“—took whiskey punchIvery night for his lunch,”
“—took whiskey punchIvery night for his lunch,”
“—took whiskey punch
Ivery night for his lunch,”
the captain put such a world of expression into a long-drawn sigh that Fred began to feel depressed himself; besides, songs were not numerous in Fred’s repertoire, and those in which there was no allusion to drinking could be counted on half his fingers. Then he borrowed the barkeeper’s violin, andplayed, one after another, the airs which had been his favorites in the days of his courtship, until Crayme exclaimed,
“Say, Fred, we’re not playing church; give us something that don’t bring all of a fellow’s dead friends along with it.”
Fred reddened, swung his bow viciously, and dashed into “Natchez Under the Hill,” an old air which would have delighted Offenbach, but which will never appear in a collection of classical music.
“Ah! that’s something like music,” exclaimed Captain Crayme, as Fred paused suddenly to repair a broken string. “I never hear that but I think of Wesley Treepoke, that used to run theQuitman; went afterward to theRising Planet, when theQuitman’sowners put her on a new line as an opposition boat. Wess and I used to work things so as to make Louisville at the same time—he going up, I going down, and then turn about—and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other lively boys that we’d pick up. And Wess had a fireman that could fiddle off old ‘Natchez’ in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we’d got to the place where youcan’t tell what sort of whiskey ’tis you’re drinking, and I tell you, ’twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him. Andsuchwhiskey as Wess kept! used to go cruising around the back country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. He’d always find nectar, you’d better believe. Poor old boy! the tremens took him off at last. He hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a bullet into Pete Langston, his second clerk—they were both trying to hold him, you see—but they never laid it up against him. I wish I knew what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off—no, I don’t, either; what am I thinking about? But I do, though—hanged if I don’t!”
Fred grew pale: he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly impressed them; what if the captain should suddenly become delirious, and try to throwhimoverboard or shoot him? Fred determined to get the captain at once upon the guards—no, into the cabin, where there would be no sight of waterto suggest anything dreadful—and search his room for pistols. But the captain objected to being moved into the cabin.
“The boys,” said the captain, alluding to the gamblers, “are mighty sharp in the eye, and like as not they’d see through my little game, and then where’d my reputation be? Speaking of the boys reminds me of Harry Genang, that cleaned out that rich Kentucky planter at bluff one night, and then swore off gambling for life and gave a good-by supper aboard the boat. ’Twas just at the time when Prince Imperial Champagne came out, and the whole supper was made of that splendid stuff. I guess I must have put away four bottles, and if I’d known how much he’d ordered, I could have carried away a couple more. I’ve always been sorry I didn’t.”
Fred wondered if there was any subject of conversation which would not suggest liquor to the captain; he even brought himself to ask if Crayme had seen the new Methodist Church at Barton since it had been finished.
“Oh, yes,” said the captain; “I started to walk Moshier home one night, after we’d punished a couple of bottles of old Crow whiskey at our house,and he caved in all of a sudden, and I laid him out on the steps of that very church till I could get a carriage. Those were my last two bottles of Crow, too; it’s too bad the way the good things of this life paddle off.”
The captain raised himself in his berth, sat on the edge thereof, stood up, stared out the window, and began to pace his room with his head down and his hands behind his back. Little by little he raised his head, dropped his hands, flung himself into a chair, beat the devil’s tattoo on the table, sprang up excitedly, and exclaimed,
“I’m going back on all the good times I ever had.”
“You’re only getting ready to try a new kind, Sam,” said Fred.
“Well, I’m going back on my friends.”
“Not on all of them; the dead ones would pat you on the back, if they got a chance.”
“A world without whiskey looks infernally dismal to a fellow that isn’t half done living.”
“It looks first-rate to a fellow that hasn’t got any back-down in him.”
“Curse you! I wish I’d madeyouback down when you first talked temperance to me.”
“Go ahead! Then curse your wife—don’t be afraid; you’ve been doing it ever since you married her.”
Crayme flew at Macdonald’s throat; the younger man grappled the captain and threw him into his bunk. The captain struggled and glared like a tiger; Fred gasped, between the special efforts dictated by self-preservation,
“Sam, I—promised to—to see you—through—and I’m—going to—do it, if—if I have to—break your neck.”
The captain made one tremendous effort; Fred braced one foot against the table, put a knee on the captain’s breast, held both the captain’s wrists tightly, looked full into the captain’s eyes, and breathed a small prayer—for his own safety. For a moment or two, perhaps longer, the captain strained violently, and then relaxed all effort and cried,
“Fred, you’ve whipped me!”
“Nonsense! whip yourself,” exclaimed Fred, “if you’re going to stop drinking.”
The captain turned his face to the wall and said nothing; but he seemed to be so persistently swallowing something that Fred suspected a secretedbottle, and moved an investigation so suddenly that the captain had not time in which to wipe his eyes.
“Hang it, Fred,” said he, rather brokenly; “howcanwhat’s babyish in men whip a full-grown steamboat captain?”
“The same way that it whipped a full-grown woolen-mill manager once, I suppose, old boy,” said Macdonald.
“Is that so?” exclaimed the captain, astonishment getting so sudden an advantage over shame that he turned over and looked his companion in the face. “Why—how are you, Fred? I feel as if I was just being introduced. Didn’t anybody else help?”
“Yes,” said Fred, “a woman; but—you’ve got a wife, too.”
Crayme fell back on his pillow and sighed. “If I could onlythinkabout her, Fred! But I can’t; whiskey’s the only thing that comes into my mind.”
“Can’t think about her!” exclaimed Fred; “why, are you acquainted with her yet, I wonder?I’llnever forget the evening you were married.”
“Thatwasjolly, wasn’t it?” said Crayme. “I’llbet such sherry was never opened west of the Alleghanies, before or——”
“Hangyour sherry!” roared Fred; “it’s your wife that I remember.Youcouldn’t see her, of course, for you were standing alongside of her; but the rest of us—well, I wished myself in your place, that’s all.”
“Did you, though?” said Crayme, with a smile which seemed rather proud; “well, I guess old Major Pike did too, for he drank to her about twenty times that evening. Let’s see; she wore a white moire antique, I think they called it, and it cost twenty-one dollars a dozen, and there was at least one broken bottle in every——”
“And I made up my mind she was throwing herself away, in marrying a fellow that would be sure to care more for whiskey than he did for her,” interrupted Fred.
“Ease off, Fred, ease off now; there wasn’t any whiskey there; I tried to get some of the old Twin Tulip brand for punch, but——”
“But the devil happened to be asleep, and you got a chance to behave yourself,” said Fred.
Crayme looked appealingly. “Fred,” said he, “tell me about her yourself; I’ll take it as a favor.”
“Why, she looked like a lot of lilies and roses,” said Fred, “except that you couldn’t tell where one left off and the other began. As she came into the roomIfelt like getting down on my knees. Old Bayle was telling me a vile story just then, but the minuteshecame in he stopped as if he was shot.”
“He wouldn’t drink a drop that evening,” said Crayme, “and I’ve puzzled my wits over that for five years——”
“She lookedsoproud ofyou,” interrupted Fred with some impatience.
“Did she?” asked Crayme. “Well, I guess Iwasa good-looking fellow in those days: I know Pike came up to me once, with a glass in his hand, and said that he ought to drink tome, for I was the finest-looking groom he’d ever seen. He was so tight, though, that he couldn’t hold his glass steady; and though you know I never had a drop of stingy blood in me, itdidgo to my heart to see him spill that gorgeous sherry.”
“She looked very proud ofyou,” Fred repeated; “but I can’t see why, for I’ve never seen her do it since.”
“Youwill, though, hang you!” exclaimed thecaptain. “Get out of here! I can think about hernow, and I don’t want anybody else around. No rudeness meant, you know, Fred.”
Fred Macdonald retired quietly, taking with him the keys of both doors, and feeling more exhausted than he had been on any Saturday night since the building of the mill.
Among the Barton people who had actually made any effort for the sake of temperance, no one found greater comfort in contemplative retrospects of his own work than Deacon Jones. True, his contributions to the various funds which Crupp, Tomple, Wedgewell, and Brown devised had not been as great as had been expected of him; nor had such moneys as he finally gave been obtained from him without an amount of effort which Crupp declared sufficient to effect the extraction, from the soil, of the stump of a centenarian oak; but when the money had left his pocket, and was absolutely beyond recall, the deacon made the most he could out of it by the only method which remained. His contributions gave him an excuse for talk and exhortation, and, next to money-making, there was no operation which the deacon enjoyed as much as that of exhorting others to good deeds. Until there broke out in Barton the temperance excitementalluded to in our first chapter, Deacon Jones’s hortatory efforts had been principally of a religious nature; he believed in religion, and he occasionally extracted enjoyment from it; besides, his thrifty soul had always been profoundly moved by the business-like nature of the Scripture passage, “Whoso shall convert a sinner from the error of his ways, shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.” Many had been the unregenerate in Barton with whom the deacon had labored, generally with considerable tact, as to occasion and language, and sometimes with success. His orthodoxy was acceptable to every pastor in the village, for he was an extreme believer in every religious tenet which either pastor declared necessary to salvation; and his frequent inability to reconcile such of these ideas as conflicted with each other only led the ministers to accord new admiration to a faith which was appalled by nothing. Up to the time when he took active part in the temperance movement, one of his favorite injunctions had been, “Lay up your treasure in heaven;” when, however, he found himself suddenly and frequently called upon for contributions, he dropped this injunction in favor of that one which reads, “Give to him that askethof thee.” It had been a matter of considerable sorrow to the deacon that his first knowledge of this passage had been derived from St. Luke instead of St. Matthew, and that he had many times been compelled to say “Give toevery man,” etc., which quotation had reacted upon him in a manner which caused him to quote to himself, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” and to suffer some terrible flounderings in the twin pits of logic and casuistry; but when he corrected himself according to Matthew, his heart was gladdened, and his restraint removed. The old man talked a great deal out of honest delight in righteousness and humanity; but he was never moved to reticence by the thought that if his scattered seed produced a fair share of grain, the demands upon his own precious store would be lessened.
Besides, the deacon could, with propriety, urge a more conspicuous form of well-doing than mere contributions of currency ever attained to. Had not he himself taken upon his shoulders Tom Adams, driver of the brick-yard team? If any one doubted it, or had never been made acquainted with the fact, the deacon gave him no excuse for farther ignorance. One after another of the well-to-domerchants, professional men, and farmers, were urged by the deacon to take entire charge of some unfortunate soul, after the manner of the deacon himself with Tom, and to all of these he insisted that what he had done for Tom he had been richly paid for by the approving smiles of his own conscience. Shrewd judges of human nature were convinced that if such payment was made to the deacon, he was doubly paid, for Tom Adams had been a treasure of a workman ever since he had stopped drinking; but, with the marvelous blindness of the man who objects to seeing, the deacon clearly comprehended both aspects of the situation, without ever once allowing them to interfere with each other.
He was pursuing his favorite line of argument in his store one afternoon, before Parson Brown, Lawyer Bottom, the postmaster, Dr. White, and two or three others who were not active customers at that immediate moment, and, as all his hearers but the parson were in good circumstances, the deacon felt called upon to make an unusual effort.
“Tell you what it is, gentlemen,” said he, “there’s nothin’ like puttin’ your hand in your pocket to show you what doin’ good is. Here I’ve been thinkin’ all my life that I was doin’ good by subscribin’to Bible Societies, Missionary Societies, an’ all such things, and yet there wasthechance right in my own hands, and I was too blind to see it. I done it at last on a risk, as if God didn’t know best when he inspires men to righteous deeds; an’ I was fearful, time an’ again, that it mightn’t turn out well; but I’ve been more abundantly blessed at it than I ever expected to be. It makes a man feel kind of like Christ must have felt, to be able to help a fellow-creature out of his troubles and sins. Look at Tom Adams now! he’s always sober, his children go to Sunday-school, and he’s never around looking as if you’d rather not meet him, andI, thank the Lord! feel even better over it thanhedoes.”
The postmaster slyly tipped a grave wink at Lawyer Bottom, and the lawyer sagely laid a wise forefinger athwart his own nose. Dr. White dropped a short bark, intended for a cough, which somehow provoked a smile all around. Suddenly a small boy rushed into the store, exclaiming,
“O Deacon Jones! Tom Adams fell out of the wagon and broke his leg!”
The deacon’s ecstatic expression instantly vanished into thin air, and he asked, with a face full of misery,
“And the horses ran away?”
“No,” said the boy. “They’reall right.”
Dr. White sprang up, seized his cane, and asked, “Where is he?”
“That’s so,” asked the deacon, still more sorrowful of countenance, as he continued, “just as corn’s beginnin’ to come in, too, an’ needin’ to be measured an’ sacked; that’s just the way things go in this wicked world!”
Lawyer Bottom, who did not believe much in God, and believed still less in the deacon, asked,
“Well, deacon, then you wouldn’t advise me to take somebody on my hands for the sake of the spiritual payment I’ll be likely to get out of the operation?”
The deacon rallied himself by a tremendous effort, but his countenance did not indicate that the answer he was about to make would be of that softness that turns away wrath; he was saved from disgracing himself, however, by still another boy, who came flying through the main street on horseback, shouting,
“Fire! fire! The woolen mill! Fire!”
The deacon’s store emptied in an instant of every one but Parson Brown, for all the other listenerswere men of some means, and stockholders in the mill.
“Here!” shouted the deacon, cutting the cords of a “nest” of pails; “take buckets along with you; like enough it’ll need everybody’s help, and the mill’s only half insured, too! Parson, would you mind sittin’ here until my boy gets back? I’m losin’ enough to-day without having to shut up store, too.”
“Certainly, I’ll stay,” said the old preacher, limping to the front of the store, and laying his hand on the shoulder of the troubled storekeeper; “but, Brother Jones, if the light of that burning mill should show you anything inside of yourself,don’tcover your eyes. It’s for righteousness’ sake I ask it.”
“All right, Brother Brown,” whispered the deacon hoarsely, as he started off with two water-pails in each hand, and murmuring, “What did the old fellow mean by that, I wonder?” Across the street was Squire Tomple, just jumping into his buggy, and the deacon made haste to accept an invitation to a seat beside his fellow-sufferer. The two stockholders did not lack company; Crupp, Judge Macdonald, and most of the other stockholders, eitherpreceded or followed them, and on the road were hundreds of men and boys, full of an enterprising desire to see the largest fire that had ever occurred in Barton, and already experiencing such of the pleasures of anticipation as a heavy column of smoke could create. Coming in sight of the mill itself, the deacon groaned, and the Squire assisted him, for flames were bursting from every window, and the men who had been passing pails of water up ladders and through the stairways had been driven from their work, and had formed a circle which was slowly but steadily widening. Considerable of the wool had been removed and stacked outside the building, and it now became necessary to move this still farther away, but so many hands were ready to seize it that Deacon Jones could not relieve his feelings even by attempting to save property; so he stood still and looked at the fire, as he estimated his losses. Such a day he had not known since he had lost considerable uninsured stock by the explosion of a river steamer. Sidling uneasily about among the crowd, he found several stockholders anxiously comparing pencil notes, and the figures were anything but consolatory supposing all the stock to be saved, there was yet the milland machinery—value, about ten thousand dollars—which would be totally lost; insurance, five thousand dollars; dead loss, ditto; which left the Squire out of pocket to the extent of a quarter of his subscription. The small profit which had already accrued would not more than cover the loss of the interest on the remaining capital until the mill could be rebuilt, if it seemed advisable to rebuild it.
“Who’s to blame for all this?” asked the deacon angrily.
“We haven’t learned yet,” said the judge, “and I’m afraid it won’t help matters any to know all about it. There goes the last of it!”
As the judge spoke, the blazing frame fell, the small boys shouted “Oh——h!” in chorus, and the deacon’s heart sank like lead as he turned away. He had lost, say, a hundred and fifty dollars by the fire, and Tom Adams’s misfortune would entail additional loss upon him, for a new man would have to be watched and taught and helped, whereas Tom worked as easily as the wheel of a machine. It was but right that the deacon should regret his losses; for though he was a man of considerable property, a dollar looked very large to him, for the reason that his first dollars had each one represented an enormousamount of labor. But when Lawyer Bottom, who had invested in mill stock only with the hope of profit, approached the deacon, and asked, with more curiosity than malice, “How about temperance now, deacon?” the facial contortions which the deacon offered in reply sent the lawyer away in an ecstasy of unholy glee, which almost eradicated his own sense of loss, and which dispelled for a time such little belief as he had in the transforming power of religion. But what is one man’s poison is another’s food. The lawyer’s question was not entirely disposed of by the deacon’s ungracious reply; it repeated itself time and again to the old man, and at the most inopportune times and places; it came to him behind the counter, and made him give wrong weights and measures, with the balance not always in his favor; it came to him when he was making entries in his day-book, and caused him to forget certain items; at his own dinner-table it suddenly made itself heard, and interfered with his relish of the good viands which he so much enjoyed; it dropped in upon him in his dreams, when he could not be on his guard against his better self, and extracted from his conscience a provoking line of answers which in his waking hours he could notgainsay. For three days this depressing experience continued, and then there occurred, at the regular weekly prayer-meeting of Parson Wedgewell’s church, an episode which for months caused mournful reflections in the minds of such of Parson Wedgewell’s parishioners as were not in the habit of attending prayer-meeting. It was noticed by the faithful that Deacon Jones looked unusually solemn and sensitive as he entered the room, and that he did not, as had been hitherto his habit, start the second hymn. This omission having been made good by some enterprising member, however, the deacon got upon his feet and said:
“Brethren, during the past few days my eyes have been opened, and what I have seen hasn’t been pleasant to look upon. It is indeed true, my dear friends, that Satan sometimes appears as an angel of light. For months I’ve been feeling, and real happily, too, what a glorious thing it was to do good; I had been instrumental in saving one man from destruction by keeping him busy, and I’d helped save another”—here the deacon paused suddenly and looked around to make sure that Judge Macdonald was not in the room—“I’d helped save another by taking an interest in the mill. Butwithin a few days I’ve learned that my own righteousness was as filthy rags; ’twas even worse than that, brethren, for the worst rags are worth so much a pound, but I can’t find that my righteousness is worth anything at all. I’ve fought it out with myself, brethren, an’ I believe I’ve conquered; but it makes my heart sick to see what my enemy looks like, an’ to think I’ve got to carry him around with me through the rest of my days. Doin’ good’s all right, even if itdoespay in dollars and cents, brethren; but doin’ good for the sake of what it’ll bring is the quickest way of makin’ a hypocrite that I ever found, an’ I’m beginnin’ to think that I’ve found a good many ways in myself, my friends. I ask an interest in the prayers of God’s people, an’ I assure ’em that there’s no danger of any of their prayers bein’ wasted.”
The deacon dropped into his seat, and the silence that prevailed for a moment was simply inevitable in a little company that had never before heard such an extraordinary confession; as one of the members afterward remarked, it sounded like a murderer’s last dying speech. Then good Parson Wedgewell sprang to his feet, and, with streaming eyes and rapid utterances, offered a prayer such ashad never been heard in that room before. The songs and prayers which followed were not those to which the meeting were accustomed, and when at last the assemblage separated, there could not be heard from the home-wending couples any critiques of the language or garb of any one who had been present.
As for Deacon Jones, he continued his new fight most valiantly by visiting Tom Adams that very evening, and assuring him that, their supplementary agreement to the contrary notwithstanding, he would continue Tom’s pay during his confinement, and would pay his doctor’s bill also.
During the day or two which followed his interview with Tappelmine, Father Baguss was consumed with conflicting emotions. He could not deny that his offer to help Tappelmine had taken an unpleasant load off of his own heart; but it was equally certain that the contemplation of the possible results of the arrangement gave him a sense of oppression, which differed from the first in quality, but of which the quantity was far too great to be endured with comfort. To find a way of getting out of the whole matter was a suggestion which came frequently to the heart of the old man, and was not as rigidly excluded as it would have been from that of the reader; but fortunately for the honesty of Father Baguss, his ingenuity was of the lowest order conceivable; so he did as thousands of his betters have done when unable, by any abandonment of self-respect, to avoid the inevitable: he submitted, and groaned frequently to the Lord. Sometimesthese efforts before the Unseen increased the old man’s lugubriousness; at other times, a song came to his rescue, followed by a troop of its own kind; but so uncertain were his moods that Mrs. Baguss, who never before had occasion to suppose that there was a single nerve in her husband’s body, began to complain that she didn’t “believe in this thing of lookin’ out for other folks, if it makes you cranky with your own.”
The old man’s trouble increased on the third day, for Tappelmine dropped in and hinted vaguely that it was not yet too late to plant winter wheat. The old man went into Tappelmine’s field with his own team, and plowed; he worked his horses longer hours than he ever did on his own ground; he lent an extra horse to work with Tappelmine’s own before a harrow; he himself sowed the wheat, casting now plentifully, as he thought of what Tappelmine might owe him by harvest-time, and now scantily, as he thought of what might be his own fate if the crop should be troubled with rust, or blight, or rain, or drought. And all the while, as he followed his horses, the old man kept uttering short petitions for Tappelmine and himself; and all the while his soul was full of unspoken prayers for heavy rains orsudden cold, so that the work might be stopped by the hand of Providence himself. But no such fortune befell the good old man: such an open fall had not been known since the settlement of Barton; even the Indian summer lasted so long that the poet of the BartonRegisterfound opportunity to publish, in three successive weekly numbers, “odes,” which could be read in the weather which suggested them. When a heavy rain at last put an end to field work, there were twenty-seven acres in wheat on the Tappelmine estate. Father Baguss ached in soul and body, but the wheat-field work was but the beginning of sorrow. The Tappelmine larder was bareness itself; there was not a porker in the Tappelmine pen; there was not even corn enough in the Tappelmine crib to feed the family horse, let alone to send to mill, and be ground into the meal which the Tappelmines fortunately preferred to fine flour. Father Baguss sold the necessities of life in small quantities to his neighbor, with the understanding that they were to be repaid by the labor of Tappelmine, who was to get out material for barrel-staves and wheelwright’s spokes on the old man’s woodland; but, by the time the wheat was planted, Tappelmine, who, under the eye ofBaguss, did more work in a month than he had done in the whole of the year which preceded, and who during the month had been pretty effectually kept from his accustomed stimulant, fell sick. Then the cup of misery which Father Baguss had put to his own lips was full; as the old man, in his homely way, explained to his own pastor, it didn’t run over, and that was just the trouble; he had to drink it all. He sought for sympathy among his neighbors and acquaintances, but without much success; the Barton postmaster expressed the sentiment of the township, when he said that “no one but a thick-headed blunderer like Baguss would attempt to reform a dead-and-gone soaker like Tappelmine.” Besides, most of the inhabitants wanted to see how the case was going to turn out, and all of them instinctively understood that the best point of view is always at a respectable distance from the object to be looked at. The sorrowing philanthropist went to Crupp, Tomple, and Deacon Jones; but these three reformers, knowing that Baguss could afford the loss, quietly agreed with each other that it would be indeed consolatory to have a companion in experience; so they made excuses, and quoted figures in evidence, and Father Baguss went home with thesettled conviction that he would have to look to Providence for his only assistance.
But while Providence was thus reforming Father Baguss, Tappelmine was growing steadily weaker, and Baguss found his causes of discomfort increased by a debate, which lasted long in his mind, whether it might not be better, for the sake of the drunkard’s family, to let Tappelmine die, and then lease the farm himself at a price which would support the widow. While one phase of the case was present in his mind, he would suggest to the doctor that medicine didn’t seem to do any good—which was certainly true—and that he didn’t believe it would pay to come so often; when, on the contrary, conscience would argue for its own side, the old man would have all three of the physicians visit Tappelmine in rapid succession. The doctors disagreed, as any one but Father Baguss would have known. Perry suggested electrical treatment, which would necessitate the purchase of a battery, no such piece of mechanism having ever been seen in the town except in a locked cabinet of the Barton High School. Dr. White outlined a course of treatment which seemed reasonable to Father Baguss, but which, put into practice, did neither good nor harm;while Pykem arranged for certain inexpensive applications of water, with results which were in the main encouraging. But Tappelmine was unable to leave his bed for three months, and when he was at all fit to work, he could labor for but two or three hours a day.
And so Father Baguss found himself brought down to the position of a man who was spending money without knowing what he was to get for it. Such a position he had never occupied before, and no one could wonder that he felt uncomfortable in it; but the duration of the period was such that the victim succumbed to the steady pressure of truths which, in their abstract form, would have been as ineffective against him as against an acute logician whose intellect had been trained by his pocket.
But Father Baguss was not the only instrument of the salvation of Tappelmine. In existence, but scarcely known of or recognized, there was a Mrs. Tappelmine. With face, hair, eyes, and garments of the same color, the color itself being neutral; small, thin, faded, inconspicuous, poorly clad, bent with labors which had yielded no return, as dead to the world as saints strive to be, yet remaining inthe world for the sake of those whom she had often wished out of it, Mrs. Tappelmine devoted herself to the wreck of what was once a hope over which her eyes had been of a luster which high-born maidens had envied, and a hope in which her heart had throbbed with a joy which had seemed too great for life to hold. About the bedside of her husband she hovered day and night. When she slept no one but herself knew, and she herself did not care. When Tappelmine made his verbal agreement with Father Baguss, she had listened with a joy whose earnestness was as nothing compared with her resolution. She had hurried away from the broken window to a corner where her dirty children were at quarrelsome play, and she had bestowed upon each of them a passionate caress which startled even the little wretches themselves into wondering silence. From that moment she watched her husband’s every movement, and Tappelmine, like a true Pike—for the Pike, like the Transcendentalist, existed ages before he found his way into literature—Tappelmine subjected himself into his wife’s dominion. He made numberless excuses to go to some place where liquor could be found; she, with the wisdom of the serpent, yet thegentleness of the dove, prevented him. As, through the course of her husband’s labors, under the eye of Baguss, he had grown more silent than ever, she had increased her exertions for his comfort; when, finally, the task was completed, and Tappelmine, with thinner face and hollower eyes than ever, fell heavily upon his rude bed and uttered—almost screamed—the single word “Whiskey!” she was on her knees beside him in an instant.
“Jerry,” she exclaimed, “you’ve got the better of whiskey these late days.”
“Just a drop more—to keep me from dying,” gasped Tappelmine.
“Don’t, Jerry,” she pleaded. “Let me hold you tight, so youcan’tdie.”
“Just a drop, for God’s sake, Mariar!” said Tappelmine imploringly.
“O Jerry!” replied the wife, “don’t—for the children’s sake;they’remore to you than God is. I hope he’ll forgive me for sayin’ it.”
“Only a single mouthful, Mariar,” said Tappelmine, “to keep me from sinkin’.”
“You’re not sinkin’, old man—Jerry, dear; you’re gittin’up.Keepup, Jerry.”
“I’ll be all right in a day or two, Mariar, if I onlyget a taste. You don’t want a sick man a-layin’ around, not fit to do for his young ones?”
“You don’t need to, Jerry.I’lldo for ’em, if you’ll only—only make ’em proud of you.”
“It’ll make me good for more toyou, old woman—one single mouthful will,” said Tappelmine.
“You’ve been better to me these three weeks than you ever was before, Jerry; keep on bein’ so, won’t you? It puts me in mind of old times—times when you used to laugh, an’ kiss me.”
“I’d be that way again,” said Tappelmine, “if I could only pick up stren’th.”
“You’re that way now, Jerry, if you only stay as you are.”
“You’lldie, Mariar,” said the man, “if I don’t get out of this bed some way—you an’ the young uns.”
“I’d be glad enough,” said the woman, “if you’d only stay, Jerry.”
“An’ the boys an’ girls?” queried Tappelmine.
“Would be better off alongside of me in the ground, rather than have their dad go backwards again,” said Mrs. Tappelmine. “People turn up their noses at ’em now, Jerry.”
“What are you drivin’ at, Mariar?”
“Why, Jerry, when the children go ’long the road—God knows I don’t let ’em do it oftener than I can help—folks see ’em dirty, an’ wearin’ poor clothes, an’ not lookin’ over an’ above fed up, an’ they can’t help kind o’ twitchin’ up their faces at ’em once there was a time when I couldn’t have helped doin’ it to young ones lookin’ that way.”
“Cursepeople!” exclaimed Tappelmine.
“They do it to me, too,” continued the woman.
Tappelmine sprang up, and exclaimed fiercely,
“What for?”
“’Cause—’cause you’ve made ’em, I reckon, Jerry,” answered Mrs. Tappelmine with some difficulty, occasioned by some choking sobs which nearly took exclusive possession of her. “You know, Jerry, I don’t say it to complain—complainin’ never seems to bring one any good to a woman like me; but—if you only knowed how folks look at me in—in stores, an’ everywhere else, you—wouldn’t blame me for not likin’ it.Ididn’t ever do anything to bring it about, unless ’twas in marryin’you, and Iain’tsorry I didthat; but I wish I didn’t ever have to see anybody again, if you’re goin’ to keep on drinkin’.”
The sick man fell back and was silent; his wife threw herself beside him, crying,
“Don’t get mad at me, Jerry; God knows it’s the deadest truth.”
After a moment or two Tappelmine laid a hand on his wife’s cheek, where it had not been before for twenty years; once its touch had brought blushes; now, tears hurried down to meet it, and yet Mrs. Tappelmine was happier than when she had been a pretty Kentucky girl, twenty years before.
“Mariar,” said Tappelmine at last, “I’ve dragged you all down.”
“No, you haven’t, Jerry,” asserted Mrs. Tappelmine, with a lie which she could not avoid.
“If dyin’ll help you up again, I’m willin’,” continued Tappelmine.
The apartments in the Tappelmine mansion were so few that it was impossible for anything unusual to transpire without attracting the attention of all the inmates; so it followed that the children, beholding the actions of their parents, had gradually approached the bed with countenances whose blankness was painfully eloquent to the sick man. Tappelmine looked at them, and grew more miserable of visage; he hid his face beside his wife,groaned “No more whiskey if I die for it!” and jumped up and kissed each of his children, while Mrs. Tappelmine sobbed aloud, and Father Baguss, who, coming over a few moments before to talk business, had heard the simple word “whiskey,” and had since been jealously listening under the window, sneaked away muttering to himself,
“After all I’ve done for him, I can’t even say to myself thatIsaved him.”
The fire which destroyed the Mississippi Valley Woolen Mills did such damage in the ranks of the temperance reformers that for a few months Crupp, Tomple, and several others had frequent cause to feel lonesome, while poor Father Baguss fell back upon the church for that comfort which, just after his first effort with Tappelmine, and before the fire, he had frequently found in the society of his self-approving brother stockholders. The mill was rebuilt, only a few of the owners of stock refusing to be assessed for their proportion of the loss; the mill made a very prosperous winter, and interested persons were not averse to talking about it; but after Deacon Jones’ speech was noised abroad, the mill was no longer a semi-holy topic of conversation, which was allowable even on the church steps on Sundays. Some of the men whose eyes had been opened toward themselves, on the occasion of the fire, were honest enough to confess to themselves,and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance; but the majority took refuge either in open or secret sophistry, with the comforting impression that they blinded others as effectually as they did themselves. The mass of the people, however—those who neither subscribed to temperance funds, nor mill stock, nor anything else, still looked on, and were plethoric of encouragement and criticism. When appealed to for help, their logic was simply bewildering, and almost as depraved as the same defensive and offensive weapon is in politics. Tomple was the man to do such work, said some, for he was the rich man of the village, and rich men are only God’s stewards; others suggested Captain Crayme, who had money, and who should be willing to spend considerable of it as a thank-offering for his own providential deliverance from the thraldom of drink. The irreligious thought that all such work should be done by the church, if churches were good for anything but to shout in; while the religious felt that the irreligious, among whom could be found nearly every drinker in the village, should expend whatever money was needed for the physical reformation of their kind. Where none of these excuses seemed available, or wherever two or three conservatives of differing views mettogether, there was always Crupp to fall back upon; each man could grasp his own pocket-book with tender tenacity, and declare to a sympathetic audience that the man who had coined his money out of widows’ tears and orphans’ groans should by rights take care of all the drunkards in the county, even until he was so reduced in means as to be dependent upon public charity for his own support.
Thus matters stood when a year had elapsed since the memorable temperance meeting, and Parson Wedgewell suggested that an anniversary service would be only an ordinary and decent testimonial of respect to Providence for his special mercies during the year. To the parson’s surprise, Crupp who—though he had during the winter surprised every one by joining Parson Wedgewell’s church, in spite of a very severe course of questioning by the Examining Committee—was still a man of action and a contemner of mere words—Crupp not only failed to oppose such a meeting, but volunteered himself to write for Major Ben Bailey, the gifted orator who had addressed the earlier meeting, and to pay the orator’s expenses. Such offers were rarely made, even by the Barton reformers, so by unanimous consent Crupp wrote to thegreat lecturer, it being admitted by Tomple, Wedgewell, Baguss, and Jones, that Crupp’s idea of informing the Major what had been done during the year was a good one, and that it would enable the orator to modify his address with special reference to existing circumstances. But Squire Tomple and the parson were considerably astonished to see Crupp dash into the Squire’s store one day, exhibiting an unusual degree of excitement, as he unfolded a letter and remarked,
“He won’t come! Just listen to what he says!” And while the two other reformers stood as if they saw the sky falling and did not despair of catching it in their eyes and mouths, Crupp read:
“In replying to Mr. Crupp’s favor of the —th, Major Bailey can only say, that while he should be glad to again meet the people among whom so great an amount of good has been accomplished within the year, he cannot see that he can render any service. Major Bailey’s efforts are confined solely to the awakening of an interest in temperance; the condition of affairs which Mr. Crupp reports as existing in Barton, however, indicates a degree of interest which cannot be heightened by any effort which the writer could put forth. Whatseems desirable at Barton is such an informing of the general populace upon what has been accomplished, upon the manner in which the work has been done, and the comparatively small number of persons who have actively participated in it, as shall convince the inhabitants that they did not fulfill their whole duty toward temperance when a year ago they applauded the utterances of the writer of these lines. Briefly, Major Bailey feels that if he attended, he could contribute only such efforts as, under the circumstances, would be entirely out of place.”
“Astonishing!” exclaimed Parson Wedgewell, with the eye of a man who dreams.
“Threw away a job!” said Tomple, like the thrifty business man that he was.
But the meeting was planned and widely advertised, and when, on the evening appointed, the attendants looked over the room, they found occasion for considerable attentive reflection.
Except that Major Ben Bailey, the gifted orator, was not present, the meeting presented the same attractions which had drawn such a crowd to its predecessor. The Barton Brass Band was there, and with some new airs learned during the year; the Crystal Spring Glee Club was there; there werethe pastors of the four churches in Barton, and Squire Tomple was in the chair as before. Besides, there were additional attractions: Crupp, a year before, the man who was lending to liquor selling an air of respectability, was upon the platform to the left and rear of Squire Tomple; old Bunley, who a year before had been responsible only as a container of alcohol, but now a respectable citizen and book-keeper to Squire Tomple, occupied the secretary’s chair; Tom Adams acted as usher in one of the side-aisles, and dragged all the heavy drinkers up to front seats; Harry Wainright was there, with a wife whose veil was not thick enough to hide her happiness; Fred Macdonald, who had spent the evening of the other meeting in the Barton House bar-room, was there; so was Tappelmine, appearing as ill at ease as a porker in a strange field, but still there; while in a side seat, close to the wall, sitting as much in the shadow of his wife as possible, so as to guard his professional reputation, was Sam Crayme, captain of the steamerExcellence. A number of “the boys” were there also, and yet the church was not only not crowded, but not even full. During the year temperance had been guided from the hearts to the pockets of a great many,and this radical treatment had been fatal to many an enthusiastic soul that had theretofore been blameless in its own eyes. Those who attended heard some music, however, which was not deficient in point of quality; they heard a short but live address from old Parson Fish on the moral beauty of a temperate life, and an earnest prayer from that one of the Barton pastors who had during the year done nothing which justified the mention of his name in this history, and then the audience saw Mr. Crupp advance to the front of the platform and unfold a large sheet of paper, which he crumpled in one hand as he spoke as follows:
“Ladies and gentlemen: having been requested, by the chairman of the last meeting, to collect some statistics of the work accomplished in Barton, during the past year, in the cause of temperance, I invite your attention to the following figures:
“Population of township last year, three thousand two hundred and sixty-five. Signatures to pledge, at last meeting, six hundred and twenty-seven [applause]; signatures of persons who were in the habit of drinking at time of signing, two hundred and thirty-one; number of persons who have broken the pledge since signing, one hundred andsixty [sighs and groans]; number of persons who have kept their pledges, seventy-one [applause]; number reclaimed by personal effort since meeting, forty-six [applause]; amount of money subscribed and applied strictly for the good of the cause, and without hope of pecuniary gain [a faint hiss or two], five thousand one hundred and ninety dollars and thirty-eight cents [tremendous applause]; amount which has been returned by the beneficiaries without solicitation, twenty-seven dollars [laughter, hisses, and groans]. Of the amount subscribed,six-seventhscame fromfivepersons, who own less thanone-fiftiethpart of the taxable property of the township.”
The quiet which prevailed, as Mr. Crupp spoke these last words and took his seat, was, if considered onlyasquiet, simply faultless; but its duration was greater and more annoying than things purely faultless usually are, and there was a general sensation of relief when Squire Tomple, who during the year had not made any public display of his charities, and who was popularly supposed to care as much for a dollar as any one, slowly got upon his feet.
“My friends,” said the Squire, “I’m more than ever convinced that temperance is a good thing [hearty applause], and the reason I feel so is, thatduring the year I’ve put considerable money into it; and where the treasure is there shall the heart be also [dead silence]. I’ve made up my mind, that hurrahing and singing for temperance will make a hypocrite out of a saint, if he don’t use money and effort at the same time. I like a good song and a good time as much as anybody, but I can’t learn of a single drinking man that they have reformed. At our last meeting there was some good workstarted, by the use of songs and speeches, and you have learned, from the report just presented, how much lasting good they did. Money and work have done the business, my friends; talk has helped, but alone by itself it’s done precious little. This lesson has costmea great deal; and as a business man, who believes thateveryearthly interest is in some way a business interest, I advise you to learn the same lesson for yourselves before it is too late.”
Such a pail of cold water had never before been thrown upon Barton hearts aglow with confidence, it struck the leader of the band so forcibly that he rattled off into “Yankee Doodle,” to aid the meeting in recovering its spirits; even after listening to this inspiriting air, however, it was with a wistfulness almost desperate that the audience scannedthe countenance of Parson Wedgewell as he stepped to the front of the platform.
“Beloved friends,” said the parson, “the result of the past year’s work in this portion of the Lord’s vineyard has indeed been richly blessed, and I shall ever count it as one of the precious privileges of my life that I have been permitted to take part in it. [‘Hurrah for the parson!’ shouted a man, who had but a moment before worn a most lugubrious countenance.] I rejoice, not only that I have seen precious sheaves brought to our Lord’s granary, but also because I have beheld going into the field those who have heretofore stood idly in the market-place, and because I have beheld the reapers themselves receiving the reward of their labors. They have received souls for their hire, dear friends, and I feel constrained to admit that if each of those who came in at the eleventh hour received as much as us, who have apparently borne the burden and heat of the day, they were fully entitled to it by reason of the greater intelligence and industry which they have displayed. For many years, my dear friends, I have been among you as one sent by the Physician of souls; but it is only within the past year that I have begun to comprehendthat the soul may be treated—very oftenshouldbe treated—through the body; and that, though the fervent effectual prayer of the righteous man availeth much, the exercise of that which was made in the likeness and image of God is not to be idle. The mammon of unrighteousness has been made the salvation of many, my dear friends; and it has, I verily believe, guided toward heavenly habitations those who have applied it to the necessities of others. But, dear brethren, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers unto his harvest; but take heed that ye follow the example of him, who, as he commanded us thus to petition the throne of grace, ceased not to labor in the harvest field himself; who fed when he preached, and healed when he exhorted.”
Harry Wainright pounded on the floor with his cane, hearing which, Tom Adams brought his enormous hands together with great emphasis, and his example was dutifully followed by the whole of his own family, which filled two short side seats. Father Baguss shouted “Glory to God!” and Deacon Jones ejaculated “That’s so!” but the hearers seemed disposed to be critical, although the parson’saddress had been couched in language almost exclusively Scriptural. While they were engaged in contemplation, however, old Bunley dropped a mellow cough and stepped to the front.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said he, “it’s the style in this town, and everywhere else, I suppose, to kick a man when he’s down, and then to trample on him. I knowoneman that’s been there, and knows all about it. ’Twas his own fault he got there, and there were plenty who told him he ought to get up; but how kicking and trampling were to help him do it he could never see, and he made up his mind, that folks did as they did because it suited them, not because it was going to dohimany good. So he’s been hating the whole townful for years, and doing all the harm he could, not because he liked doing harm, but because he never got a chance to do anything else. Suddenly, a couple of gentlemen—I won’t mention names—came along, and gave the poor fellow a hand, and gave him the first chance he’s had in years to believe in human nature at all. And, all this time, everybody else around him was acting in the way that this same poor fellow would have acted himself, if he had wanted to play devil. The same couple of gentlemenwent for a good many other people, and acted in a way that you read about in novels and the Bible (but mighty seldom see in town); and those fellows believe in these two gentlemen, now, but they hate all the rest of you like poison. I don’t suppose you like it, but truth is truth; you might as well know what it is.”
Several people got up and went out, carrying very red faces with them; but Fred Macdonald stood up and clapped his hands, and the Adams family and Wainright helped him, while the broad boots of Father Baguss raised a cloud of dust, which formed quite an aureole about Baguss himself as he got up and remarked:
“Brethren and sisters: Squire Tomple hit the nail exactly on the head when he said that hollerin’ an’ singin’ makes a hypocrite of a man if he don’t open his pocket-book. If you don’t believe it, remember me. If anybody ever liked his own more’n I did, he’s a curiosity. I don’thatemoney a bit now, an’ I’m not goin’ to try to; but the hardest case I ever got acquainted with was me, Zedekiah Baguss, when I couldn’t dodge it any longer that I ought to spend money for a feller-critter. I won’t name no names, brethren an’ sisters; but if you’rehuntin’ for any such game, don’t go to lookin’ up drunkards until you smell around near home fust.”
“Reputation be blowed higher than a kite!” exclaimed Captain Crayme, springing to his feet; “but I’ve got to say just a word here. Gentlemen, I’m off my whiskey, and I’m going to stay off; but I might be drinking yet, and have kept on forever, for all that any of you that’s so pious and temperate ever cared. But one man thought enough of me to come and talk to me—talk like a man, and not preach a sermon; more than that, he not only talked—which the biggest idiot here might have done just as well—but he stuck by me, and he brought me through. Any of you might have done it, but none of you cared enough for me, and yet I’m a business man, and I’ve got some property. How anypoorfellow down in the mud is ever to get up again, in such a place, I don’t see; and yet Barton’s as good a town as I ever touch at.”
The interest of the meeting was departing, so were the attendants; but the Reverend Timotheus Brown limped forward and exclaimed:
“Hear, then, the conclusion of the whole matter: ‘Not every one that sayeth Lord, Lord, shall inheritthe kingdom of heaven, but him that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.’ There has been a blessed change wrought in this town within a year, and work has done it all. He who taught us to say ‘Our Father,’ made of every man his brother’s keeper, and no amount of talk can undo what He did. A few men in our midst have recognized their duty and have done it, or are doing it; most of them, among them him who addresses you, have learned that the beginning is the hardest part of the work, and that the laborer receives his hire, though never in the way in which he expects it. Much remains to be done, not only in raising the fallen, but in reforming the upright; and, to get a full and fair view of the latter, there is no way so successful as to go to work for others.”
Squire Tomple announced that the meeting was still open for remarks; but, no one else availing themselves of the privilege offered, the evening closed with a spirited medley from the brass band. Not every one was silent and dismal, however; as the church emptied, Tomple, Bunley, Crupp, Wedgewell, Brown, and the other pastors came down from the platform, and were met at the foot of the steps by Baguss and Deacon Jones, and there was a generalhand-shaking. Tom Adams stood afar off, looking curiously and wistfully at the party, noticing which, Parson Wedgewell danced excitedly up to him, and dragged him into the circle; there Tom received a greeting which somehow educated him, in two or three minutes, to a point far beyond any that his head or heart had previously reached. Then Fred Macdonald, who had intended to avoid any action which might seem to make him one of the “old fellows” of the village, suddenly lost his head in some manner which he could not explain, and hurried off, caught Sam Crayme’s arm, and destroyed such reputation as remained to the captain along the river, by bringing the enterprising navigator into such a circle as he had never entered before, but in which he soon found himself as much at home as if he had been born there. Others, too—not many in number, to be sure—but representing most of the soul Of the village, straggled timidly up to the group, and were informally admitted to what was not conventionally a love-feast, but approached nearer to one than any formal gathering could have done.
Barton has never since known a monster temperance meeting; but the few righteous men whodwell therein have proved to their own satisfaction, and that of certain one-time wretches, that, in a successful temperance movement, the reform must begin among those who never drink.