hereafter you will find me as good as I know how to be. Now I am going to wash up and go and help the minister move.” As the boy went out the grocery man sat for several minutes thinking of the change that had come over the bad boy, and wondered what had brought it about, and then he went to the door to watch him as he wended his way across the street with his head down, as though in deep thought, and the grocery man said to himself, “that boy is not as bad as some people think he is,” and then he looked around and saw a sign hanging up in front of the store, written on a piece of box cover, with blue pencil:-- SPOILED CANNED HAM AND TONGUE, GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHURCH PICNICS. and he looked after the boy who was slipping down an alley and said, “The condemn little whelp. Wait till I catch him.” CHAPTER XII. THE OLD MAN SHOOTS THE MINISTER--THE BAD BOY TRIES TO LEAD A DIFFERENT LIFE--MURDER IN THE AIR--THE OLD MAN AND HIS FRIENDS GIVE THEMSELVES AWAY-DREADFUL STORIES OF THEIR WICKED YOUTH--THE CHICKEN COOP INVADED--THE OLD MAN TO THE RESCUE--THE MINISTER AND THE DEACONS SALTED. “Say, I thought you was going to try to lead a different life,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth came in with his pockets full of angle worms, and wanted to borrow a baking powder can to put them into, while he went fishing, and he held a long angle worm up by the tail and let it wiggle so he frightened a girl that had come in after two cents worth of yeast, so she dropped her pitcher and went out of the grocery as though she was chased by an anaconda. “I am going to lead a different life; but a boy can't change his whole course of life in a minute, can he? Grown persons have to go on probation for six months before they can lead a different life, and half the time they lose their cud before the six months expire, and have to commence again. When it is so alfired hard for a man that is endowed with sense to break off being bad, you shouldn't expect too much from a boy But I am doing as well as could be expected--I ain't half as bad as I was. Gosh, why don't you burn a rag? That yeast that the girl spilled on the floor smells like it was sick. I should think that bread that was raised with that yeast would smell like this cooking, butter you sell to hired girls.