Gentle reader, did you ever steep your mind in one of those Sunday School hooks which were in circulation previous to our Civil War? If not, ransack your grandmother’s garret until you find a specimen of that Arcadian literature.
The little boy in those blessed books never quarrelled, never had a fight, never had dirty hands, and would have been inexpressibly shocked had he made a conversational slip in grammar. He was an intolerable angel in breeches—was this little boy of the Sunday school book. He couldn’t “talk back,” nor handle slang, nor throw rocks, nor skin-the-cat, nor ride the billy-goat, nor tie things to a dog’s tail, nor put a pin in a chair for somebody to sit on. If the Bad Boy hit him in the stomach, he wept meekly, quoted a text, and went home to his mamma.
In common conversation, the language of this Good Boy was drawn from wells of English undefiled. Erasmus never used choicer words; and Chesterfield was not more perfect in manners, than was this detestable Good Boy.
Among youths of his own age, he was a miniature Socrates, washed and otherwise purified. Wisdom oozed from him in hateful streams. The sagacity of sages sat on him with uncanny ease.
When a grown man spoke to this Good Boy, the G. B. never replied until he had lifted his right hand and ejaculated “Oh, Sir!” After the salute and the “Oh, Sir,” came the response, which always did infinite credit to the manners, mind and heart of this outrageously Good Boy.
Life was an easy-going affair to the G. B. All things came his way. He was virtuous and he was happy. Nothing ever occurred to soil his clothes or tangle his hair. His nose never bled, he never bit his tongue, never struck his funny-bone, never mashed his thumb with the hammer, never had his drink to go the wrong way. He was never drowned while bathing in the pond, for the simple reason that he didn’t “go in” on the Sabbath. The Bad Boy “went in washing” on Sunday and was drowned, as a matter of course.
Daniel in the lion’s den was not safer amid the perils than was the Good Boy among the ills which are incident to boyhood. Past vicious bulls and snappish curs he walked serene and unharmed. Neither his gun, nor his pony ever kicked him; neither the wasp, nor the bee, nor the yellow-jacket ventured to sting him; nettles avoided his bare feet; no boil came to afflict his nose, nor stye to distort his eye. No limb of a tree ever broke under him, and gave him a nasty fall. He never tumbled into the creek, nor snagged his “pants,” nor sprained his ankle, nor cut his finger, nor bumped his head, nor walked against the edge of the door at night.
Nothing could happen to this insufferable Good Boy—nothing bad, I mean. His shoes never blistered his heels, his hat never blew away, he never lost his hand-kerchief, never had a stone-bruise, never missed his lessons, never soiled his book, never played truant, and never ate anything which caused him to clap both hands to a certain place in front while he doubled up and howled.
Oh, a pink of perfection was this odious boy of the ante-bellum Sunday School books.
And next to him in comprehensive unbearableness was the little girl who was the counterpart of this little boy.