The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 16, 1900, Page 14

14 THE SUNDAY CALL. AN \\ — |Copyright, 1800, by Press Publish- ing Company, New York World. Reproduction, in part or whole, will be prosecuted.] HE old groceryman sat in the Tit- tle corner grocery with an anxious look on his face and a fresh shirt on his back, with a high white collar ghat had saw teeth on the edge that cut e e g RN AN into his neck when he turned: his head. He had put on his best black suit, the one that he always wore to the funerals of his customers, and he was afraid some one would come in to buy molasses: or something that might muss himup. He had been for several days thinking of the returned. prodigal,” “Peck’s Bad Boy,” and wondered if he would come » E BAD BOYs: CHRIS . - W, FHORNOIKE— into the store again to see him. He had heard of the young man being around town spending money like a millionaire, and it was rumored among the neigh- bors that the boy had made. a fortune, and the old grocer had been wondering whether the young fellow had made his money honestly or by train-robbing. As he remembered the boy, years age he thought the chances were that he ha turned out to be at least a gold b: swindler, but he had just heard that the check to the Christian - Association gymnasium, and he thought the boy had given a large Young Men's boy must be pious, and then he got news that the youngster had been buying pools on horses and had his doubts about him. A woman of middle age came into the grocery and was making a small pur- chase when the “Bad Boy Grown Up” opened the door, saluted the groceryman with a slap on the back of his Sunday coat, a “Helln, old pardner.”” and he went to the back of the store by the stove and sat down on an upturned-half- bushel and began to look around at the frowsy old stock of goeds. The woman, poorly dressed. took her oatmeal and went out, and the old gro- cer went back and looked at the young fellow with a-sigh, and his hands trem- bled visibly. “There is a fan of that woman he looked far a r look on the face d the Bad Boy as to bs to recall some inci e grass widow whe orner?” and seemed “Wasn't used to live around tt “Yes, she is the s wouldn'r he woman, and I have had her recognize for all your old man’as he poked with the have you in this store money,” said tk fire never witnessed a real murder, and I don't want ‘one pulled off in this store “Say, that woman car for years aiter you w is the time she as pected my dear little may have pawned the revolver, as she d a revolver . and many ked me when I riend back has_pawned nearly everything else she had. “Her husband back from Ari- zona with one side paralyzed from a wound he got from a steer horn in a cattle stampede, and she has supported him for five years, scrubbing at the City Hall. What was it you fellows did to her that Christrhas evef eh?” And the old man parted the tails of his funeral coat and stood with his back to the stove looking hard at the bov. “Why, yes, that was Christmas eve.” said the young man, trying to recall the incident. “Oh, I remember now. Gosh, but that was a picnic. Say, I have laid awake nights, sleeping and waking al- ternatcly under the stars, and when I would think of that woman on that night I have laughed so the wolves would be scared. “You see it was about the time those indiarubber bath cabinets were invent- ed, and she had one of them. They said she used to take a home-made Turkish bath four times a day. Well, when us boys rounded up at her house to take her fence down, and a few things, we didn’t know she was taking her bath, but she was in one of those rubber things, sitting in a chair, with an alco- hol lamp under the chair. Well, didn’t do a single thing excent to throw birdshot at all the windows. fire giant firecrackers inside the storm doors, tip over a box filled with broken glass, turn the gas off at the meter and vell fire. “That is allowable on Christmas evc, according to law. we “We were out in the front vard trying to be good when the front door opened and a spook came out on a gallop with that indiarubber tub wrapped around her and fastened at the neck. and she yelled for us to save her. Well, say, you ought to have seen us save her. “My dog"grabbed the rubber bathtub and tore a piece out and we tried {5 get her not to climb that tree. but we couldn’t stop her, and she went up to the first limb and then she asked for the fire-engine to come and put her out. A neighbor came with a: blanket and put it ‘around her and took her down. and told us we had better go away. and we didn’t stay where we were not wanted, and the man got her into the house. “How she ever got down those stairs in the dark with that bathtub reaching from her neck to below her knees I never knew, but I remember she called at our house a few days aiter and asked pa where his dear little boy was, as she wished to meet him. Pa. said she had a butcher knife in her belt, and he “said it was up to me to skip, and I * skipped. “And so she is poor and has to sup- port a crippled husband? “Well, here’s a hundred doflar bill, and I want you to put up a package of groceries that will last her all. winter, and when you send it to her. if she asks anything about who sent it. just say that an old friend who knew her when she kept a Turkish bath of her own, just passing through, wanted to give her a testimonial of esteem. See?” “Well, I swan,” said the old man, as he scrutinized the bill to sec if it was TMAS OKF | genuine. “You have got a soul con cealed about your person somewhere, swear you have. Let me turn in the fire alarm and call all the neighbors in to renew tlgir acquaintance with you. They would be awfully glad to see you.” “Not much. Not with that coil of rope hanging up there.” said the Ba-l Boy, as he laughed at the consternation of the old man. “But, say, I had a na-- rower escape than this one to-day. You remember the soprano and tenor tha: used to sing up at the church where | used'to pump the organ?” “Yes, I remember them,” said the old man, as he put the hundred dollar bill in a long pocket-book and pressed it in the inside pocket of his vest. “They got married about two years ago.” “And they haven't got over it yet,” said the Bad Boy. “This town is get- ting too hot for me. I met those sing- ers.to-day on the bridge and I raised my hat to them, but they didn’t know me. If they had they would have thrown me into the river. They used to kick at the way I pumped the organ. and onc Sunday I got even. I got a piece of shoemaker's wax and put it in the chair the tenor sat in and gave the so- prano a peppermint lozenge with a dose of cayenne pepper in it, and then I wem behind the organ and began to pump for all that was out after the minister had read.the hymn. She took the lozenge just before she got up to sing, and I can remember her first words right this minute. So. with tears in her eyes, she sang, ‘A charge to keep I have, whoosh,” and she tried to cool her pronounced the benediction. didn't they look around out of the corners of their eyes for papa’s little boy, and didn't they discover him looking at his Sun- day-school lesson as innocent cherub. And when meeting was as a out parched tongue, but she needed a piece of ice “Then, as she kept singing, hotter and hotter, I looked at the tenor, and he was standing up, the chair fastened to his trousers with the shoemakers’ wax, and he holding the chair with one hand, and all the choir laughing and trying to look as though they were not tickled, and th2 congregation wondering what it was all about.. Oh, but didn't the eves of that soprano snap and ‘sparkie and ook damp, and didn’t her face get red and purple as she warbled that cayenne pep- per solo, and didn't that tenor look pale and wonder if his suspenders could hold out faithful to the end of the hymn. And when it was over and they bowed their heads while the minister and they tried to catch up with the little boy they couldnt catch him, not much “Do you know,” added the Bad Boy, “I have been thinking of having you sell out tRis grocery and go travel with me as chaperon.” “What you want me for—selling gold bricks or holding up trains?” And then they closed the door had a heart-to-heart talk about leaving the old town and seeing the world. and PUTTING IT DELICATELY. “George,” sald Mrs. Ferguson, as they went In to dinner, “I wish you would tell Benny, In some way so it will not affend him, that he takes too much sugar in his coffee. It isn't good for him, and I know his mother wouldn't allow it." “Benny,” sald Mr. Ferguson, a few min- utes later, turning to the young nephew who was v quite enou Chicago Tribupe, it o S PELA, BUDGE. ‘you don't mix b your sugar.™ Having p among the r das addres: »f men Leoni= ed his hagdful ks of Thermopylae, 4 them of fingers, ing it well “Huzza! pleased with Detroit Journal ———————— A BHIFTING LOCATION “Midgely is a p him how tall his ne veland Plain Dealer i s s b ondomia e PUBLIC SPIRIT. “Mr. Biggleson Is quite a philanthropist, he?’ He always draws up the sub- scription p: other people are asked to sign."—Chicago Times-Herald WELL, SAY, YOU OUGHT +4 HAVE SEEAC