The Story of a Bad Boy

ust as I reached the doorstep of the Nutter House. Kitty Collins, with her dress tucked about

n askin' for you. He's gone up town, now. It's a nate thing you done with my clothes-li

he family; but I knew very well that the burning of the stage-coach, and the arrest of th

afterwards, beaming upon me benevolently across the bre

very warm, "I took a little run u

a time on the Square last night," remarked Captain Nutter, looking up from the

hair was prepari

ra Wingate's barn and carried off the old stagecoach. The young rasca

r a long silence he exclaimed, "Hullo!"

om the bridewell, leaving no clew to their identity, except the letter H, cut on one of the benches.' 'Fi

etreat from the room as soon as I could, and flew to the stable with a misty intention of mounting Gypsy and es

as blithe as a lark, "h

I cried, "I sh

Harris, pulling Gypsy's forelock over her e

't mean it!

ingate three dollars apiece. He'll

the -- the miscreants?" I asked, quoting

ertisement offering five dollars reward; though he knew well enough who had taken the coach, for he came round to my father's house before the paper was printed to talk the matter over. Wasn't the governor mad, though! But i

part to it, is there?

h; so off he rushes up to Wingate -- kind of him, wasn't it? -- and claims the reward. 'Too late, young man,' says

sly committed a grave offence. Though the property in question was valueless, we were clearly wrong in destroying it. At the same time Mr. Wingate had tacitly sa

n Nutter, and, laying my remaining three dollars on his kn

s own whimsical fashion at the breakfast table, for, at the very moment he was harrowing up my soul by reading the extracts from the Rivermout

the stable-yard, where we celebrated the termination of our trouble by setting off two packs of fire-crackers in an empty wine-cask. They made a prodigious racket, but failed somehow to fully express my feelings. The little brass pistol in my bedroom suddenly occurred to me. It had been loaded

k Harris examined the rusty cap and

d," said I, "

d sound. Then Harris tried it; then Charley Marden; then I took it again, and after three or four trials was on the point of giving it up as a bad job, when the obstinate thing went off with a tremendous explosion,

?" cried the boy

biously, for the concussion

ck garden, and erected over the mound a slate tablet to the effect that "Mr. Barker formerly of new Orleans, was killed accidentally on the Fourth of July, 18 -- in the 2nd year of his Age."

e pistol-butt took root and grew into a mahogany-tree or something. He said he once planted an old musket-stock, and sho

way to the Square, which was always a busy place when public festivities were going on. Feeling that I wa

hen slowly thrust them back again as his sense of justice overcame his genial disposition. I guess it cut the old gentleman to the heart to be obliged to keep me out of my pocket-money. I know it d

s because it was an oval -- an oval formed by the confluence of half a dozen streets, now thronged by crowds of smartly dressed town

ere tables at which could be purchased the smaller sort of fireworks, such as pin-wheels, serpents, double-headers, and punk warranted not to go out. Many of the adjacent houses ma

itious brass-band that was blowing itself to pieces on a balcony -- were enough to drive one distracted. We amused ourselves for an hour or two, darting in and out among the crowd and setting off our crackers. At one o'clock the Hon. Hezekiah Elkins mounted

ce, withdrew to a booth on the outskirts of the crowd, where we regaled ourselves with root

ROOT

SOLD

expressed. Rhyme and rhythm faultless. It was a delightful poet who made those verses. As for the beer itself -- that, I th

th him at Pettingil's saloon. Pettingil was the Delmonico of Rivermouth. He furnished ices and confectionery for aristocratic balls and parties, and did

a door hung with faded red drapery, had about it an air of mystery and seclusion quite delightful. Four windows, also draped, faced the side-street, afford

e saloon unoccupied. When we had seated ourselves around the largest marble-topped table, Char

le, and the spoon-handle shooting up from the apex like a spire. I doubt if a person of the nicest palate could have distinguished, with his eyes shut, which

e our capabilities that we finished our creams togeth

ir of Aladdin ordering up a fresh hogshead of pearls and ru

was leaning over the counter giving directions for a second supply. Thinking it would make no differenc

saloon, what was my hor

y marble slab, and not a boy to be seen. A pair of hands letting go their

e world to appease him. What should I do? I heard the clink of approaching glasses -- the ninepenny creams. I ru

ugh Willow, and was turning into Brierwood Place when the sound o

The mine! The mine!" y

ad in front of me was a common flour-barrel, which, as I gazed at it, suddenly rose into the air with a terrific explosion. I felt myself thrown violently off my

nces of powder placed under an empty keg or barrel and fired with a slow-match. Boys wh

Pettingil's saloon. I was supposed to be killed, but happily (happily for me at least) I was merely stunned. I lay in a semi-unconscious state until eight o'clock that night,

t is the boy saying?

TBEERSO

till preserved in the garret of the Nutter House, together with the pisto