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
Ma came home from church first, and when I asked where Pa was,
she said she hoped he had gone to walk around a block to air hisself. Pa
came home to dinner, and when he got a smell of the house he opened all
the doors, and Ma put a comfortable around her shoulders and told Pa
he was a disgrace to civilization. She tried to get Pa to drink some
carbolic acid. Pa finally convinced Ma it was not him, and then they
decided it was the house that smelled so, as well as the church, and all
Sunday afternoon they went visiting, and this morning Pa went down to
the health office and got the inspector of nuisances to come up to the
house, and when he smelled around a spell he said there was dead rats
in the main sewer pipe, and they sent for plumbers, and Ma went out to a
neighbors to borry some fresh air, and when the plumbers began to dig
up the floor in the basement I came over here. If they find any of that
limberg cheese it will go hard with me. The hired girls have both quit,
and Ma says she is going to break up keeping house and board. That is
just into my hand, I want to board at a hotel, where you can have a
bill-of-fare and tooth picks, and billiards, and everything. Well I
guess I will go over to the house and stand in the back door and listen
to the mocking bird. If you see me come flying out of the alley with my
coat tail full of boots you can bet they have discovered the sewer gas.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
HIS PA BROKE UP--THE BAD BOY DON'T THINK THE GROCER FIT FOH
HEAVEN--HE IS VERY SEVERE ON HIS OLD FRIEND--THE NEED OF A
NEW REVISED EDITION--THE BAD BOY TURNS REVISER--HIS PA
REACHES FOR THE POKER--A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE--THE SLED
SLEWED!--HIS PA UNDER THE MULES.
“Well, I guess I will go to hell. I will see you later,” said the bad
boy to the grocery man, as he held a cracker under the faucet of the
syrup keg, and then sat down on a soap box by the stove and proceeded
to make a lunch, while the grocery man charged the boy's father with a
gallon of syrup and a pound of crackers.
“What do you mean, you profane wretch, talking about meeting me later
in Hades,” said the indignant grocery man. “I expect to pass by the hot
place where you are sizzling, and go to the realms of bliss, where
there is one continued round of hap-hiness, and angels playing on golden
harps, and singing hymns of praise.”
“Why, Pa says I will surely go to hell, and I thought you would probably
be there, as it costs something to get to heaven, and you can get to the
other place for nothing. Say, you would be a healthy delegate to go
to heaven, with a lot of girl angels, wouldn't you, smelling of frowy
butter, as you always do, and kerosene, and herring, and bar soap, and
cheese, and rotten potatoes. Say, an angel wouldn't stay on the same
golden street with you, without holding her handkerchief to her nose,
and you couldn't get in there, anyway, cause you would want to pay your
entrance fee out of the store.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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