it on some of them by putting some brandy in with the perfumery a few times, but I wouldn't do it. I guess a few weeks ago, before I had led a different life, I wouldn't had to be asked twice to play the game on anybody. But a man can buy soda of me and be perfectly safe. Of course, if a man winks, when I ask him what flavor he wants, and says 'never mind,' I know enough to put in brandy. That is different. But I wouldn't smuggle it into a man for nothing. This Christian Association Convention has caused a coldness between Pa and Ma though. "How's that? Your Pa isn't jealous, is he?" and the grocery man came around from behind the counter to get the latest gossip to retail to the hired girls who traded with him. "Jealous nothin'," said the boy> as he took a few raisins out of a box. "You see, the delegates were shuffled out to all the church members to take care of, and they dealt two to Ma, and she never told Pa anything about it. They came to supper the first night, and Pa didn't get home, so when they went to the Convention in the evening Ma gave them a night key, and Pa came home from the boxing match about eleven o'clock, and Ma was asleep. Just as Pa got most of his clothes off he heard somebody fumbling at the front door, and he thought it was burglars. Pa has got nerve enough, when he is on the inside of the house and the burglars are on the outside. He opened a window and looked out and saw two suspicious looking characters trying to pick the lock with a skeleton key, and he picked up a new slop-jar that Ma had bought when we moved, cover and all, and dropped it down right between the two del-gates. Gosh, if it had hit one of them there would have been the solemnest funeral you ever saw. Just as it struck they got the door opened and came in the hall, and the wind was blowing pretty hard and they thought a cyclone had taken the cupola off the house. They were talking about being miraculously saved, and trying to strike a match on their wet pants, when Pa went to the head of the stairs and pushed over a wire stand filled with potted plants, which struck pretty near the delegates, and one of them said the house was coming down sure, and they better go into the cellar, and they went down and got behind the furnace. Pa called me up and wanted me to go down cellar and tell the burglars we were onto them, and for them to get out, but I wasn't very well, so Pa locked his door and went to bed. I guess it must have been half an hour before Pa's cold feet woke Ma up, and then Pa told her not to move for her life, cause there were two of the savagest looking burglars that ever was, rumaging over the house. Ma smelled Pa's breath to see if he had got to drinking again, and then she got up and hid her oraide watch in her shoes, and her Onalaska diamond ear-rings in the Bible, where she said no burglar would ever find them, and Pa and Ma laid awake till daylight, and then Pa said he wasn't afraid, and he and Ma went down cellar. Pa stood on the bottom stair and looked around, and one of the delegates said, 'Mister, is the storm over, and is your family safe?' and Ma recognized the voice and said, 'Why, its one of the delegates. What are you doing down there?' and Pa said 'What's a delegate?' and then Ma explained it, and Pa apologized, and the delegate said it was no matter, as they had enjoyed themselves real well in the cellar. Ma was mortified most to death, but the delegate told her it was all right. She was mad at Pa, first, but when she saw the broken slop bowl on the front steps, and the potted plants in the hall, she wanted to kill Pa, and I guess she would only for the society of the delegates. She couldn't help telling Pa he was a bald headed old fool but Pa didn't retaliate--he is too much of a gentleman to talk back in company. All he said was that a woman who is old enough to have delegates sawed off on to her ought to have sense enough to tell her husband, and then they all drifted off into conversation about the convention and the boxing match, and everything was all right on the surface; but after breakfast, when the delegates went to the convention, I noticed Pa went right down town and bought a new slop-jar and some more plants. Pa and Ma didn't speak all the forenoon, and I guess they wouldn't up to this time only Ma's bonnet came home from the milliner's and she had to have some money to pay for it. Then she called Pa 'pet,' and that settled it. When Ma calls Pa 'pet,' that is twenty-five dollars. 'Dear, old darling,' means fifty dollars. But, say, those christian young men do a heap of good, don't they. Their presence seems to make people better. Some boys down by the store were going to tie a can on a dog's tail, yesterday, and somebody said 'here comes the Christian Association,' and those bad boys let the dog go. They tried to find the dog after the crowd had got by, but the dog knew his business. Well, I must go down and charge the soda fountain for a picnic that is expected from the country." "Hold on a minute," said the grocery man as he wound a piece of brown paper around a cob and stuck it in a syrup jug he had just filled for a customer, and then licked his fingers. "I want to ask you a question. What has caused you to change so from being bad. You were about as bad as they make 'em, up to a few weeks ago, and now you seem to have a soul, and get in your work doing good about as well as any boy in town. What is it that ails you?" "O, sugar, I don't want to tell," said the boy, as he blushed and wiggled around on one foot, and looked silly; "but if you won't laugh, I will tell you. It is my girl that has made me good. It may be only temporary. If she goes back on me I may be tuff again; but if she continues to hold out faithful I shall be a daisy all the time. Say, did you ever love a girl? It would do you good, if you loved anybody regular old fashioned the way I do, people could send little children here to trade, and you wouldn't palm off any wilted vegetables on to them, or give them short weight--if you was in love, and felt that the one you loved saw every act of yours, and you could see her eyes every minute, you would throw away anything that was spoiled, and not try to sell it, for fear you would offend her. I don't think any man is fit to do business honestly unless he is in love, or has been in love once. Now I couldn't do anything wrong if I tried, because I should hear the still small voice of my girl saying to me 'Hennery, let up on that.' I slipped up on a banana peel, yesterday, and hurt myself, and I was just going to say something offul, and I could see my girl's bangs raise right up, and there was a pained look in her face, and a tear in her eye, and, by gosh, I just smiled and looked tickled till her hair went down and the smile came back again to her lips, though it hurt me like blazes where I struck the sidewalk. Iwas telling Pa about it, and asked him if he ever felt as though his soul was going right out towards somebody, and he said he did once on a steamboat excursion; but he eat a lemon and got over it. Pa thinks it is my liver, and wants me to take pills, but I tell you, boss, it has struck in me too deep for pills, unless it is one that weighs about a hundred and forty pounds, and wears a hat with a feather on. Say, if my girl should walk right into a burning lake of red-hot lava, and beckon me to follow, I would take a hop, skip and jump, and--" "O give us a rest," said the grocery man, a he took a basin of water and sprinkled the floor preparatory to sweeping out. "You have got the worst case I ever saw, and you better go out and walk around a block," and the boy went out, and forgot to hang out any sign. _ |
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