Читать книгу Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - George W. Peck - Страница 12

Table of Contents

HIS PA TAKES A TRICK—JAMAICA RUM AND CARDS—THE BAD BOY

POSSESSED OF A DEVIL—THE KIND DEACON—AT PRAYER MEETING—

THE OLD MAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCE—THE FLYING CARDS—THE

PRAYER MEETING SUDDENLY CLOSED.

“What is it I hear about your Pa being turned out of prayer meeting Wednesday night,” asked the grocer of the bad boy, as he came over after some cantelopes for breakfast, and plugged a couple to see if they were ripe.

“He wasn’t turned out of prayer meeting at all. The people all went away and Pa and me was the last ones out of the church. But Pa was mad, and don’t you forget it.”

“Well, what seemed to be the trouble? Has your Pa become a backslider?”

“O, no, his flag is still there. But something seems to go wrong. You see, when we got ready to go to prayer meeting last night. Pa told me to go up stairs and get him a hankerchief, and to drop a little perfumery on it, and put it in the tail pocket of his black coat. I did it, but I guess I got hold of the wrong bottle of fumery. There was a label on the fumery bottle that said ‘Jamaica Rum,’ and I thought it was the same as Bay Rum, and I put on a whole lot. Just afore I put the hankerchief in Pa’s pocket, I noticed a pack of cards on the stand, that Pa used to play hi lo-jack with Ma evenings when he was so sick he couldn’t go down town, before he got ’ligion, and I wrapped the hankercher around the pack of cards and put them in his pocket. I don’t know what made me do it, and Pa don’t, either, I guess, ’cause he told Ma this morning I was possessed of a devil. I never owned no devil, but I had a pair of pet goats onct, and they played hell all around, Pa said. That’s what the devil does, ain’t it? Well, I must go home with these melons, or they won’t keep.”

“But hold on,” says the grocery man as he gave the boy a few rasins with worms in, that he couldn’t sell, to keep him, “what about the prayer meeting?”

“O, I like to forgot. Well Pa and me went to prayer meeting, and Ma came along afterwards with a deakin that is mashed on her, I guess, ’cause he says she is to be pitted for havin’ to go through life yoked to such an old prize ox as Pa. I heard him tell Ma that, when he was helping her put on her rubber waterprivilege to go home in the rain the night of the sociable, and she looked at him just as she does at me when she wants me to go down to the hair foundry after her switch, and said, “O, you dear brother,” and all the way home he kept her waterprivilege on by putting his arm on the small of her back. Ma asked Pa if he didn’t think the deakin was real kind, and Pa said, “yez, dam kind,” but that was afore he got ’ligion. We sat in a pew, at the prayer meeting, next to Ma and the deakin, and there was lots of pious folks all round there. After the preacher had gone to bat, and an old lady had her innings, a praying, and the singers had got out on first base, Pa was on deck, and the preacher said they would like to hear from the recent convert, who was trying to walk in the straight and narrow way, but who found it so hard, owing to the many crosses he had to bear. Pa knowed it was him that had to go to bat, and he got up and said he felt it was good to be there. He said he didn’t feel that he was a full sized Christian yet, but he was getting in his work the best he could. He said at times everything looked dark to him, and he feared he should falter by the wayside, but by a firm resolve he kept his eye sot on the future, and if he was tempted to do wrong he said get thee behind me, Satan, and stuck in his toe-nails for a pull for the right. He said he was thankful to the brothers and sisters, particularly the sisters, for all they had done to make his burden light, and hoped to meet them all in—When Pa got as far as that he sort of broke down, I spose he was going to say heaven, though after a few minutes they all thought he wanted to meet them in a saloon. When his eyes began to leak, Pa put his hand in his tail pocket for his handkercher, and got hold of it, and gave it a jerk, and out came the handkercher, and the cards. Well, if he had shuffled them, and Ma had cut them, and he had dealt six hands, they couldn’t have been dealt any better. They flew into everybody’s lap. The deakin that was with Ma got the jack of spades and three aces and a deuce, and Ma got some nine spots and a king of hearts, and Ma nearly fainted, cause she didn’t get a better hand, I spose. The preacher got a pair of deuces, and a queen of hearts, and he looked up at Pa as though it was a misdeal, and a old woman who sat across the aisle, she only got two cards, but that was enough. Pa didn’t see what he done at first, cause he had the handkerchief over his eyes, but when he smelled the rum on it, he took it away, and then he saw everybody discarding, and he thought he had struck a poker game, and he looked around as though he was mad cause they didn’t deal him a hand. The minister adjourned the prayer meeting and whispered to Pa, and everybody went out holding their noses on account of Pa’s fumery, and when Pa came home he asked Ma what he should do to be saved. Ma said she didn’t know. The deakin told her Pa seemed wedded to his idols. Pa said the deakin better run his own idols, and Pa would run his. I don’t know how it is going to turn out, but Pa says he is going to stick to the church.”