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The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy, a novel by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 16 |
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_ CHAPTER XVI UNCLE EZRA PAYS A VISIT--UNCLE EZRA CAUSES THE BAD BOY TO BACKSLIDE--UNCLE EZRA AND THE OLD MAN WERE BAD PILLS--THEIR RECORD IS AWFUL--KEEPING UNCLE EZRA ON THE RAGGED EDGE--THE BED SLATS FIXED--THE OLD MAN TANGLED UP--THIS WORLD IS NOT RUN RIGHT--UNCLE EZRA MAKES HIM TIRED. "I hear your Uncle Ezra is here on a visit," said the grocery man to the bad boy. "I suppose you have been having a high old time. There is nothing that does a boy more good than to have a nice visit with a good uncle, and hear him tell about old times when he and the boy's father were boys together." "Well, I don't know about it," said the boy, as he took a stick of maccaroni, and began to blow paper wads through it at a wood sawyer, who was filing a saw outside the door. "When a boy who has been tough has got his pins all set to reform, I don't think it does him any good to have a real nice Uncle come to the house visiting. Anyway, that's my experience. I have backslid the worst way, and it is going to take me a month after Uncle Ezra goes away to climb up to the grace that I have fallen from. It is darn discouraging," said the boy as he looked up to the ceiling in an innocent sort of a way, and hid the macarroni under his coat when the wood sawyer, who had been hit in the neck, dropped his saw and got up mad. "What's the trouble? Your uncle has the reputation where he lives, of being one of the pillars of society. But you can't tell about these fellows when they get away from home. Does he drink?" "'No, he don't drink; but as near as I can figure it, he and Pa were about the worst pills in the box, when they were young. I don't wan't you to repeat it, but when Pa and Ma were married they eloped. Yes, sir--actually ran away, and defied their parents--and they had to hide about a week, for fear Ma's father would fill Pa so full of cold lead that he would sink if he fell in the water. Pa has been kicked over the fence, and chased down alleys dozens of times by Ma's grandfather, when he was sparking Ma; and Ma was a terror too, 'cause her mother couldn't do anything with her, though she is awful precise now, and wants everybody to be too good. Why, Ma's mother used to warm her ears, and shake the daylights out of her, but it didn't do any good. She was mashed on Pa, and there was no cure for her except to have Pa prescribed for her as a husband, and they ran away. Uncle Ezra told me all about it. Ma hain't got any patience with girls now days that have minds of their own about fellows, and she thinks their parents ought to have all the say. Well, maybe she thinks she knows all about it. But when people get in love it is the same now as when Pa and Ma were trying to keep out of the reach of my grandfather's shot gun. But Pa and Uncle Ezra and Ma are good friends, and they talk over old times and have a big laugh. I guess Uncle Ezra was too much for Pa in joking when they were boys, 'cause Pa told me that all rules against joking were suspended while Uncle Ezra was here, and for me to play any thing on him I could. I told Pa I was trying to lead a different life, but he said what I wanted to do was to make Uncle Ezra think of old times, and the only way was to keep him on the ragged edge. I thought if there was anything I could do to make it pleasant for my Uncle, it was my duty to do it, so I fixed the bed slats on the spare bed so they would fall down at 2 A. M. the first night, and then I retired. At two o'clock I heard the awfulest noise in the spare room, and a howling and screaming, and I went down to meet Uncle Ezra in the hall, and he asked me what was the matter in there, and I asked him if he didn't sleep in the spare room, and he said no, that Pa and Ma was in there, and he slept in their room. Then we went in the spare room and you'd a dide to see Pa." [Illustration: Pa was all tied up 146] "Ma had jumped out when the slats first fell, and was putting her hair up in curl papers when we got in, but Pa was all tangled up in the springs and things. His head had gone down first, and the mattrass and quilts rolled over him, and he was almost smothered, and we had to take the bedsted down to get him out, the way you have to unharness a horse when he runs away and falls down, before you can get him up. Pa was mad, but Uncle Ezra laughed at him, and told him he was only foundered, and all he wanted was a bran mash and some horse liniment and he would come out all right. Uncle Ezra went out in to the hall to get a pail of water to throw on Pa, 'cause he said Pa was afire, when Pa asks me why in blazes I didn't fix the other bed slats, and I told him I didn't know as they were going to change beds, and then Pa said don't let it occur again. Pa lays everything to me. He is the most changeable man I ever saw. He told me to do everything Uncle Ezra wanted me to do, and then, when I helped Uncle Ezra to play a joke on Pa, he was mad. Say, I don't think this world is run right, do you? I haven't got much time to talk to you to-day, cause Uncle Ezra and me are going fishing but don't it strike you that it is queer that parents trounce boys for doing just what they did themselves. Now, I have got a friend whose father is a lawyer. That lawyer would warm his boy if he should tell a lie, or associate with anybody that was bad, and yet the lawyer will defend a man he knows is guilty of stealing, and get him clear and take the money he got from the thief, who stole it, to buy the same boy a new coat to wear to church, and he will defend a man who committed murder, and make an argument to the jury that will bring tears to their eyes, and they will clear the murderer. Queer, ain't it? And say, how is it that we send missionaries to Burmah, to convert them from heathenism, and the same vessel that takes the missionaries there carries from Boston a cargo of tin gods to sell to the heathen? Why wouldn't it be better to send the missionaries to Boston? I think the more a boy learns the more he gets mixed." "Well, how's your theater? Have any of the great actors supported you lately?" said the grocery man, to change the subject. "No, we are all off on vacations. Booth and Barrett, and lots of the stars, are gone to Europe, and the rest work down to less high-toned places. Some of the theater girls are waiters at summer resorts, and lots are visiting relatives on farms. I tell you, it makes a difference whether the relatives are visiting you or you are visiting them. Actors and actresses feels awfully when an old granger comes to the town where they are playing, and wants to see them. They are ashamed of his homespun clothes, and cowhide boots, and they want to meet him in an alley somewhere, or in the basement of the theater, so the other actors will not laugh at their rough relatives, but when the season is over, an actor who can remember a relative out on a farm, is tickled to death, and the granger is all right enough there, and the actor does not think of the rough, nutmeg grater hands, and the blistered nose, as long as the granger relative will put up fried pork and things, and 'support' the actor. My Uncle Ezra is pretty rough and it makes me tired sometimes when I am down town with him to have him go into a store where there are girl clerks and ask what things are for, that I know he don't want, and make the girls blush, but he is a good hearted old man, and he and me are going to make a mint of money during vacation. He lives near a summer resort hotel, and has a stream that is full of minnows, and we are going to catch minnows and sell them to the dudes for fish bait. He says some of the fools will pay ten cents apiece for minnows, so if we sell a million minnows, we make a fortune. I am coming back in September and will buy out your grocery. Say, let me have a pound of raisins, and I'll pay you when I sell my uncle's minnows." _ |
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