bad place. If a person steals a pin, just a small,
no account pin, he is as bad as if he stole all there was in a bank,
and he stands the best chance of going to the bad place. You see, if a
fellow steals a little thing like a pin, he forgets to repent, cause it
don't seem to be worth while to make so much fuss about. But if a fellow
robs a bank, or steals a whole lot of money from orphans, he knows it is
a mighty serious matter, and he gets in his work repenting, too quick,
and he is liable to get to the good place, while you, who have only
stole a few potatoes out of a bushel that you sold to the orphan asylum,
will forget to repent, and you will sizzle. I tell you, the more I read
about being good, and going to Heaven, the more I think a feller can't
be too careful, and from this out you won't find a better boy than I am.
When I come in here after this and take a few dried peaches or crackers
and cheese, you charge it right up to Pa, and then I won't have it on my
mind and have to answer for it at the great judgment day. I am going to
shake my chum, cause he chews tobacco, which is wicked, though I don't
see how that can be, when the minister smokes, but I want to be on the
safe side. I am going to be good or bust a suspender, and hereafter you
can point to me as a boy who has seen the folly of an ill-spent life,
and if there is such a thing as a fifteen year old boy, who has been a
terror, getting to heaven, I am the hairpin. I tell you, when I listen
to the minister tell about the angels flying around there, and I see
pictures of them purtier than any girl in this town, with chubby arms
with dimples in the elbows and shoulders, and long golden hair, and
think of myself here cleaning off horses in a livery stable and smelling
like an old harness, it makes me tired, and I wouldn't miss going there
for ten dollars. Say, you would make a healthy angel, for a back street
of the new Jerusalem, but you would give the whole crowd away unless
you washed up, and sent that shirt to the Chinese laundry. Yes, sir,
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