The Peck's Bad Boy Megapack

by George W. Peck

  TO WHAT VILE USES MAY WE COME.

  A dispatch from Chicago, says that three men were shot on “a boat used for the vilest purposes.” We never knew that the newspapers were printed on boats there in Chicago.

  THE ADVENT PREACHER AND THE BALLOON.

  There occasionally occurs an accident in this world that will make a person laugh though the laughing may border on the sacrilegious. For instance, there is not a Christian but will smile at the ignorance of the Advent preacher up in Jackson county who, when he saw the balloon of King, the balloonist, going through the air, thought it was the second coming of Christ, and got down on his knees and shouted to King, who was throwing out a sand bag, while his companion was opening a bottle of export beer, “O, Jesus, do not pass me by.”

  And yet it is wrong to laugh at the poor man, who took an advertising agent for a Chicago clothing store for the Savior, who he supposed was making his second farewell tour. The minister had been preaching the second coming of Christ until he looked for him every minute. He would have been as apt to think, living as he did in the back woods, that a fellow riding a bicycle, with his hair and legs parted in the middle, along the country road, was the object of his search.

  We should pity the poor man for his ignorance, we who believe that when Christ does come he will come in the old-fashioned way, and not in a palace car, or straddle of the basket of a balloon. But we can’t help wondering what the Adventist must have thought, when he appealed to his Savior, as he supposed, and the balloonist shied a sand bag at him and the other fellow in the basket threw out a beer bottle and asked, “Where in hell are we?”

  The Adventist must have thought that the Savior of mankind was traveling in mighty queer company, or that he had taken the other fellow along as a frightful example. And what could the Adventist have thought when he saw a message thrown out of the balloon, and went with trembling limbs and beating heart to pick it up, believing that it was a command from on high to sinners, and found that it was nothing but a hand bill for a Chicago hand-me-down clothing store.

  He must have come to the conclusion that the Son of Man had got pretty low down to take a job of bill posting for a reversible ulster and paper collar bazar. It must have been food for reflection for the Advent preacher, as he picked up the empty beer bottle, shied at him from the chariot that he supposed carried to earth the Redeemer of man. He must have wondered if some Milwaukee brewer had not gone to heaven and opened a brewery.

  Of course we who are intelligent, and would know a balloon if we saw it, would not have had any such thoughts, but we must remember that this poor Advent preacher thought that the day had come that had been promised so long, and that Christ was going to make a landing in a strong Republican county. We may laugh at the Adventist’s disappointment that the balloon did not tie up to a stump and take him on board, but it was a serious matter to him.

  He had been waiting for the wagon, full of hope, and when it came, and he saw the helmet on King’s head and thought it was a crown of glory, his heart beat with joy, and he plead in piteous accents not to be passed by, and the confounded gas bag went on and landed in a cranberry marsh, and the poor, foolish, weak, short-sighted man had to get in his work mighty lively to dodge the sand bags, beer bottles, and rolls of clothing store posters.

  The Adventist would have been justified in renouncing his religion and joining the Democratic party. It is sad, indeed.

  MR. PECK’S SUNDAY LECTURE.

  The papers all around here are saying that I have a new Sunday Lecture, with a bad title. The way of it was this. A man in a neighboring city telegraphed me to know if I would deliver a “Sunday Lecture,” and telling me to choose my subject, and answer by telegraph. I thought it was some joke of the boys. The idea of me delivering a Sunday lecture was ridiculous, so, in a moment of thoughtlessness I telegraphed back, “What in the devil do you take me for?” I supposed that that would be enough to inform the man that I was not in the business. What do you suppose he did? He telegraphed back to me as follows: “All right. We have advertised you for Sunday. Subject, ‘What the devil do you take me for.’” You can judge something of my surprise and indignation.

  That is how it was.

  RELIGION AND FISH.

  Newspaper reports of the proceedings of the Sunday School Association encamped on Lake Monona, at Madison, give about as many particulars of big catches of fish as of sinners. The delegates divide their time catching sinners on spoon-hooks and bringing pickerel to repentance. Some of the good men hurry up their prayers, and while the “Amen” is leaving their lips they snatch a fish-pole in one hand and a baking-powder box full of angle worms in the other, and light out for the Beautiful Beyond, where the rock bass turn up sideways, and the wicked cease from troubling.

  Discussions on how to bring up children in the the way they should go are broken into by a deacon with his nose peeled coining up the bank with a string of perch in one hand, a broken fish-pole in the other, and a pair of dropsical pantaloons dripping dirty water into his shoes.

  It is said to be a beautiful sight to see a truly good man offering up supplications from under a wide-brimmed fishing hat, and as he talks of the worm that never, or hardly ever dies, red angle worms that have dug out of the piece of paper in which they were rolled up are crawling out of his vest pocket. The good brothers compare notes of good places to do missionary work, where sinners are so thick you can knock them down with a club, and then they get boats and row to some place on the lake where a local liar has told them the fish are just sitting around on their haunches waiting for some one to throw in a hook.

  This mixing religion with fishing for black bass and pickerel is a good thing for religion, and not a bad thing for the fish. Let these Christian statesmen get “mashed” on the sport of catching fish, and they will have more charity for the poor man who, after working hard twelve hours a day for six days, goes out on a lake Sunday and soaks a worm in the water and appeases the appetite of a few of God’s hungry pike, and gets dinner for himself in the bargain. While arguing that it is wrong to fish on Sunday, they will be brought right close to the fish, and can see better than before, that if a poor man is rowing a boat across a lake on Sunday, and his hook hangs over the stern, with a piece of liver on, and a fish that nature has made hungry tries to steal his line and pole and liver, it is a duty he owes to society to take that fish by the gills, put it in the boat and reason with it, and try to show it that in leaving its devotions on a Sunday and snapping at a poor man’s only hook, it was setting a bad example.

  These Sunday school people will have a nice time, and do a great amount of good, if the fish continue to bite, and they can go home with their hearts full of the grace of God, their stomachs full of fish, their teeth full of bones; and if they fall out of the boats, and their suspenders hold out, they may catch a basin full of eels in the basement of their pantaloons. But we trust they will not try to compete with the local sports in telling fish stories. That would break up a whole Sunday school system.

  THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

  When you see an article in the editorial columns of a paper headed, “The Political Outlook,” look at the bottom line, and if it says “sold by all druggists,” don’t read it. There is such an article going the rounds, which is an advertisement of a patent medicine. It is a counterfeit well calculated to deceive. Don’t read a political article unless the owner’s name is blown in the bottle.

  ROPE LADDERS.

  The law to compel hotel keepers to provide rope ladders for every room above the second floor, is said not to be enforced, though it should be by all means. The law ought to be amended so as to compel guests to get up once or twice during the night and run up or down the rope ladder, outside the window, in their night clothes, so as to be in practice in case of fire. When every room is provided with rope ladders there will be lots of fun. Those men who invariably blow out the gas, will probably think they have got to come down stairs on the rope ladder in the morning, and it will take
an extra clerk to stand in the alleys around a hotel, with a shot gun, to keep impecunious guests from going away from the tavern via rope ladder. And then imagine an Oshkosh man in a Milwaukee hotel, his head full of big schemes, and his skin full of beer. He has been on a “bum,” and is nervous, and on being shown to his room he sees the rope ladder coiled up under the window, ready to spring upon him. He stares at it, and the cold sweat stands all over him. The rope ladder returns his gaze, and seems to move and to crawl towards his feet. For a moment he is powerless to move. His hair stands on end, his heart ceases to beat, cold and warm chills follow each other down his trousers legs and he clutches at the air, his eyes start from their sockets, and just as the rope ladder is about to wind around him, and crush his life out, he regains strength enough to rush down stairs head over appetite, and tell the clerk about the menagerie up stairs. O, there is going to be fun with these rope ladders, sure.

  A DOCTOR OF LAWS.

  A doctor at Ashland is also a Justice of the Peace, and when he is called to visit a house he don’t know whether he is to physic or to marry. Several times he has been called out in the night, to the country, and he supposed some one must be awful sick, and he took a cart load of medicines, only to find somebody wanted marrying. He has been fooled so much that when he is called out now he carries a pill-bag and a copy of the statutes, and tells them to take their choice.

  He was called to one house and found a girl who seemed feverish. She was sitting up in a chair, dressed nicely, but he saw at once that the fatal flush was on her cheek, and her eyes looked peculiar. He felt of her pulse, and it was beating at the rate of two hundred a minute. He asked her to run out her tongue, and she run out eight or nine inches of the lower end of it. It was covered with a black coating, and he shook his head and looked sad. She had never been married any before, and supposed that it was necessary for a Justice who was going to marry a couple to know all about their physical condition, so she kept quiet and answered questions.

  She did not tell him that she had been eating huckleberry pie, so he laid the coating on her tongue to some disease that was undermining her constitution. He put his ear on her chest and listened to the beating of her heart, and shook his head again. He asked her if she had been exposed to any contagious disease. She didn’t know what a contagious disease was, but on the hypothesis that he had reference to sparking, she blushed and said she had, but only two evenings, because John had only just got back from the woods where he had been chopping, and she had to sit up with him.

  The doctor got out his pill bags and made some quinine powders, and gave her some medicine in two tumblers, to be taken alternately, and told her to soak her feet and go to bed, and put a hot mustard plaster on her chest, and some onions around her neck.

  She was mad, and flared right up, and said she wasn’t very well posted, and lived in the country, but if she knew her own heart she would not play such a trick as that on a new husband.

  The doctor got mad, and asked her if she thought he didn’t understand his business; and he was about to go and let her die, when the bridegroom came in and told him to go ahead with the marrying. The doc said that altered the case. He said next time he came he should know what to bring, and then she blushed, and told him he was an old fool anyway, but he pronounced them man and wife, and said the prescription would be five dollars, the same as though there had been somebody sick.

  But the doc had cheek. Just as he was leaving he asked the bridegroom if he didn’t want to ride up to Ashland with him, it was only eighteen miles, and the ride would be lonesome, but the bride said not if the court knew herself, and the bridegroom said now he was there he guessed he would stay. He said he didn’t care much about going to Ashland anyway.

  COMFORTING COMPENSATIONS.

  If a farmer’s wheat is killed by rain, he is consoled by the fact that rain is just what his corn needs. If his cattle die of disease, his consolation lies in the hope that pork will bring a good price. If boys steal his watermelons, he knows by experience that they will have the cholera morbus. So everything that is unpleasant has its compensation.

  LAY UP APPLES IN HEAVEN.

  They tell a good story at Portage City, at the expense of Senator Barden, or a minister, we don’t know which. Barden had a lot of apples sent him last fall, and he was anxious to sell them, before winter set in. One day he thought of a new minister that had settled in Portage, so he made up his mind to take him up a couple of barrels, supposing that when he went to heaven and saw the big ledger opened, there would be a credit about as follows:

  L.W. BARDEN,

  in acc’t with Providence,

  1876.

  Oct. 21. By two bbls. apples, @ $3: $6.00

  Oct. 21, drayage” .30

  Total: $6.30

  Barden loaded them on a dray, and got on it, with his pants in his boots, and went up to deliver them himself. He stopped at the minister’s gate, and hurried the apples off and rolled them inside the gate, and tried to get away before the minister had time to thank him. Just as he was about to drive away the door opened and the man of God came out, and says he:

  “Look here! You put them apples in the cellar!”

  Barden told him he was in something of a hurry, and really he could not spare the time. The minister raised his voice to a sort of “auction pitch,” and said:

  “Here, now. You don’t know your business, Mr. Drayman. You roll them apples into the cellar, or I won’t accept them.”

  The senator was by this time as mad as senators usually get. He jumped off the dray, threw the two barrels of apples on, and drove off, saying he didn’t care a continental dam if the minister eat dried apples all winter. And he took them back to his store, and it is safe to say that he will not give many more apples to that minister.

  MORAL:—Never despise a man because he wears a ragged coat, for he may be a senatorial granger angel in the disguise of a drayman. And you may have to fill up on turnips instead of apples.

  ONE OF BEECHER’S CONVERTS.

  Since Beecher, the great revivalist, was here, and spoke so eloquently on the fall of man, and the need of making arrangements for the future, I have become a changed man. It hurts me to lie now, and when anything hurts, then I quit. It is wrong to lie, and a man who follows it up will come to some bad end.

  BUYING A STONE CRUSHER.

  The proceedings of the council of the city of Milwaukee shows that the aldermen are about to buy a stone crusher, to be run by steam, for the purpose of crushing stones to be used on the streets. If the city has never indulged in the luxury of a stone crusher, it should interview some city that has owned one, before it closes a contract with any party that wants to sell one. Every party that owns one does want to sell it. Statistics show that. The first city in Wisconsin that bought one was Madison. The city owned it for a year or two, and after that no man that was in the council when it was bought could ever get in it again. The mayor that winked at the purchase of the stone crusher was defeated, and there was trouble. No person would ever say what was the matter, but you say “stone crusher” to a citizen of Madison, and he would reach his right hand around to his pistol pocket, and the conversation would cease.

  La Crosse heard that Madison had a stone crusher, and so she wanted one. La Crosse is bound to have anything that any other town has, whether it is a railroad, an insane asylum, or a speckled hen. La Crosse could have bought Madison’s stone crusher at a discount, but she wanted one new, with the paint all on, fresh. Second-hand stone crusher? Not any for La Crosse. So the city ordered a brand new one, right from the mint, at an expense of about $5,000.

  The idea was that it would be about as big as a straw cutter, or a job press, and people were anxious to see it work.

  Finally the city was notified that one train of cars loaded with the stone crusher had arrived, with red flags on, betokening extra trains running wild behind, and the city was told to come down to the depot and pay the first installment of freight, and take the stone crusher a
way—that part of it that had arrived. The aldermen went down and took an inventory of the hardware, and some of them went and jumped in the river. At a cent a pound one can buy a good deal of cast iron for five thousand dollars. The city bonded itself, and paid the freight, and during the spring all of the trains loaded with the stone crusher arrived. It was argued that the only way to get the stone crusher up to the city building would be to give the railroad the right of way up town, right through Main street.

  Some were in favor of letting the railroad company keep it for freight, but the company threatened to get out an injunction on the city. Finally a man who took contracts to move brick buildings agreed to move it up town on shares, and during the summer the most of it was got up there and corded up on some vacant lots. If all the cast iron in it came out of one mine it must have been an immense mine. People would look at it and weep. Every alderman swore he voted against buying it. Occasionally some one in the council would suggest that the stone crusher be taken out to the bluffs, a couple of miles, and set to work, when another one would move, to amend by inserting a clause that the bluffs be moved into the city to be crushed, as it would save expense. Then the matter would drop. For three years that stone crusher stood there, and it never crushed a pebble. New mayors and aldermen were elected, and every day they passed that crusher, but they never spoke to it. Finally a job was put up to get rid of it. There was a man there who owned a stone quarry, and it occurred to somebody to sell it to him. He was a truly good man, and did not believe there were any bad men in the world, who would kanoodle him with a stone crusher. A committee was appointed to sell it to him. The committee was composed of men who had traded horses, sold lightning rods, and been insurance agents, and when they told the poor man that the city had noticed that he was a deserving man, that they had decided to help him along, and would sell him that stone crusher, and he could pay for it in crushed stone, and the city would pay him in cash half a dollar more than the stone was worth, he said he would take it. They got it on to him by buying crushed stone of him and paying cash for it.