Chapter XX

HIS GIRL GOES BACK ON HIM--THE GROCERY MAN IS AFRAID--BUT
THE BAD BOY IS A WRECK!--“MY GIRL, HAS SHOOK ME!”--THE BAD
BOY'S HEART IS BROKEN--STILL HE ENJOYS A BIT OF FUN--COD-
LIVER OIL ON THE PANCAKES--THE HIRED GIRLS MADE VICTIMS--THE
BAD BOY VOWS VENGEANCE ON HIS GIRL AND THE TELEGRAPH
MESSENGER.

“Now you git right away from here,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with a hungry look on his face, and a wild light in his eye. “I am afraid of you. I wouldn't be surprised to see you go off half cocked and blow us all up. I think you are a devil. You may have a billy goat, or a shot gun or a bottle of poison concealed about you. Condemn you, the police ought to muzzle you. You will kill somebody yet. Here take a handful of prunes and go off somewhere and enjoy yourself, and keep away from here,” and the grocery man went on sorting potatoes, and watching the haggard face of the boy. “What ails you anyway?” he added, as the boy refused the prunes, and seemed to be sick to the stomach.

“O, I am a wreck,” said the boy, as he grated his teeth, and looked wicked. “You see before you a shadow. I have drank of the sweets of life, and now only the dregs remain. I look back at the happiness of the past two weeks, during which I have been permitted to gaze into the fond blue eyes of my loved one, and carry her rubbers to school for her to wear home when it rained, to hear the sweet words that fell from her lips as she lovingly told me I was a terror, and as I think it is all over, and that I shall never again place my arm around her waist, I feel as if the world had been kicked off its base and was whirling through space, liable to be knocked into a cocked hat, and I don't care a darn. My girl has shook me.”

“Sho! You don't say so,” says the grocery man as he threw a rotten potato into a basket of good ones that were going to the orphan asylum. “Well, she showed sense. You would have blown her up, or broken her neck, or something. But don't feel bad. You will soon find another girl that will discount her, and you will forget this one.”

“Never!” said the the boy, as he nibbled at a piece of codfish that he had picked off. “I shall never allow my affections to become entwined about another piece of calico. It unmans me, sir. Henceforth I am a hater of the whole girl race. From this out I shall harbor revenge in my heart, and no girl can cross my path and live. I want to grow up to become a he school ma'am, or a he milliner, or something, where I can. grind girls into the dust under the heel of a terrible despotism, and make them sue for mercy. To think that girl, on whom I have lavished my heart's best love and over thirty cents, in the past two weeks, could let the smell of a goat on my clothes come between us, and break off, an acquaintance that seemed to be the forerunner of a happy future, and say “ta-ta” to me, and go off to dancing school with a telegraph messenger boy who wears a sleeping car porter uniform, is too much, and my heart is broken. I will lay for that messenger some night, when he is delivering a message in our ward, and I will make him think lightning has struck the wire and run in on his bench. O, you don't know anything about the woe there is in this world. You never loved many people, did you?”

The grocery man admitted he never loved very hard, but he knew a little something about it from-an aunt of his, who got mashed on a Chicago drummer. “But your father must be having a rest while your whole mind is occupied with your love affair,” said he.

“Yes,” says the boy, with a vacant look, “I take no interest in the pleasure of the chase any more, though I did have a little quiet fun this morning at the breakfast table. You see Pa is the contrariest man ever was. If I complain that anything at the table don't taste good, Pa says it is all right. This morning I took the syrup pitcher and emptied out the white syrup and put in some cod liver oil that Ma is taking for her cough. I put some on my pancakes and pretended to taste of it, and I told Pa the syrup was sour and not fit to eat. Pa was mad in a second, and he poured out some on his pancakes, and said I was getting too confounded particular. He said the syrup was good enough for him, and he sopped his pancakes in it and fired some down his neck. He is a gaul durned hypocrite, that's what he is. I could see by his face that the cod liver oil was nearly killing him, but he said that syrup was all right, and if I didn't eat mine he would break my back, and by gosh, I had to eat it, and Pa said he guessed he hadn't got much appetite, and he would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut.

“I like to dide, and that is one thing, I think, that makes this disappointment in love harder to bear. But I felt sorry for Ma. Ma ain't got a very strong stummick, and when she got some of that cod liver oil in her mouth she went right up stairs, sicker'n a horse, and Pa had to help her, and she had noo-ralgia all the morning. I eat pickles to take the taste out of my mouth, and then I laid for the hired girls. They eat too much syrup, anyway, and when they got on to that cod liver oil, and swallowed a lot of it, one of them, a nirish girl, she got up from the table and put her hand on her corset, and said, “howly Jaysus,” and went out in the kitchen, as pale as Ma is when she has powder on her face, and the other girl who is Dutch, she swallowed a pancake and said, “Mine Gott, vas de matter from me,” and she went out and leaned on the coal bin, then they talked Irish and Dutch, and got clubs, and started to look for me, and I thought I would come over here.

“The whole family is sick, but it is not from love, like my illness, and they will get over it, while I shall fill an early grave, but not till I have made that girl and the telegraph messenger wish they were dead. Pa and I are going to Chicago next week, and I'll bet we'll have some fun. Pa says I need a change of air, and I think he is going to try and lose me. It's a cold day when I get left anywhere that I can't find my way back, Well, good bye, old rotten potatoes.”

CHAPTEE XXI.

HE AND HIS PA IN CHICAGO--NOTHING LIKE TRAVELING TO GIVE
TONE--LAUGHING IN THE WRONG PLACE--A DIABOLICAL PLOT--HIS PA
ARRESTED AS A KIDNAPPER--THE NUMBERS ON THE DOORS CHANGED--
THE WRONG ROOM--“NOTHIN THE MAZZER WITH ME, PET!”--THE TELL-
TALE HAT.

“What is this I hear about your Pa's being arrested in Chicago,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with a can for kerosene and a jug for vinegar.

“Well, it was true, but the police let him go after they hit him a few licks and took him to the station,” said the boy, as he got the vinegar into the kerosene can, and the kerosene in the jug. “You see, Pa and me went down there to stay over night, and have fun. Ma said she druther we would be away then not when they were cleaning house, and Pa thought it would do me good to travel, and sort of get tone, and he thought maybe I'd be better, and not play jokes, but I guess it is born in me. Do you know I actually think of mean things to do when I am in the most solemn places. They took me to a funeral once; and I got to thinking what a stampede there would be if the corpse would come to life and sit up in the coffin, and I snickered right out, and Pa took me out doors and kicked my pants. I don't think he orter kicked me for it, cause I didn't think of it a purpose. Such things have occurred, and I have read about them, and a poor boy ought to be allowed to think, hadn't he?”

“Yes, but what about his being arrested. Never mind the funeral,” said the grocery man, as he took his knife and picked some of the lead out of the weights on the scales.

“We went down on the cars, and Pa had a headache, because he had been out all night electioneering for the prohibition ticket, and he was cross, and scolded me, and once he pulled my ear cause I asked him if he knew the girl he was winking at in a seat across the aisle. I didn't enjoy myself much, and some men were talking about kidnapping children, and it gave me an ijee, and just before I got to Chicago I went after a drink of water at the other end of the car, and I saw a man who looked as though he wouldn't stand any fooling, and I whispered to him and told him that the bald-headed man I was sitting with was taking me away from my home in Milwaukee, and I mistrusted he was going to make a thief or a pickpocket of me. I said 's-h-h-h,' and told him not to say anything or the man would maul me. Then I went back to the seat and asked Pa to buy me a gold watch, and he looked mad and cuffed me on the ear. The man that I whispered too got talking with some other men, and when we got off the cars at Chicago a policeman came up to Pa and took him by the neck and said, 'Mr. Kidnapper, I guess we will run you in.' Pa was mad and tried to jerk away, and the cop choked him, and another cop came along and helped, and the passengers crowded around and wanted to lynch Pa, and Pa wanted to know what they meant, and they asked him where he stole the kid, and he said I was his kid, and asked me if I wasn't, and I looked scarred, as though I was afraid to say no, and I said 'Y-e-s S-e-r, I guess so.' Then the police said the poor boy was scart, and they would take us both to the station, and they made Pa walk spry, and when he held back they jerked him along. He was offul mad and said he would make somebody smart for this, and I hoped it wouldn't be me. At the station they charged Pa with kidnapping a boy from Milwaukee, and he said it was a lie, and I was his boy, and I said of course I was, and the boss asked who told the cops Pa was a kidnapper, and they said 'damfino,' and then the boss told Pa he could go, but not to let it occur again, and Pa and me went away. I looked so sorry for Pa that he never tumbled to me, that I was to blame. We walked around town all day, and went to the stores, and at night Pa was offul tired, and he put me to bed in the tavern and he went out to walk around and get rested. I was not tired, and I walked all around the hotel. I thought Pa had gone to a theatre, and that made me mad, and I thought I would play a joke on him. Our room was 210 and the next was 212, and there was a old maid with a scotch terrier occupied 212. I saw her twice and she called me names, cause she thought I wanted to steal her dog. That made me mad at her, and so I took my jack knife and drew the tacks out of the tin thing that the numbers were painted on, and put the old maid's number on our door and our number on her door, and then I went to bed. I tried to keep awake, so as to help Pa if he had any difficulty, but I guess I got asleep, but woke up when the dog barked. If the dog had not woke me up, the woman's scream would, and if that hadn't, Pa would. You see, Pa came home from the theatre about 'leven, and he had been drinking. He says everybody drinks when they go to Chicago, even the minister. Pa looked at the numbers on the doors all along the hall till he found 210, and walked right in and pulled off his coat and threw it on the lounge where the dog was. The old maid was asleep, but the dog barked, and Pa said, 'That cussed boy has bought a dog.' and he kicked the dog, and then the old maid said, 'what is the matter pet?'”

“Pa laffed and said, 'Nothin the mazzer with _me_, pet,' and then you ought to have heard the yelling. The old maid covered her head and kicked and yelled, and the dog snarled and bit Pa on the pants, and Pa had his vest off and his suspenders unbuttoned, and he got scared and took his coat and vest and went out in the hall, and I opened our door and told Pa he was in the wrong room, and he said he guessed he knowed it, and he came in our room and I locked the door, and then the bell boy, and the porter, and the clerk came up to see what ailed the old maid, and she said a burglar got in the room, and they found Pa's hat on the lounge, and they took it and told her to be quiet and they would find the burglar. Pa was so scared that he sweat like everything, and the bed was offul warm, and he pretended to go to sleep, but he was wondering how he could get his hat back. In the morning I told him it would be hard work to explain it to Ma how he happened to get into the wrong room, and he said it wasn't necessary to say anything about it to Ma. Then he gave me five dollars to go out and buy him a new hat, and he said I might keep the change if I would not mention it when I got home, and I got him one for ten shillings, and we took the eight o'clock train in the morning and came home, and I spose the Chicago detectives are trying to fit Pa's hat onto a burglar. Pa seemed offully relieved when we got across the state line into Wisconsin. But you'd a dide to see him come out of that old lady's room with his coat and vest on his arm, and his suspenders hanging down, looking scart. He dassent lick me any more or I'll tell Ma where Pa left his hat.”