The story of a bad boy

Once upon a time there was a bad boy named Jim - but, if you pay a little attention, you can see that almost all the bad boys in your Sunday school textbooks are named James. Strange as it may seem, and it is, this one was named Jim.

Nor did Jim have a sick mother - that is, he did not have a mother who believed in God, had a lung disease, and would have preferred to lie in the grave if she had not loved her son so much that she was afraid that he would be left alone. However, most of the bad boys in the Sunday school books were named James, and all had a sick mother. They all taught their sons to say "I'm going to lie down to sleep" and so on, and they all lulled their children to sleep with gentle, mournful songs, kissed them goodbye, and then knelt by their beds and wept. However, this little guy is different. His name is Jim, his mother is safe and sound - no lung disease, and no other problems. Not only was she not weak, but she was quite strong, and she did not honor God; moreover, she had no love for Jim. She used to say that even if Jim broke his neck, it would not hurt her much. She always spanked Jim to make him go to sleep, and never kissed him goodbye; on the contrary, when she wanted to leave home, she would slap him a few times.

Once, this Jim stole out the kitchen key, sneaked into the kitchen, stole the jam, and then filled the jam jar with tar pitch so that his mother could not see the flaw; Jim did not have a sudden fear, nor did he feel as if some voice whispered to him, "Do not listen to your mother right? Isn't it a sin to do that? What do bad boys get for stealing their good mother's jam?" Jim also did not fall to his knees alone, promise not to do evil in the future, and then easily and cheerfully stand up and tell the truth to his mother and ask for forgiveness. And his mother was in tears, full of relief and gratitude to bless him. Nope. That's what happens to other bad kids in the textbook; as for Jim, it's a different story altogether, wouldn't you say! Jim stole the jam, and vulgarly and nastily said it was great; he put the tar pitch into the jam bottle, also said it was great, and laughed, saying that the old woman found out, "will be furious, grunting and speechless"; and then his mother did find out, but he denied it, said he did not know, and received a beating, and then the mother found out. He was the one who was in tears. Jim did everything in a strange way, very different from the textbook Jameses.

Once he climbed up the apple tree of the farmer Acoon to steal apples. However, the branch did not break, he neither fell from the tree and broke his arm, nor was bitten by the farmer's dog, nor did he lie in bed for weeks afterwards, shutting up and getting better. In short, there was no such thing; Jim stole enough apples and climbed down the tree safely; he was prepared for the big dog, and when the dog jumped at him, he threw a brick and hit it exactly. Strangely enough - this kind of thing is never written in those elegant little books with marbled covers, which depict men in tuxedos and short-legged breeches, men wearing ringing hats and women with skirt-loopless garments under their armpits. Jim encountered a situation that no Sunday school textbook had ever written about.

Once Jim stole a teacher's pencil sharpener, but fearing punishment if the teacher found out, he snuck the knife into the hat of George Wilson - the son of poor Wilson's widow, who was recognized as the good boy of the village for his good conduct. George never disobeyed his mother's teachings, was always honest and studious, and he was especially devoted to Sunday school. But then the knife fell out of his hat, and poor George hung his head in shame, as if he had really admitted his guilt. And the sad teacher decided that he had stolen the knife. When the teacher raised the thin, soft whip, ready to smack his shaking shoulders, the purely fabricated white-haired magistrate did not suddenly appear, not to mention the divine: "Spare this child of high moral character - the criminal is standing there shivering! During the break, I happened to pass by the school entrance. Though no one saw me, while I saw the thief!" So George was not beaten, and the venerable magistrate did not give a grateful sermon to the teachers and students, and then take George by the hand, and say that such a boy as he was deserved praise, and take George away to live with him, and let him clean the office, and build the fire, and run errands, and chop wood, and learn the law, and help his housekeeper with the house, and play to his heart's content after work, and receive forty cents a month for his own pleasure. No; that's what the book would say, but that's not what Jim met. That old, deadly judge didn't step in and cause trouble, and as a result, model kid George got a good beating, and Jim was dancing with joy because, you know, Jim hated those model kids. Jim says he "despises these sissies." This is the vulgar language used by that bad, uneducated boy Jim.

But the odd thing that happened to Jim was that he went boating one Sunday and didn't drown. Another Sunday he went fishing and was not struck by lightning, even though there was a storm. Hey, you might as well look through all the Sunday school books and read them cover to cover until the next Christmas and you will never find such a thing. Ah, absolutely not; on the contrary, you will find that all the bad boys who rowed on Sunday did not drown, and all the bad boys who fished on Sunday and got caught in the storm were struck by lightning. Boats carrying bad boys on Sunday always bottom out, and bad boys fishing on the Sabbath is always stormy. Why Jim always avoided these disasters, I can't tell you why.

Jim's activities were blessed by a charm - a charm, to be sure. Anything can not hurt him. He even put a bundle of tobacco leaves to the elephant when he visited the zoo, the elephant did not open the long trunk to crack his brain. He went through the kitchen, but never drank nitric acid mistakenly for a mint drink. On the Sabbath, he stole his father's gun to go out hunting, and did not break three or four fingers. In a moment of anger, he punched his little sister in the temple, and she didn't have more than a headache, and died after the summer, leaving words of forgiveness and tenderness on her deathbed, which were doubly painful to his broken heart. No; she actually recovered. Finally, Jim finally left home and wandered the ocean. But when he returned he did not feel the desolate, lonely and helpless, and did not see his relatives resting in the quiet churchyard, the walls of his childhood house covered with green vines did not fall down. Ah, no; he was like a prodigal, drunk and went into the police station without entering the house.

Jim married and started a family as an adult, and later had many children. One night, he suddenly swung the axe and smashed the heads of the whole family. Jim had made a fortune by using all kinds of hoodlums and frauds; now he was a villain with a heart of gold and a heart of gold, yet he was respected and elected to the council.

You see, there was never a bad James in the Sunday school books who was so lucky and so happy as this Jim, who was blessed with charms and lawlessness.