HE WEEK GOT
MIXED--THE NUMEROUS FUNERALS--THE MINISTER APPEARS--THE BAD
BOY GOES OVER THE BACK FENCE.

"Hello," said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in looking sick
at heart, and all broke up, "How is your muscle this morning?"

"All right enough," said the boy, with a look of inquiry, as though
wondering what was coming next. "Why?"

"O, nothing, only I was going to grind the hatchet, and some knives and
things, this morning, and I thought maybe you would like to go out
in the shed and turn the grindstone for me, to develop your muscles.
Turning a grindstone is the healthiest thing a boy can do."

"That is all right enough," said the bad boy, as he took up a sweet
cracker, "but please take a good look at me. Do I look like a grindstone
boy? Do I resemble a good little boy that can't say 'no,' and goes off
and turns a grindstone half a day for some old duffer, who pays him by
giving him a handful of green currants, or telling him he will be a man
some day, and the boy goes off one way, with a lame back, while the
good man goes the other way, with a sharp scythe, and a chuckle at
the softness of the boy? You are mistaken in me. I have passed the
grindstone period, and you will have to pick up another sardine who has
never done circular work. Not any grindstone for Hennery, if you please."

"You are getting too smart," said the grocery man, as he charged a
pound of sweet crackers to the boy's father. "You don't have to turn the
grindstone if you don't want to."

"That's what I thought," says the boy as he takes a handful of
blueberries. "You grindstone sharps, who are always laying for a fool
boy to give taffy to, and get him to break his back, don't play it fine
enough. You bear on too hard on the grindstone. I have seen the time
when a man could get me to turn a grindstone for him till the cows come
home, by making me believe it was fun, and by telling me he never saw
a boy that seemed to throw so much soul into turning a grindstone as I
did, but I have found that such men are hypocrites. They inveigle a boy
into their nest, like the spider does the fly, and at first they don't
bear on hard, but just let the blade of the axe or the scythe touch
the grindstone, and they make a boy believe he is a bigger man than old
Grant. They bet him he will get tired, and he bets that he can turn a
grindstone as long as anybody, and when the boy has got his reputation
at stake, then they begin to bear on har