The Peck's Bad Boy Megapack

by George W. Peck

  “Well, never you mind the cooking butter. I know my business. If people want to use poor butter 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. O, you think I am bad don’t you, but of the nine men at our house last night I am an angel compared with what they were when they were boys. I got into the bath room to untangle my fish line, and it is next to Pa’s room, and I could hear everything they said, but I went away ’cause I thought the conversation would hurt my morals. They would all steal, when they were boys, but darned if I ever stole. Pa has stolen over a hundred wagon loads of water-melons, one deacon used to rob orchards, another one shot tame ducks belonging to a farmer, and another tipped over grindstones in front of the village store, at night, and broke them, and run, another used to steal eggs, and go out in the woods and boil them, and the minister was the worst of the lot, ’cause he took a seine, with some other boys, and went to a stream where a neighbor was raising brook trout, and cleaned the stream out, and to ward off suspicion, he went to the man the next day and paid him a dollar to let him fish in the stream, and then kicked because there were no trout, and the owner found the trout were stolen and laid it to some Dutch boys. I wondered, when those men were telling their experience, if they ever thought of it now when they were preaching and praying, and taking up collections. I should think they wouldn’t say a boy was going to hell right off ’cause he was a little wild now days, when he has such an example. Well, lately, somebody has been burgling our chicken coop, and Pa loaded an old musket with rock salt, and said he would fill the fellow full of salt if he caught him, and while they were talking up stairs Ma heard a rooster squawk, and she went to the stairway and told Pa there was somebody in the hen house. Pa jumped up and told the visitors to follow him, and they would see a man running down the alley full of salt, and he rushed out with the gun, and the crowd followed him. Pa is shorter than the rest, and he passed under the first wire clothes line in the yard all right, and was going for the hen house on a jump, when his neck caught the second wire clothesline just as the minister and two of the deacons caught their necks under the other wire. You know how a wire, hitting a man on the throat, will set him back, head over appetite. Well, sir, I was looking out of the back window, and I wouldn’t be positive, but I think they all turned double back summersaults, and struck on their ears. Anyway, Pa did, and the gun must have been cocked, or it struck the hammer on a stone, for it went off, and it was pointed towards the house, and three of the visitors got salted. The minister was hit the worse, one piece of salt taking him in the hind leg, and the other in the back, and he yelled as though it was dynamite.”

  “I suppose when you shoot a man with salt, it smarts, like when you get corned beef brine on your chaped hands. They all yelled, and Pa seemed to have been knocked silly, some way, for he pranced around and seemed to think he he had killed them. He swore at the wire clothes line, and then I missed Pa and heard a splash like when you throw a cat in the river, and then I thought of the cistern, and I went down and we took Pa by the collar and pulled him out. O, he was awful damp. No sir, it was no duel at all, but a naxident, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. The gun wasn’t loaded to kill, and the salt only went through the skin, but those men did yell. May be it was my chum that stirred up the chickens, but I don’t know. He has not commenced to lead a different life yet, and he might think it would make our folks sick if nothing occurred to make them pay at-tion. I think where a family has been having a good deal of exercise, the way ours has, it hurts them to break off too suddenly. But the visitors went home, real quick, after we got Pa out of the cistern, and the minister told Ma he always felt when he was in our house, as though he was on the verge of a yawning crater, ready to be engulfed any minute, and he guessed he wouldn’t come any more. Pa changed his clothes and told Ma to have them wire clothes lines changed for rope ones. I think it is hard to suit Pa, don’t you?

  “O, your Pa is all right. What he needs is rest. But why are you not working at the livery stable? You haven’t been discharged, have you?” And the grocery man laid a little lump of concentrated lye, that looked like maple sugar, on a cake of sugar that had been broken, knowing the boy would nibble it.

  “No, sir, I was not discharged, but when a livery man lends me a kicking horse to take my girl out riding, that settles it. I asked the boss if I couldn’t have a quiet horse that would drive himself if I wound the lines around the whip, and he let me have one he said would go all day without driving. You know how it is, when a fellow takes a girl out riding he don’t want his mind occupied holding lines. Well, I got my girl in, and we went out on the Whitefish Bay, road, and it was just before dark, and we rode along under the trees, and I wound the lines around the whip, and put one arm around my girl, and patted her under the chin with my other hand, and her mouth looked so good, and and her blue eyes looked up at me and twinkled as much as to dare me to kiss her, and I was all of a tremble, and then my hand wandered around by her ear and I drew her head up to me and gave her a smack. Say, that was no kind of a horse to give to a young fellow to take a girl out riding. Just as I smacked her I felt as though the buggy had been struck with a pile driver, and when I looked at the horse he was running away and kicking the buggy, and the lines were dragging on the ground. I was scared, I tell you. I wanted to jump out but my girl threw her arms around my neck and screamed, and said we would die together, and just as we were going to die the buggy struck a fence and the horse broke loose and went off, leaving us in the buggy, tumbled down by the dash board, but we were not hurt. The old horse stopped and went to chewing grass, and looked up at me as though he wanted to say ‘philopene.’ I tried to catch him, but he wouldn’t catch, and then we waited till dark and walked home, and I told the livery man what I thought of such treatment, and he said if I had attended to my driving, and not kissed the girl, I would have been all right. He said I ought to have told him I wanted a horse that wouldn’t shy at kissing, but how did I know I was going to get up courage to kiss her. A livery man ought to take it for granted that when a young fellow goes out with a girl he is going to kiss her, and give him a horse according. But I quit him at once. I won’t work for a man that hasn’t got sense. Gosh! What kind of maple sugar is that? Jerusalem, whew, give me some water. O, my, it is taking the skin off my mouth.”

  The grocery man got him some water and seemed sorry that the boy had taken the lump of concentrated lye by mistake, and when the boy went out the grocery man pounded his hands on his knees and laughed, and presently he went out in front of the store and found a sign

  FRESH LETIS,

  BEEN PICKED MORE’N A WEEK,

  TUEFER’N TRIPE.

  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 d
own 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,
r />   THAT THE CAT HAS MADE

  A NEST IN OVER SUNDAY.

  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.