Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa: 1883Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa: 1883
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor; Boys -- Fiction; Practical jokes -- Fiction
“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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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