DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY I ) Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/curseofdrink01shaw A BOOK DESIGNED TO AWAKEN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE The Curse of Drink OR. Stories of Hell’s Commerce A Mighty Array of True and Interesting Stories and Incidents, Striking Articles, Touching Home Scenes and Tales of Tender Pathos, all Thrilling with Graphic Details and Eloquent Language of the Fearful Consequences of the CURSE OF DRINK by JOHN G. WOOLEY, JOHN P. St. JOHN, ELI PERKINS, CHAS. M. SHELDON, DWIGHT L. MOODY. CHAUNCEY DEPEW, R. A. TORREY, SAM JONES. HENRY WARD BEECHER, JOHN B. GOUGH. THEO. L. CUYLER, ADA MELVILLE SHAW, T. DeWITT TALMAGE, L. A. BANKS. GEN. FRED GRANT. GEN. SHERIDAN, FRANK BEARD, RUDYARD KIPLING. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. WENDELL PHILLIPS, and many others. Also containing hundreds of Pointed Paragraphs, Inspiring and Stirring Temperance Poems and Songs portra)ang tho evils of the Liquor Habit Edited by Elton R. Shaw Special Introduction by SAMUEL DICKIE Preadenl of Albion CoDege» Albion, Michigan, twelve years Chairman Prohibition Parly National Committee FULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH HALF-TONES AND TEXT ENGRAVINGS BY CELEBRATED ARTISTS <8I)jnrl?ht, 1909, by Eiton K. SSi'' Copyright. 1910 by ELTON a. SHAW I /Is 5 s To My Wife THIS BOOK Is Affectionately Dedicated The past is a story of progress, Yet the pessimist always lives on; He sees the hard problems before us And. thinks his whole duty is done. Our world has always had problems. And the need of reform is not old; For we learn from the pages behind us That the past has the future foretold. An age of sad moral stagnation Was the time of, the life of St. Paul. And yet all his glorious achievements Have helped and inspired us all. We read of the great work of Luther When the whole church itself seemed betrayed. But yet by his great reformation Was true Christianity saved. i Our nation wa.s founded in freedom. The hope of our great human race. And yet in our few years of history Oppression has held a strong place. Ah. sad is the story of slavery. That deepest dyed ^urse of our land; But true to conviction and fearless Did QUr brave abolitionist stand. The struggle came on and in sorrow Did millions forfeit their life. But a race was free and a Union saved Arid a pause in tKe nation’s strife. All hall! to the men of conviction. VVho are braye to step into, the strife, And blazen the path for the great reforms At the peril of their life. Another reform is now calling For qien.who are willing to fight. For those who are true and courageous. To b'&ttie again for the right. Each year a full hundred thousand Are dying in awful disgrace. All around and about us they perish And their sons are taking their place. But again the old oessimist answers. As he enters upon the sad scene And pleads in the name of freedom. As he steps from behind the dark screen: “Prohibition never car| prohibit. We must limit and regulate; And so lessen the number of victims Going down to the drunkard’s fate.” The way to reform is to license. To charge five hundred a year. And so Uncle Sam will be partner In dispensing the whiskey and beer. But the work of reform is fast growing. To save money and morals and men 'i The flag of the free must be stainless And the bound must be set free again. f Our league with hell must- be hi^oken. For a dollar of revenue ' We’ll no longer destroy our children i And peace and prosperity too. f Too long we’ve been cowed into silence I Concerning this national sin. Allowing our peonJe to perish Because the foe lurketh within. f Our temperance hosts are advancing. I They’re fighting for God and the right. The rum power is now fast retreating [^od victory’s already ii^^ight. , E. R, Shaw, PREFACE There is no need to say much by way of preface to this book. The character of the work is so fully described by the title page and the table of contents that little remains to be added to give the readers a clear idea of the nature and purpose of the work. We offer no apology for adding one more volume to the many books dealing with the great temperance reform, for we believe that this has a place distinct from all others, and that it will meet a demand that has never been more urgent than at the present time. There are many excellent books dealing with the history of this reform movement and with the economic and theoretical sides of the question ; but no book of stories, incidents or poems has yet been published. The many able books and annual prohibition hand-books have done a great work in giving information to people already interested in the reform, but it must be admitted by all that they are read largely by reformers and Christian people who already realize that the liquor traffic is Hell’s Commerce and that its overthrow is the greatest problem before the American people. Such people are already engaged, to some extent at least, in the work of bringing about the downfall of this curse of our country. This book is designed to aid all engaged in this work, but has also another purpose quite as important. The attitude of the newspapers is better than it has ever been in the past, but secular newspapers never have and never will corne out and give their columns to such stories and incidents as these which will appeal to the heart and soul. The religious press is doing a noble work in this line, but religious papers go only in the homes of church mem- bers. Even there they are limited. Few families have more than one or two. religious papers. The subscription book reaches a new field, and a book of this nature will find its way into homes where it is much needed. Again, the book is needed to reach the youth of our land in their homes. Many people advance the theory that knowledge of evil should be kept front the young — that ignorance is the best guarantee of inno- cence. The sad testimony of thousands proves that this is a fallacy. In ignorance lies the greatest danger. One of the greatest causes of the prohibition wave during the last few years has been the educative forces that have been at work for the last forty or fifty years. The teaching in the schools of the effect of alcohol upon the system has had VII VIII PREFACE great results. A new generation has grown up and this early training has not been forgotten. This book of stories, interesting incidents and poems will be read by the young as well as the older ones, and is bound to create a sentiment that will be worked out in later years. The book is therefore intended to supplement the work of the Temperance columns in religious periodicals, and it is hoped that its nature and character will make it appeal to people who are not reached by the historical, economic and other theoretical books, or by the religious press. We do not mean to imply by this, that the book is intended to appeal to the emotions only. These stories, incidents and poems give much information and deal with all phases of the liquor problem. In collecting the matter for this book, we have tried to avoid any- thing that did not appear to be perfectly reliable and true to life. We have given the name of the author as well as the periodical in as many cases as we have been able to do so. Many of the sketches and stories are true, and in choosing fiction, we have chosen what we believe will help to portray the traffic in its true light. It must be remem - bered that there are some things that cannot be exaggerated. No news- paper reporter has ever yet been able in his description to overdraw a real cyclone, an earthquake or a storm at sea. No person has ever been able to exaggerate the slimy squalor and crime of our slimiest slum.s in our great cities, and it must be admitted by all who are familiar with the awful conditions and crime and misery traceable to the liquor traffic, that these stories and shorter sketches are not overdrawn in the least. Some of the accounts narrated have come under our persona! knowledge ; others have been written expressly for this book, and others have been selected from hundreds of periodicals and other sources to which we have had access during the last seven or eight years. The pointed paragraphs have been gathered from various sources and are what we consider to be only the very best that have been pub- lished. We have given credit in as many cases as possible, but have been unable to do this with a large number of them, inasmuch as the papers do not give the authors of such short sentences. We believe that these will be valuable to temperance lecturers and other workers. Surely, they cannot but help to be beneficial to all readers, We believe that there is much need of such a collection of songs as this book contains. Various books and booklets of temperance songs have been published, but the tunes are new, or at least unfamiliar to PREFACE IX most people. People are slow to take up new tunes, and hence this form of agitation in churches and other congregations has never proven as successful as it should be. We have selected songs to be sung with patriotic and a few other well-known airs. We believe that audiences will join heartily in the singing of these words to such tunes, and can furnish booklets at a very small price for such occasions. It is the hope of the publishers that these songs will be sung in the homes and taught to the children. Such a practice cannot help but have a lasting influence. Many of the stories, incidents and poems are published in tract form by the publishers of this book, who will furnish list and prices on application. We desire to acknowledge our indebtedness to President Dickie for his introduction ; to our parents and others for their aid in the com- pilation and proof-reading of the work ; to the various papers for their kindness in loaning us cuts ; to other papers giving us permission to reproduce their illustrations and for information given us from the offices of the various temperance organizations. That this book may awaken a greater interest and create deeper conviction that will be worked out in the agitation now already so prevalent for the overthrow of the liquor traffic, is the prayer of the publishers. INTRODUCTION The book that Mr. Shaw is putting before the public needs no lengthy introduction. The temperance question is still a very live question and will continue to interest men and women of all classes for years to come. The reform movement which demands the entire sup- pression of the traffic in and manufacture of intoxicating bev- erages has traveled a long and sometimes an uncertain road, but it now seems to be nearing the goal which has all along been its objective point. Gradually an increasing number of our best citizens are coming to see that the liquor traffic has no right to exist, that it is evil and only evil and that continually, and that it meets no innocent need of human life, that it creates no values, that it absorbs great values, that it robs the butcher and the grocer and the dry goods dealer, that it is a pirate on the high seas of commerce, a fraud and a robber everywhere, that it breaks hearts and ruins lives and curses and blights and damns all who come in contact with it. The economic, the political and the social ills growing out of the sale and use of intoxicants have forced upon the people the necessity of giving increased attention to the exter- mination of the traffic. This book contains many true stories of drink’s awful tragedies and gives in brief and pointed paragraphs the pithy XI XII INTRODUCTION utterances of many men and women who have put their lives into the struggle for the overthrow of a giant wrong. I sincerely hope and confidently believe that the wide circulation of the items here' compiled will contribute in no small degree to the right side of the controversy for the out- lawry of the world’s greatest wrong, the licensed licLuor traffic. V Albion, Mich., Aug. 26, 1^09. CONTENTS PART I-STORIES Page Story of a Little Life. 19 The Bridal Wine-Cup 22 The Old Temperance Lecturer — . 24 The Voice of the Trumpet 30 A Three-fold Victory 40 An Angel in a Salo'on 46 Captain Ned and the Dragon 50 Little Jim S3 Janie Elliott’s Christmas 59 Saved by a Telephone Message 64 The Faith of Hetty Ria 68 Aunt Margaret’s Story 72 Tom M’Hardy’s Battlements 78 The Saloon at the Settlement 83 The Voice of the Pilot 92 At the Stroke of Nine 106 Tom’s Temperance Lecture 108 The Spectral Inn-Keeper 112 Liquor’s Deadly Work 119 The Driver’s Story 123 A Scrap of Brown Paper 124 Experience of Col. S. E. Hadley. . .127 Anton Vester’s Revenge 130 The Cost of One Drink 136 The Company He Kept 139 Roger Carville’s Atonement 143 The Pauper Woman’s Speech 156 You Never Told Us 158 What Came to Dilly’s House 160 The Widow and the Judge 163 A Bottle of Tears 166 The Standardf-Bearer 169 Little Bridget 172 Married to a Drunkard 174 Allen Bancroft’s Pledge 176 Mrs. Clapsaddle’s Experience with Stufflie’s Salted Whiskey 179 Handicapped 185 A Paying Result 191 Timmy Flannigan and His Promo- tion 198 Rebellion of “Front No. 3” 201 His Own Way 204 The Saloon-Keeper’s Daughter, .. .206 “Puff” The Engineer 212 Jimmie’s Account 216 For the Sake of Jimmy 219 Tow-Head 224 How His Easter Came 228 Aunt Lizzie’s Prayer Answered. . . .236 Page Why I Destroyed the Card. 241 Unrolling the Spool 243 The Lawyer’s Story 245 What One Boy Did 247 A Helpmeet for Him 249 The Story of “Old Wiesman” 255 A Saloon-Keeper’s Plea 258 Eli Perkins Joins a Drinking Club. 261 What a Tremendous Price 263 Why the Janitor Was Not Dis- charged 266 When Billy Visited the Mayor 269 How Jimmy Kept Christmas 271 When the Barracks Went Dry. . . .274 A Fateful New Year 280 Granny Hobart’s Easter 286 Who Pays It 290 PARTII-INGDENTS Only a Vote 303 New Shoes 304 “I’ll Never Steal Again If Father Kills Me for It” 306 What Became of Them 309 His Drink Cure 309 Just One Drink 310 The Tearless Handkerchief 311 It Saves the Boys 312 Jack and His Hard Lump 313 The Work of a Saloon 314 “Papa Made Me Drunk” 316 Gospel Temperance 316 Waiting for His Drunken Mother. .317 Her Unique Definition of Teetotal- ism 318 Brave Bill and His Enemy M8 A Reply to the Moderate Drinker. .319 Sailors of the Maine 319 A Good Judge of Whisky 320 A Pathetic Story 321 Broke His Pledge 322 A Five-Dollar Investment 323 The Moderate Drinking Habit His Ruin 326 Change Your Hitching Post 328 A Girl Drunkard 329 Who’s to Blame i [ .331 The Saloon-Keeper and His c’hiid.’331 That Boy 333 Jim’s Practical Address .......... .334 Did Not Like the Crowd 335 The Engineer’s Remedy 336 XIV CONTENTS Page The Rum-Seller’s Dream * . . .337 Ingersoll’s and Buckley’s View of a Whiskey Bottle 338 Closed on Account of Death 339 Stopped the Train Three Times... 341 The Saloon 342 Drinking Up Farms 342 A Temperance-Coat 343 The Bold Apprentice 343 Jack and His Shipmates 344 Who Killed the Boy? 345 The Root Beer Fraud 346 Jamaica Ginger 347 A Woman’s Estimate 348 Saved His Hand 349 Those Who Drink Are Dead 350 What Drink Did 350 Bad Company 351 Not Worth the Price 351 Oh, Thou Cursed Drink! 352 A Wife Became an Open Book... 354 Diary of a Rum Seller 354 The License Plan .355 Your Boy Among the Possibilities. 356 Liquid' Bread 356 Wanted; A Bartender 357 A Soldier’s Story 358 How the Saloon Was Closed 358 Rescued Men 360 What Ruins Girls 361 The Rum Seller’s Equivalent. .... .362 Advertisement of Rum -Voting Churches 364 The Light Wine Fallacy 365 Loved' and Lost 367 Our Civilization for Savages 369 The Most Dangero'us Tempters. . .369 Could Not Be Bought 370 A Surgeon’s Temperance .372 Preaching in Prison 372 When the Unexpected Happened. .374 A Father’s Responsibility 376 Over a Glass of Wine 376 More of Whiskey’s Work 378 John G. Woolley’s Conversion ^80 In the Dives of St. Louis 381 Why He Swore Off A Lesson of Pathos from the Po- lice Court _ 384 A Straight Transaction . . • Fermented Wine at the Sacrament.386 Pathetic Case of Oscar B. Byor. . .387 Robert Jolley’s Tragedy 38V Drank No More Tears 3»y Jonathan Rigdon’s Monument 390 Page A Touching Letter 392 The Captain’s Method' 393 The Liquor Dealer’s Diary 393 Who Is the Criminal? 395 Whose Fault? 396 His Mother’s Crusade 397 The Twin Evils 398 More Insane Soldiers 398 A Tramp’s Speech 399 A Good Investment 400 Hand Over the Reins 401 Hurrying Hellward 402 Alcoholism' in Children 402 Saved by a Kind Word 403 Quaker’s Temperance Lecture 404 A Castor Oil Treat 404 A Young Business Man’s Reforma- tion 405 An Ill-Fated Sleighride 405 The Lawyer’s Lesson 406 The Bartender’s Reformation 407 Why He Refused 408 The Elephant and Python 408 Boy Wanted 409 A Strong Argument 410 A Little Indulgence and What Came of It 410 The Last Words of a Drunkard. . .411 The Beginning and the End 413 The Saloon-Keeper 413 The First Glass 415 “My Guests Touch No Wine” 416 Sheridan and His Son 417 The Oppressor 417 The Little Shoes 419 A Promise to a Mother 420 “We Played Cards and Drank Wine” 421 A Drunkard’s Will 422 They Had Been There 422 Mr. Gladstone’s Temperance Work.423 The Saloon and Children 424 Sunshine or Shadow 425 Bottles Make Rags 425 A Word About a Drop 426 Flavored With Brandy 426 Be Not Deceived 427 The Commander’s Placards 428 What’s Your Boy Worth 428 Keep the Pledge 430 “What It Feeds On” 431 A Village Disgrace ■432 The Serpent of Drink 432 Why Kipling Quit Drinking Beer. 433 Gen. Fred Grant on Drink 434 CONTENTS XV Page Wilson Whisky 436 Correspondence Between the Rum Seller and the Devil 436 “New York’s Wildest Orgy” 439 What Whiskey Made of a Father. .441 Story of a Jackknife 442 Playing the Fool 442 The Cost of a Boy 443 A Mother’s Influence 443 The Dying Child’s Prayer for Her Drunken Father 444 Why He Quit Drinking 445 “I’ll Take What Father Takes”... 445 A Sharp Rejoinder 446 Nerveless Drinkers 447 They Hold the Key 448 Conquered by a Drinking Cup 449 A Policeman’s Testimony 449 Whiskey’s Deadly Work 449 Alcohol Ahead 452 Wanted: Boys for Customers 452 Who Am I? Whisky, “That’s All”. 453 The Item That Told' 454 A Horrible Idea 454 That Sobered Me 455 Don’t Marry a Drunkard 456 Twin Demons — A Colloquy 456 The Great Destroyer 458 How a Drunkard Was Saved 461 How to Make a Good Boy 461 Christian (?) Civilization, Mission- aries and Rum 462 The Brandy Peach 462 “Am I to Blame?” 464 A Correct Answer 464 Remorse and Retribution 464 The Closing Scene 465 An Indian Temperance Pledge 466 A Mother’s Struggle 468 Plague-Spots 469 Saved by Reverence for the Bible. .469 How Liquor Affects the Heart. . . .470 Hogs Worth More Than Men!. . . .471 Benjamin Franklin’s Experience .. .472 Report of a Government Investiga- tion 473 Largest Business Men Don’t Drink. 473 Discharged for Entering a Store.. 474 A Bank’s Temperance Rule 475 A Physician’s Blunder 475 Sensible Words from a Senior 476 Moral Suasion or Prohibtion, Which Shall It Be? 477 And Whiskey Did It 478 The Struggle With Appetite 480 Charles Lamb to Young Men 482 Page PARTin POINTED PARAGRAPHS Pointed Paragraphs 485 to 504 PART IV -POEMS The Saloon-Keeper’s Cash Drawer Bell 507 “Whiskey, That’s All” 508 Rum’s Maniac 512 The Drunkard’s Daughter 513 “If” 513 Blood-Money 514 The Shadow 515 The Drunkard’s Wife 515 Under the License Law 515 Asked and Answered 516 A Voice from the Poorhduse 517 The Sign Board 517 The Part They Do Not Tell M8 The Jolly Distiller 518 Can It Be Right? 518 A Boy Wanted 519 The Drunkard’s Fate 519 “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous” 519 “I Have Drunk My Last Glass”... 519 That’s So 520 Who Is to Blame? 521 Poorhouse Nan 521 The Crimson Ballot 522 Vote It Down 523 Don’t Marry a Man to Reform Him. 525 What Whiskey Will Do 523 The Saloon Bar 524 Saloon-Keeper’s Soliloquy 524 Ladies’ Entrance 525 Ode to Americans 526 The Saloon-Keeper’s Side 527 The Budweiser Brand 528 The Consumer’s Side 529 The March of the Drink Brigade. .530 PARTV-SONGS World Is Going Dry 533 The Right Shall Prevail 533 Stand Up for Temperance 533 When Rum Shall Cease to Reign.. 533 God Bless Our Cause 534 The World Is Growing Bright. .. .534 Storm the Fort for Prohibition 534 Hurrah for Prohibition 534 The Great Movement 535 When We Vote the Saloons Out. .535 XVI CONTENTS Page No License Shall Triumph 535 The Temperance Wave 536 No License Forever .536 Say, Voters, Are You Ready? 536 Temperance Folks, Wake Up 536 Come and Join Our Army 537 Our Country 537 We’ll Defend Our Homes 537 Voting for No License 537 No License Is Our Theme 538 A Day of Wrath 538 Hold the Fort for No License; . . . .538 Hail Columbia 538 Mourning at the Old Hearthstone. 539 From the Mountains to the Sea. . . .539 Voter’s Consecration ,539 A Temperance Campaign Song. . . .539 Our Coming Banner 540 Page Sweeping the Land with Prohibi- tion 540 Evils of Intemperance 540 Our Battle Cry No License 541 The Temperance Banner 541 A Call to Workmen 541 The No-License Banner 542 The Good Time Coming 542 Light of the Truth Is Breaking. . .542 Storm the Fort for No License. . . .543 Brave Temperance Men 543 We’ll Do and Dare 543 Crush the Monster 543 Dare We License? 544 Prayer for Light and Help 544 Dixie Land for Temperance 544 Battle Cry of Temperance 544 Temperance Doxology 544 “Go for my -wandering boy tonight, Go search for him where you -will; And bring him to me in all his plight, And tell him I love him still.” THE STORY OF “JIMMY’S ACCOUNT.’’ “This is the last time I’ll ever cross this threshold — I’m going to give mj boy a fair chance — you ’F- never get another cent from me.’’ See Page 218. PART 1 STORIES KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE. It is a positive fact, acknowledged by all who have studied the matter that if the saloon is driven out, vice cannot endure because the saloon is its greatest feeder. “What is your name?” asked the teacher. “Tommy Brown, ma’am,” answered the boy. He was a pathetic little figure, with a thin face, hollow eyes and pale cheeks, that plainly told of insufficient food. He wore a suit of clothes evidently made for someone else. They were patched in places with cloth of different colors. His shoes were old, his hair cut square in the neck in the unpracticed manner in which women sometimes cut boys’ hair. It was a bitter day, yet he wore no overcoat, and his bare hands were red with the cold. “How old are you. Tommy?” “Nine years old come next April. I’ve learned to r ad at home, and I can cipher a little.” “Well, it is time for you to begin school. Why have you never come before?” The boy fumbled with a cap in his hands, and did not reply at once. It was a ragged cap with frayed edges, and the original color of the fabric no man could tell. Presently he said, “I never went to school ’cause — ’cause — well, mother takes in washin’, and’ she couldn’t s-pare me. But Sissy is big enough now to help, an’ she minds the baby besides.” It was not quite time for school to begin. All around the teacher and the new scholar stood the boys that belonged in the room. While he was making his confused explanation some of the boys laughed, and one of them called out, “Say, Tommy, where are your cuffs and collars?” And another sang out, “You must sleep in the rag-bag at night by the looks of your clothes !” Before the teacher could quiet them, another boy had volunteered the information that the father of the l;oy was “old Si Brown, who is always as drunk as a fiddler.” The poor child looked around on his tormentors like a hunted thing. Then, before the teacher could detain him, with a suppressed cry of 20 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE misery he ran out of the room, out of the building, down the street, and was seen no more. The teacher went to her duties with a troubled heart. All day long the child’s pitiful face haunted her. She could not rid herself of the memory of it. After a little trouble she found the place where he lived, and then two kind ladies went to visit him. It was a dilapidated house. When they first entered they could scarcely discern objects, the room was so filled with the steam of the soapsuds. There were two windows, but a tall brick building adjacent shut out the light. It was a gloomy day, too, with gray, lowering clouds that forbade even the memory of sunshine. A woman stood before a wash tub. When they entered, she wiped her hands on her apron, and came forward to meet them. Once she had been pretty, but the color had gone out of her face, leaving only sharpened outlines and haggardness of expression. She asked them to sit down ; then taking a chair herself, she said, “Sissy, give me the baby.” A little girl came forward from a dark corner of the room, carrying a baby that sAe laid in its mother’s lap, a lean and sickly-looking baby, with the same hollow eyes that Tommy had. “Your baby doesn’t look strong,” said one of the ladies. “No, ma’am, she ain’t very well. I have to w'ork hard, and I expect it affects her,” “Where is your little Tommy?” asked one of the visitors. “He is in there in the trundle-bed,” replied the mother. “Is he sick?” “Yes’m, and the doctor thinks he ain’t gojng to get well.” At this the tears ran down her thin and faded cheeks. “What is the matter with him?” “He was never very strong, and he’s had to work too hard, carrying water and helping me lift the wash tubs and things like that. Of late he has been crazy to go to school. I never could spare him till this winter. He thought if he could get a little education he’d be able to take care of Sissy and baby and me. So I fixed up his clothes as well as I could, and last week he started. I was afraid the boys would laugh at him, but he thought he could stand it if they did. I stood at the door and watched him going. I can never forget how the little fellow looked,” she con- tinued, the tears streaming down her face. “His patched-up clothes, his STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 21 poor little anxious look. He turned around to me as he left the yard, and said, ‘Don’t worry, mother; I won’t mind what the boys say.’ Rut he did mind. It wasn’t an hour before he was back again. I believe the child’s heart was just broke. I thought mine was broke years ago. If it was, it was broken over again that day. I can stand most anything myself, but oh! I can’t bear to see my children suffer.” Here she broke down in a fit of convulsive weeping. The little girl came up to her quietly and stole a thin little arm around her mother’s neck. “Don’t cry, mother,” she whispered, “don’t cry.” The woman made an effort to check her tears, and she wiped her eyes. As soon as she could speak with any degree of calmness, she continued : “Poor little Tommy cried all day; I couldn’t comfort him. He said It was no use trying to do anything. Folks would only laugh at him for being a drunkard’s little boy. I tried to comfort him before my hiisband came home. I told him his father would be mad if he saw him crying. But it w^n’t any use. Seemed like he could not stop. His father came and saw him. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been drinking. He ain’t a bad man when he is sober. I hate to tell it, but he whipped Tommy and the child fell and struck his head. I suppose he’d ’a’ been sick anyway. But oh ! my poor little boy. My sick, suffering child !” she cried. “How can they let men sell a thing that makes the innocent suffer so?” One of the ladies went to the bed. There he lay, poor little defense- less victim. He lived in a Christian land, in a country that takes great care to pass laws to protect sheep, and diligently legislates over its game. Would that the children were as precious as brutes and birds ! Would that the law was more jealous of little waifs’ rights ! His face was flushed, and the hollow eyes were bright. There was a long, purple mark on his temple. He put up one little wasted hand to cover it, while he said, “Father wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been drinking.” Then, in his queer, piping voice, weak with sickness, he half whispered, “I’m glad I’m going to die. I’m too weak ever to help mother anyhow. Up in heaven the artgels ain’t going to call me the drunkard’s child, and make fun of my clothes. And maybe, if I’m right up there where God is, I can keep reminding him of mother; and he will make it easier for her.” He turned his head feebly on his pillow, and then said, in a lower 22 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE tone, “Some day — they ain’t going — to let saloons — keep open. But I’m afraid — poor father — will be dead — before then.” Then he shut his eyes from weariness. The next morning the sun shone in on the dead face of little Tommy. — Our Young Folks. THE BRIDAL WINE-CUP. “Pledge with wine, pledge with wine,” cried the young and thought- less Harvey Wood. “Pledge with wine,” ran through the bridal party. The beautiful bride grew pale ; the decisive hour had come. She pressed her white hands together, and the leaves of the bridal wreath trembled on her brow ; her breath came quicker, and her heart beat wilder. “Yes, Marion, lay aside your scruples for this once,” said the judge in a low tone, going toward his daughter; “the company expects it. Do not so seriously infringe upon the rules of etiquette. In your own home do as you please ; but in mine, for this once, please me.” Pouring a brimming cup, they held it, with tempting smiles, toward Marion. She was very pale, though composed; and her hand shook not, as smiling back, she gracefully accepted the crystal tempter, and raised it to her lips. But scarcely had she done so when every hand was arrested by her piercing exclamation of “O, how terrible !” “What is it?” cried one and all, thronging together, for she had slowly carried the glass at arm’s length, and was fixedly regarding it. “Wait,” she answered, while a light, which seemed inspired, shone from her dark eyes — “wait, and I will tell you. I see,” she added slowly, pointing one finger at the sparkling ruby liquid, “a sight that beggars all description; and yet listen; I will paint it for you, if I can. It is a lovely spot ; tall mountains, crowned with verdure, rise in awful sublimity around ; a river runs through, and bright flowers grow to the water’s edge. But there a group of Indians gather; they flit to and fro. with something like sorrow upon their dark brows. And in the midst lies a manly form, but his cheek, how deathly! his eyes wild with the fitful fire of fever. One friend stands before him — nay, I should say, kneels ; for see, he is pillowing that poor head upon his breast. “O ! the high, holy-looking brow. Why should death mark it, and he so young? Look, how he throws back the damp curls! See him clasp his hands? Hear his thrilling shrieks for life! IMark how he clutches STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE at the form of his companion, imploring to be saved ! O ! hear him call piteously his father’s name, see him twine his fingers together as he shrieks for his sister — his only sister, the twin of his soul, weeping for him in his distant native land. “See !” she exclaimed, while the bridal party shrank back, the untasted wine trembling in their faltering grasp, and the judge fell overpowered upon his seat — “see! his arms are lifted to heaven — he prays — how wildly I for mercy; hot fever rushes through his veins. He moves not; his eyes are set in their sockets; dim are their piercing glances ; in vain his friend whispers the name of father and sister — death is there. Death — and no soft hand, no gentle voice to soothe him. His head sinks back; one convulsive shudder — he is dead I” A groan ran through the assembly ; so vivid was her description, so unearthly her look, so inspired her manner, that what she described seemed actually to have taken place then and there. They noticed, also, that the bridegroom hid his face in his hands, and was weeping. “Dead !” she repeated again, her lips quivering faster and faster, and her voice more broken ; “and there they scoop him a grave ; and there, without a shroud, they lay him down in that damp, reeking earth, the only son of a proud father, the only idolized brother of a fond sister. There he lies, my father’s son, my own twin brother, a victim to this deadly poison. Father!” she exclaimed, turning suddenly, while the tears rained down her beautiful cheeks, “father, shall I drink it now?” The form of the old judge was convulsed with agony. He raised not his head, but in a smothered voice he faltered : “No, no, my child; no!” She lifted the glittering goblet, and letting it suddenly fall to the floor, it was dashed in a thousand pieces. Many a tearful eye watched her movement, and instantaneously every wine glass was transferred to the marble table on which it had been prepared. Then, as she looked at the fragments of crystal, she turned to the company, saying, “Let no friend hereafter who loves me tempt me 'to peril my soul for wine. Not firmer are the everlasting hills than my resolve, God helping me, never to touch or taste the poison cup. And he to whom I have given my hand, who watched over my brother’s dying form in that last solemn hour, and buried the dear wanderer there by the river in that land of gold, will, I trust, sustain me in that resolve.” His glistening eyes, his sad, sweet smile, were her answer. The 24 STORIES ‘OF HELL’S COMMERCE judge left the room, and when, an hour after, he returned, and with a more subdued manner took part in the entertainment of the bridal guests, no one could fail to read that he had determined to banish the enemy forever from his princely home. — “Touching Incidents and Re- markable Answers to Prayer.” THE OLD TEMPERANCE LECTURER. I shall never forget the commencement of the temperance reforma- tion. I was a child at the time, of some ten years of age. Our home had every comfort, and my kind parents idolized me, their only child. Wine was often on the table, and both my father and mother gave it to me in the bottom of the morning glass. On Sunday, at church, a startling announcement Avas made to our people. I knew nothing of its purport, but there was much whispering among the men. The pastor said that on the next evening there would be a meeting and an address on the evils of intemperance in the use of alcoholic liquors. He expressed himself ignorant of the meeting, and could not say what course it would be best to pursue in the matter. The subject of the meeting came up at our table after service, and I questioned my father about it with all the curious earnestness of a child. The whispers and words which had been dropped in my hearing clothed the whole affair with great mystery to me, and I was all earnestness to learn the strange thing. My father merely said it was a scheme to unite the church and State. I well remember how the people appeared as they came in, seeming to wonder what kind of an exhibition was coming off. In the corner was the tavern-keeper, and around him a number of his friends. For an hour the people of the place continued to come in, till there was a fair household. All were curiously watching the door, and apparently wondering what would appear next. The parson stole in and took his seat behind a pillar in the gallery, as if doubtful of the propriety of being in the church at all. Two men finally came in and went forward to the altar and took their seats. All eyes were fixed upon them, and a general stillness pre- vailed throughout the house. The men were unlike in appearance, one being short, thick-set in his build, and the other tall and well formed. The younger had the manner STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 25 and dress of a clergyman, a full, round face, and a quiet, good-natured look as he leisurely looked around his audience. But my childish interest was all in the old man. His broad, deep chest, and unusual height looked giant-like as he strode up the aisle. His hair was white, his brow deeply scarred with furrows, and around his handsome mouth, lines of calm and touching sadness. His eyes were black and restless, and kindled as the tavern-keeper uttered a low jest. His lips were compressed, and a crimson flush went and came over his pale cheek. One arm was off above the elbow, and there was a wide scar above his right eye. The younger finally arose and stated the object of the meeting, and asked if there were a clergyman present to open with a prayer. Our pastor kept his seat, and the speaker himself made a short address; at the conclusion calling upon any one to make remarks. The pastor arose under the gallery and attacked the position of the speaker, using the arguments which I have often heard since, and concluded by denouncing those engaged in the movement as meddlesome fanatics who wished to break up the time-honored usages of good society and injure the business of respectable men. At the conclusion of his remarks the tavern-keeper and his friends got up a cheer, and the current of feeling was evidently against the strangers and their plan. While the pastor was speaking the old man had leaned forward and fixed his dark eyes upon him, as if to catch every word. As the pastor took his seat the old man arose — his tall form tower- ing in its symmetry, and his chest swelling as he inhaled the breath through his thin, dilated nostrils. To me, at that time, there was some- thing awe-inspiring and grand in the appearance of the old man as he stood, his eyes full upon the audience, his teeth shut hard, and a silence like that of death throughout the church. He bent his gaze upon the tavern-keeper, and that peculiar eye lingered and kindled for half a moment. The scar grew red upon his forehead, and beneath the heavy brows his eyes glittered and glowed like a serpent’s ; the tavern-keeper quailed before that searching glance, and I felt a relief when the old man withdrew his gaze. In a moment more he seemed lost in thought, and then, in a low and tremulous tone, he commenced. There was a depth in that voice, a thrilling sweetness and pathos, which riveted every heart in the church before the first period had been 26 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE rounded. My father’s attention had become fixed upon the eyes of the speaker with an interest I had never before seen him exhibit. I can but briefly remember the substance of what the old man said, though the scene is as vivid before me as any I have ever witnessed. “My friends ! I am a stranger in your village, and I trust I may call you friends. A new star has arisen, and there is hope in the dark night that hangs like a pall of gloom over our country.” With a thrilling depth of voice the speaker continued: “Oh, God, Thou who lookest with compassion upon the most erring of earth’s frail children, I thank thee that a brazen serpent has been lifted up on which a drunkard can look and be healed. That beacon has burst out upon the darkness that surrounds him, which shall guide back to honor and heaven the bruised and weary wanderer.” It is strange what power there is in some voices in every tone, and, before I knew why, a tear dropped on my hand, followed by others, like rain-drops. The old man brushed one from his eye, and continued : “Men and Christians, you have just heard that I am a vagrant and fanatic. I am not. As God knows my own sad heart, I came here just to do good. Hear me and be just. “I am an old man standing alone at the end of life’s journey. There is a deep sorrow in my heart and tears in my eyes. I have journeyed over a dark, beaconless ocean, and all life’s brightest hopes have been wrecked. I am without friends, home or kindred on earth, and look with longing to the rest of the night of death. Without friends, kindred or home ! I was not once so.” No one could stand the touching pathos of the old man. I noticed a tear trembling on the lid of my father’s eye, and I no longer felt ashamed of my own. “No, my friends, it was not once so. Away over the dark waves which have wrecked hopes, there is a blessed light of happiness and home. I reach again convulsively for the shrines of household idols that once were mine ; now mine no more.” The old man seemed looking away through vacancy upon some bright vision, his lips apart and his finger extended. I involuntarily turned in the direction in which it was pointed, dreading to see some shadow invoked by its magic moving. “I once had a mother. With her old heart crushed with sorrow she went down to the grave. I once had a wife — as fair angel-hearted STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 27 creature as ever smiles in an earthly home. Her eye was as mild' as a summer’s sky, and- her heart as faithful and true as ever guarded and cherished a husband’s love. Her blue eyes grew dim as the floods of sorrow washed away their brightness, and the living heart was wrung till every fibre was broken. I once had a noble, a bright and beautiful boy, but he was driven out from the ruins of his home, and my old heart yearns to know if he yet lives. I once had a babe, a sweet, tender blossom ; but those hands destroyed it, and it lives with One who loveth children. “Do not be startled, friends — I am not a murderer in the common acceptance of the term. Yet there is a light in my evening sky. A spirit mother rejoices over the return of her prodigal son. The wife smiles upon him who turns back to virtue and honor. The angel child visits me at nightfall, and I feel the hallowing touch of a tiny palm upon my feverish cheek. My brave boy, if he yet lives, would forgive the sorrow- ing old man for the treatment which sent him into the world, and the blow that lamed him for life. God forgive me for the ruin which I brought upon myself and mine.” He again wiped a tear from his eyes. My father watched with a strange intensity, and a countenance unusually pale and excited by some strong emotion. “I was once a fanatic and madly followed' the malign light which led me to ruin. I was a fanatic when I sacrificed my wife, children, happiness and home to the accursed demon of the bowl. I once adored the gentle being whom I wronged so deeply. “I was a drunkard. From respectability and affluence, I plunged into degradation and poverty. I dragged my family down with me. For years I saw her cheek pale, and her step grow weary. I left her alone at the wreck of her home idols and rioted at the tavern. She never com- plained, yet she and the children often went hungry for bread. “One New Year night I returned late to the hut where charity had given us a roof. She was still up, shivering over the coals. I demanded food, but she burst into tears and told me there was none. I fiercely ordered her to get some. She turned her sad eyes upon me, the tears falling fast over her pale cheek. “At this moment the child in the cradle awoke and set up a famished wail, startling the despairing mother like a serpent’s sting. “‘We have no food, James — have had none for two days. I have nothing for the baby. My once kind husband, must we starve?’ 28 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “That sad, pleading face, and those streaming eyes, and the feeble wail of the child maddened me, and 1, yes, I — struck her a fierce blow in the face, and she fell forward upon the earth. The furies of hell boiled in my bosom, and with deep intensity, as I felt I had committed a wrong. I had never struck Mary before, but now some terrible impulse bore me on, and I stooped down as well as I could in my drunken state and clinched both hands in her hair. “ ‘God have mercy,’ exclaimed my wife, as she looked up in my fiendish countenance ; ‘you will not kill us, you will not harm Willie,’ as she sprang to the cradle and grasped him in her embrace. I caught her again by the hair, and dragged her to the door, and as I lifted the latch the wind burst in with a cloud of snow. With the yell of a fiend I still dragged her on, and hauled her out in the darkness and the storm. With a loud Ha! Ha! I closed the door and turned the button, her pleading moans mingled with the wail of the blast and the sharp cry of her babe. But my work was not complete. I turned to the little bed where lay my oldest son, and snatched him from his slumbers, and, against his half-awakened struggles, opened the door and threw him out. In an agony of fear he called me by a name I was not longer fit to bear, and locked his little fingers in my side-pocket. I could not wrench that frenzied grasp away, and, with the coolness of a devil I was, I shut the door upon his arm, and with my knife severed the wrist !” The speaker ceased a moment and buried his face in his hands, as if to shut out some fearful dream, and his deep chest heaved like a storm- swept sea. My father had risen from his seat and was leaning forward his countenance bloodless, and the large drops standing out upon his brow. Chills crept back to my heart, and I wished that I was at home. The old man looked up, and I have never since beheld such mortal agony pictured upon a human face as there was on his. “It was morning when I aAvoke, and the storm had ceased, but the cold was intense. I first secured a drink of water and then I looked in the accustomed place for Mary. As I first missed her, a shadow sense of some horrible nightmare began to dawn upon mv wandering mind. I thought I had dreamed a fearful dream, but involuntarily opened the door with a shuddering dread. “As the door opened the snow burst in, followed by a fall of some- thing across the threshold, scattering the cold snow and striking the floor with a hard, sharp sound. My blood shot like red-hot arrows through STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 29 my veins, and I, rubbed my eyes to shut out the sight. It was — oh, God, how horrible! — it was my own injured Mary and her babe, frozen to ice. The ever true mother had bowed herself over the child to shield it, and had wrapped all her own clothing around it, leaving her own person stark and bare to the storm. She had placed her hair over the face of the child, and the sleet had frozen it to the white cheek. The frost was white in its half-open eyes and upon its tiny fingers. I know not what became of my brave boy.” Again the old man bowed his head and wept, and all that were in the house wept with him. In tones of low, broken-hearted pathos, the old man concluded : “I was arrested, and for long months I raved in delirium. I awoke, and was sentenced to prison for ten years, but no tortures could equal those endured in my own bosom. Oh, God, no ! I am not a fanatic ; I wish to injure no one. But, while I live, let me strive to warn others not to enter the path which has been such a dark and fearful one to me. I would see my angel wife and children beyond this vale of tears.” The old man sat down, but a spell as deep and strange as that wrought by some wizard’s breath rested upon the audience. Hearts could have been heard in their beating, and tears to fall. The old man then asked the people to sign the pledge. My father leaped from his seat and snatched at it eagerly. I had followed him as he hesitated a moment with his pen in the ink; a tear fell from the old man’s eyes upon the paper. “Sign it, young man, sign it. Angels would sign it. I would write my name ten thousand times in blood if it would bring back my loved ones.” My father wrote “Mortimer Hudson.” The old man looked, wiped his tearful eyes, and looked again, his countenance alternately flashed with red and a death-like paleness. “It is — no, it cannot be; yet how strange,” muttered the old man. “Pardon me, sir; but that is the name of my own brave boy.” My father trembled and held up his left arm, from which the hand had been severed. They looked for a moment into each other’s eyes, both reeled and gasped : “My own injured boy!” “My father!” They fell upon each other till it seemed their souls would grow and 30 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE mingle into one. There was weeping in that church, and I turned bewildered upon the streaming faces around me. “My boy !” exclaimed the old man, and kneeling down he poured out his heart in one of the most melting prayers I ever heard. The spell was broken, and all eagerly signed the pledge, slowly going to their homes, as if loath to leave the spot. The old man is dead, but the lesson he taught his grandchild on his knee as the evening sun went down without a cloud will never be forgotten. — Selected by Kentucky Patriot. THE VOICE OF THE TRUMPET. David might have turned and twisted restlessly on his bed, but he could not. There had been a time — not long since — when his mother had plentifully teased him for the tangle of bed clothes that bore daily witness to the dream-flings of healthy young limbs. Now they tossed no more. For the only son of his widowed mother, forever a helpless cripple by one of those strange providences which we misname accidents, lay quiet day after day, only the restless head and arms able to give expression to inward disquiet. It was a glorious summer morning — that perfect early summer time before the full ripening that precedes fall’s change and decay had fully set in. The small windows of the upper chamber where the )'Oung man lay admitted gentle drifts of the fragrant air. A Bible lay under his hand, but his eyes glanced, now yearningly across the fields to the mill district in the valley, now with still greater yearning toward a bur- nished object which threw out miniature sunrays from its place upon the wall. “Thinking, Davie boy?” His mother made one of her many brief visits to the chamber where the lad lay, dropping her work oftener than was profitable to their common purse. “We must have you brought downstairs on all these warm summer days.” She stood a moment looking at him, and then, with a quick movement, took down from its hook on the wall the cornet that hung there. “David !” she said earnestly, “I believe — it has just come to me — that God has still some use for your talent. Here, dear, try!” She blew imaginary specks of dust from the gleaming curves and placed the precious instrument in his hands. You did not work a whole STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 31 summer’s evenings in the neighbors’ gardens to buy that, and then work all winter out of hours and in sleeping hours to get lessons, for nothing. I know it, son ! God never does contrary things. You gave Him your love of music, dear, and gave Him your lips and your life. And He accepted them. You know, sometimes a mother is a prophet in Israel. Use your talent, Davie. You do not absolutely need legs for playing.” It takes courage to be courageous. David McNair was naturally brave. If he seemed to have given up the struggle to be somebody worth while for the Master’s sake, it was but a pause in the battle — a pause while he studied the change of base and adjusted himself to the new opposition, the new difficulties to be overcome by spirit, since he could hardly work through the flesh much any more forever, so great a part of the human frame of him being partially dead. The spirit of the brave little woman infused itself through his spirit. He put the horn to his lips, and, after a false note or two, there rang out in the little room and on out into the quiet valley beyond the cottage windows the opening bars of “The King’s Business.” It was that hymn David had played when for the first time in public he spoke for his Master “by the voice of the trumpet,” and the voice of the silver' trumpet spoke the keynote of his life: This is the message that I bring, A message angels fain would sing: “O be ye reconciled,” thus saith my Lord and King! “O be ye reconciled to God!” “Man ! But that’s a sound for sick ears !” spoke a man’s voice at the bedroom door as the cornet-voice faltered and broke, and David, wearily — for he did not gain strength lying day after day — dropped the instrument beside him. “Play on, lad! Ye’ve no need to be standin’ on end when ye can send yer voice to the ends of the earth that way!” “That’s just what I’ve been telling him,” said Mrs. McNair. “You’ll sit with him awhile, Tom? I’ve to go to the village after some groceries. It’s lonesome up here for him — we’ll be having him down in a day or two, or soon as I can get the little east room fixed up for him.” “Man! I’d lie down in yer stead,” said Tom Thompson, putting his old hat under a chair and sitting down close to the bed, “if it was given me. The drink devil couldn’t beat me then ! And you’d be out with the Army telling the good news with your silver mouth.” Tom Thompson was the village man of all trades, whose chiefest 32 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE trade was trading ot¥ his manhood and his earnings for drink. Time and again had the Salvation Army lads and lassies tried to lead the poor, habit-wrecked man to the sure rock of salvation in Christ Jesus, but always temptation conquered the new resolve — resolves made and en- deavored to be kept in human strength. David alone, whose “silver mouth” exercised something akin to a spell over poor Thompson, had still strong faith that some day Tom would be saved. Since the “acci- dent” that had lain him aside, paralyzed for life, one of his great sorrows was that no more could he follow the poor victim to the haunts of the drink-fiend and draw him home to wife and children, sometimes by persuasion, sometimes by friendly force, according to the degree of inebriety attained. “Play some more, Davie, boy ! Play you ‘King’s Business,’ ” begged Tom, who was a passionate music lover, and who, in those golden days when he courted his sweetheart with lips and hands that were not shak- ing with alcoholic disease, had Teen no mean player upon an instrument of his own. The flush of a new interest in the monotonous day mantled David McNair’s pale cheeks. Putting the cornet to his lips, he played a few bars, when Tom interrupted him. “Wait a bit — Pve an idea! Would it hurt you if I moved the bed? It’s most noon — the whistles’ll blow in a minute. If you play out of the window, the wind’s right and the men’ll hear when they come out of the mills. There ! Now play, lad, and God bless ye !” David played, and the wind was right, and the clear notes floated away and away to the not-distant mill district just as the operatives poured out of the doors. “What’s that?” said one man to another as they turned their steps hastily toward the nearest saloon for the noonday pails of beer. “It’s David McNair’s horn, or his ghost a-playin’ it. Listen! “My home is brighter far Than Sharon’s rosy plain,” hummed the speaker, not thinking how drink was despoiling the earthly home it was his to make fair by a clean manhood while he stayed below. “It’s Davie for sure. God bless the poor lad! Aw, come on, boys, let’s cut out the beer today, for his sake ! It’s often he’s told us it would do us harm. Maybe he’s right and maybe he ain’t. Anyhow, it never STORIES OF HELLOS COMMERCE 33 did him no harm to let it alone. Let’s cheat A1 Bozeman out of his nickels today !” Courtesy . New . TorkJWeekly ^ Witness *'Davi4 played, and the wind was right' “An’ gie them to David?” half sneered another. “Well, why not? He can’t look to the drum-head any more, poor 34 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE fellow, and his mother’s a widow. Why not, boys? Let’s do it today. It’s a decent thought.” The speaker, big Ross Roland, sprang to an upturned barrel as he spoke, and in two minutes more had arrested the attention and the steps of most of the stream of men setting toward’ A1 Bozeman and other dispensers of the glass that does not cheer. It took but a few clear sen- tences to make the project plain. “Tooting Davie,” as they had called him in other days, was a real object of admiration to the men of the mills. His stalwart profession for Christ, backed up by genuine manly brotherliness to every man he met, was something none of them could heartily laugh at or deny, so plainly sincere was it. As the cornet-voice again took up the strain of the hymn they knew -SO well by the oft-singing of the Army, someone started to sing. The bartenders scowled, if they did not do worse, as a chorus of men’s voices surged out upon the noontide : I am a stranger here, within a foreign land. My home is far away upon a golden strand; Ambassador to be of realms beyond the sea, I’m here on business for my King. The men needed no conductor. The up-sweep of a noble thought bore them on. They kept time to an impulse from the Spirit of Love. Someone jingled a handful of coppers in a pail. A willing hand caught it up and it passed from hand to hand. The chorus of the hymn swelled grandly, and had the wind set from the singers David could have heard. The “silver offering” dropped, not on the Army drum-head, but into the lunch pail, where beer would have been that hour but for a young man’s breath of coiirage. Mrs. McNair spoke but shaken thanks to the man who brought to the cottage door that evening, tied in a clean cotton handkerchief, the double handful of coins “for the lad.” “ ’Tain’t much, missus, but — he’d better have it than A1 Bozeman. Just tell him it’s from the men at the mills. We heard him this noon — and it done us no harm.” It is not part of this story to dwell upon the fact that the mother of David McNair had been wondering only that morning if it would be wrong to pray for money to put into some paint and wall paper for the little east room off the kitchen, where her boy would be moved in a few STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 35 days. And this offering coming unexpectedly — was it wrong to think it was an answer to the half-framed prayer? Two or three days later a delegation of his Salvation Army comrades called upon the invalid. They did not leave him long without some attention. But the King’s business for the salvation of souls called them out on long days’ endeavors, and there were those who more desperately needed their ministry than this Christian soldier, laid by from active service, but never out of the keeping care and conscious presence of his Captain. They told him the story of that meeting of the men as it had been told to them. They had come to unfold a plan that had grown out of the incident. “We have been to see the doctor. We have talked with your mother. Now we have come to you. As long as you can talk through the cornet the way you talked to the men the other day, at a distance, you can still do business for the King, but at closer range, Davie. We have prayed about it, and the Lord led us to talk to some of the bosses at the mills. If you can stand it — and the doctor says it may add years to your life — would you be willing to be carried across to the mills once or twice a v/eek at noon and play for the men? We have been wanting to begin a noon work there for several years, but the way never opened up before. The saloons are doing a deadly work — we think now we can begin a work of salvation.” David lay very still. Many thoughts crowded his quick brain. No touch of paralysis, physical or spiritual, lay there, and the golden thread that bound his thoughts into one strong, living purpose was — the King’s business. If he might but be about that ! “I seem to have little to do about it, boys ! How do you propose to carry me?” “John McDonough, the richest stockholder, said if you’d consent, the company would buy you the easiest adjustable stretcher-chair that money can buy. You could be propped up as much or as little as you can bear. You can manage it with your own hands, or you can be wheeled or car- ried. Do it?” I’ll do it!” he said, softly, with shining eyes, reaching his hand up to the bed-head, where stood his mother, too moved to speak what was in her heart. “You are a prophet, mother !” It was a wonderful summer and fall for more than one man in the 36 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE Golden Wheat Valley, where the great mills ground their snowy grist day and night for the feeding of the millions. The bosses said the best investment the company had ever made was the money put into David McNair’s wheel chair, and the best “backing” they had ever done was the countenance they had lent to the work of the Army for the men. Drink worked less havoc among the “hands.” They were worth more and needed less suspicious supervision. The noon meetings were an unprecedented success. They went beyond the supervision of the Army, and became the interest of every Christian in the community. The three churches fell into line, and people came from distant homes to hear the “silver mouth” of a crippled lad and the Gospel message voiced by earnest speakers to the great audience of men, who rang it back in their hearty singing of Gospel songs led by the “silver mouth.” The very abuse poured out upon the whole scheme by the saloons was perhaps the best gauge of the good that was being done. Not that they lost all or even most of their custom. The evil habits of life are not so soon nor so easily broken. But scores of men turned their feet away from the fatal thresholds for the noon hour at least ; many mere boys who had not yet begun the downward path were withheld by the holy influences of that summer’s work; and not a few souls were led to reconciliation with the God of their salvation and because true soldiers of the Captain, Christ Jesus. But all summer long it went hard with Tom Thompson. The very tug of the noon meetings seemed by some reversal of influence to impel him to deeper depths of indulgence. He loved David McNair almost as dearly as he loved wife and children ; for it must never be said the drunkard does not love. This man loved the “silver mouth” as passion- ately as ever, but went by roundabout ways to get beyond the range of its pure spell. There were always those who were glad to help him. Almost nothing did his drinks cost him that summer. He was good bait for Bozeman and his fellows to use to catch bigger game. “I don’t see how you can keep a-smilin’. Mis' Thompson,” said a neighbor, who suffered a similar affliction in her home, coming in to call one day. “I could not if I looked at the outside things,” Tom’s wife made answer. “But there’s a help inside. And that keeps me. Let me tell you what it is, Mrs. Carter. You need it, too, dear. I will read it to you right out of the Book, and then you will know I have it right.” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 37 From a stand near by she took an open Bible and read: “ ‘And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us ; and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.’ I know that it is His will that my Tom should be saved, for He is ‘not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’ So ‘this is the confidence’ — and confidence is not worry, Mrs. Carter — that I have in him; I have asked according to His will, and He has heard, and so I know that I have the petition, and am answered.” “Answered !” The caller pointed, almost with scorn, to the reeling man coming down the street — Tom Thompson, drunker even than common. i Mrs. Thompson paled, but the steady light in her eyes did not go out. “Though he slay me, yet I will trust Him!” she said. “Yes, dear, answered. The answer is laid up beside his promise. I must just do my part, whatever I find it to be, and wait His time and way. There’s a time — for a rose to bloom,” she went on, touching a delicate pink blossom that had climbed to the kitchen sill, “and a time for a soul to be born into the Kingdom. It is all right. My man has begun to be a Christian in the knowledge of God — just as the rose had begun to be before I ever saw the first shoot above the earth. For He is faithful who has promised me !” The visitor slipped speechless away as the voice of drunken anger sounded close by. Her neighbor’s faith was something to wonder at, but ! * ^ ^ IK ^ The noon meeting was interrupted by the ruthless pushing through the crowd of twelve-year-old Charlie Thompson, making his way with frightened energy to the speaker’s stand. David McNair was playing the closing strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and the packed audi- ence was singing heartily. Straight to the wheel chair went the lad, and, when the last notes were done, spoke out : “Mr. David, could you come down to our house — now? Pa’s awful ! Ma didn’t say to come, but she’s there alone, and pa says he’ll kill her, and I know he said one time he never could do a mean thing when he heard you play, and — could you come now?” “Sure, Charlie ! Men, take me, quick ! And, friends,” he called back. 38 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE for already the stretcher chair was being borne away on the errand for the King, “stay and pray, all of you who can — pray as you have never known how to pray before.” With the silver cornet clasped tightly in his thin hands, and the promise of the Mighty One of Israel girding up his faith, David McNair, unable to walk a step, was hurried away. No need here to describe in detail the scene that met David’s eyes as he wheeled himself alone — for so he insisted on being left — into the little cottage kitchen. Reasonless, blind, insane, drunken anger had demolished the last traces of a home. The children were in hiding. But sitting opposite the poor victim of Hell’s fire-water — well named! — was his wife, quiet, brave and strong in spirit, because in spirit she w-as communing with her Lord. And the sustaining w^ord with her at the moment of David McNair’s entrance was this: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them.” A flash of almost incredible joy transfigured the woman’s face when she saw what help had come. She did not know of her child’s errand. But if she had she would .still have felt that it was the help of God that had come to her in that supreme hour. Never before had the drunkard threatened her life. Now he had come home with a weapon of death in his hands, and had bade her sit still if she would live another hour. She knew where her children hid upstairs, and for their sakes she stayed. “Well, friends,” said David, pushing his chair well inside of the dis- ordered room, “I’ve come to play you a tune — an old favorite. Tom! Listen !” And without a moment’s delay the silver strains of “The King’s Business” throbbed softly through the little room, belying the wreckage of love’s careful handiwork. The woman covered her face. The man’s right hand lost its grip upon the deadly weapon which he had secured from a comrade at the saloon, and dropped harmless at his side. Charlie ventured to tiptoe to the side of the wheel chair — with a feeling in his boy’s heart that he would stay by mother and his friend whatever hap- pened. This is the King’s command. That all men everywhere Repent and turn away From sin’s seductive snare; That all who will obey With Him shall reign for aye, ’ And that’s my business for my King! Tears — they fell from drunken eyes, but they were not maudlin STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 39 tears this time — ran over the flushed cheeks of the man at the table. David paused at the close of the melody, wheeled close to Tom’s side, between husband and wife, and quietly taking possession of the weapon of murder, laid it among his cushions. Then he played again, the music breathing softly — as softly as a bird’s evensong: My home is brighter far Than Sharon’s rosy plain. Eternal light and joy Throughout its vast domain; My Sovereign bids me tell How mortals there may dwell, And that’s my business for my King! The cornet could not speak the words, but the heart of David sang them as he played, and the spirit of them was potent. “Davie, lad !” Tom Thompson stood upon his feet. Scarce knowing that she did so, the wife stood, too. “Aye, Tom, poor boy, what is it? Shall I play again?” . “Play! — Pray! >1= * * God be merciful * * a sinner!” and partly of his own accord, partly fallen because he could not stand, Tom Thompson fell prone at the feet of the young man. David prayed. His hands were unable to reach the head that lay across his own helpless limbs, but the hands of his faith took hold on the strength of the faith-honoring King who can do in human souls what they cannot do for themselves or another. The comrades outside, pray- ing men, came in and knelt beside. The wife bowed with her husband. The little children came wide-eyed from their hiding places. And sober- ing came : for He who can still a sea with a word can arrest the tide of drunkenness in mind and body with the same word of His power. Came repentance; came forgiveness; came the washing of regeneration by faith in Him whose blood was shed for such as these; came peace; came the dawn of a new manhood, after tears of true sorrow had done their honest work. It was almost sunset when the little company broke up. His friends were about to turn David’s chair — for he was now too exhausted to help himself — to the door, when he held up his hand and stopped them. “I think I had better tell you all,” he said, a curious tremor in his voice, “that Tom here is not the only one who has seen victory in his soul this afternoon. Reconciliation has come to me, too ! Oh, yes, \ needed it, dear friends. It has been hard” — he dropped his voice almost 40 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE to a whisper — “hard, so hard, to be entirely reconciled about — this,” and he laid his hands upon his helpless limbs. “But I saw a vision this afternoon! I wish you would sing — I am too tired to play, I think — the chorus again ; it is for me this time !” They could not sing strong and clear at first, for their hearts were ^full. Mrs. Thompson could not sing at all. As the chorus filled the little kitchen where the setting sun-rays smiled upon the wreck that was the last wreck drink would ever make in that home, she held David’s hands fast in hers and her husband clasped all in his. This is the message that I bring, A message angels fain would sing: “O be ye reconciled!” thus saith my Lord and King, “O be ye reconciled to God!” David McNair, reconciled to his “accident,” saw with glad vision that when God wills He can use a crippled boy as a sacred medium to bear the Gospel message of victory over sin to lost souls ; a message angels fain would sing! — Ada Melville Shaw in Epworth Herald. A THREE-FOLD VICTORY. Clang! sounded the bell on the schoolmaster’s desk at the close of the afternoon session of the village school, bringing the children instantly to their feet. The youthful students, eager for a welcome release, were ready to bound outwards as soon as they received the word of command. Little wonder they stood erect, with hands behind their backs, and as quiet as the trees adjoining the playground amidst the stillness of the early summer afternoon. They had been taught, to their sorrow, that the least infraction of the dominie’s rules would bring swift punishment upon the head of the culprit; The silence was now intense, all the more since they longed for their liberty outside. “Jamie Soutar will remain behind !” was the precipitous word of the dominie. It came with a suddenness to the “bully” of the school that made him tremble from head to foot. Already* he had visions of the leather tawse that had calloused his hand, if not his heart. One more touch of the bell and the children, with military precision, marched out, leaving Jamie Soutar face to face with the dominie. Time had dealt kindly with Dominie Menzies, and his days were not vexed with the numerous intricacies of the present modern school board STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 41 laws and requirements. He was practically his own master. So long as he was able to measure up to the ideals of the parochial authorities he would be left undisturbed in his efforts to cultivate the minds of, the youth of the parish. ’ The dominie had never married. Village gossips were right for once in their rumor that a love disappointment in his earlier days accounted for his bachelorhood. Locked up in the old man’s heart were thoughts of happy times, long since past but not forgotten. Love to him was like smoke that rose from out of the sad past, with fumes of sighs for what might have been — to him and her. “Jamie, come forward !” The lad obeyed. Still trembling, but now with growing confidence since he had seen the dominie lock the strap in the desk. Besides, the gentler tone in the master’s speech unnerved him. He was prepared for a thrashing, but not for kind words. Even the whitened locks of the dominie that had been touched with the invisible fingers of rolling years, appealed to the lad as never before. “Jamie, sit down,” the master said, looking the boy in the eye as he took a seat in front of him. The whole proceedings were as mysterious to the “bully” as were the “Decrees of God,” taught him in the Shorter Catechism. The first word, however, was like the proverbial straw in the stream, showing which way the tide was running. “Jamie, I saw and heard some things that grieved me greatly on my way to school after the noon hour to-day. As you seemed to be the leader in the miserable affair, I have given you this opportunity to explain matters.” Jamie was clean trapped and fixed, as much as the hare he had trapped in his poaching expedition the night previous, and there was no way of escape. He could say nothing at first, and the silence that followed the dominie’s words, spoken in tender tones, hurt him worse than the strap had ever done, which is saying a great deal. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” asked the dominie, now opening the desk and lifting from it the leather tawse. “Weel, sir,” he ventured to say, finding his voice at last. “We just called her ‘Drunken Mag, the toon’s hag.’ ” “Jamie,” said the master, replacing the strap in his desk and putting his hand kindly on the boy’s head. “Jamie, suppose Margaret MacDonald had been your mother. Would you have calle-d her by that name? Would you have permitted the other boys to have said the same?” The 42 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE dominie had pierced an unprotected part of the “bully’s” armor, as he exclaimed with indignation in his eye — “I wadna hae stood it, sir!” And the clenched fist of the lad assured the master that he spoke the truth. Jamie was seeing things in a different light. The master was reaching the boy’s heart, if by an unbeaten pathway. “So ! And what else did you say, Jamie?” he asked with an encourag- ing mood. “We spiered' at her what was the price o’ a bawbee’s worth o’ shoe strings; what she had in her meal pock besides meal. You see, sir, she had just come oot o’ the Bull Head public-house.” By this time the old schoolmaster had walked towards one of the windows and was looking out as if seeing something invisible. Jamie could not understand it at all. The proceedings were worse to him than the biggest licking he had ever received. Little wonder be longed for his liberty. Coming back and sitting down beside the lad once more, the dominie said: “Yes, Jamie, go on. What else did you say?” “We cried oot: ‘Drunken Mag lives alane, Ayont the cauld Girdle Stane, The drunken Hag will never marry. Because she jilted poor Harry.’ ” Had this effusion been directed towards another subject or object the old master might have seen some humor in this juvenile doggerel. As it was, the old man only looked sad, while Jamie felt burdened with a load of shame. He could not get out of his mind the master’s question — ‘Suppose Margaret McDonald was your mother?” Besides, he had never before heard anyone call the unfortunate woman “Margaret,” while her last name had been unknown to him until that hour. “And so you said something to her about ‘marriage’, did you not? And what did she say in reply, Jamie?” “She said, sir, that ‘while some folk ca’ her daft; she wasna sae daft as tae marry.’ Then she ran after us, staggering like, and chased us tae the school.” “And that was your ‘fun,’ Jamie?” “I’ll never dae it again, sir,” the lad cried, as the tears coursed down his face. He was thinking about his mother. The dominie arose once more and walked toward his desk. Unlock- ing it, he took from it the formidable leather tawse. Jamie knew his time had come once more. He didn’t care. He felt he deserved all that was STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 43 coming to him, and was fully prepared for the worst that might happen. “Stand up, Jamie !” Instantly the boy was upon his feet. Intuitively he held out his hand for the deserved and expected punishment. But Jamie’s surprise merely deepened, for there was neither rage in the master’s speech nor fire in his eye. 44 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Jamie,” the dominie said at last, “you see what I have in my hand?” “Yes, sir,” he replied, without a tremor now. The “bully” had seen the strap often and felt it, too. The tawse and Jamie were near related. “You can have your choice, Soutar — either the biggest thrashing I’ve ever given you, or off to the hovel beyond the Girdle Stone and tell Margaret how sorry you are for your day’s work, promising her never to do it again — which, Soutar?” “Baith, sir,” replied the lad, with bowed head. “What do you mean by ‘both?’ ” “Just that, sir. Lick me as sair as ye want to. I’ll gang toe the Girdle Stane, tae! Ye are richt, Maister Menzies; what if Mag had been my ain mither?” The master had won a double victory ; not only was he much greater than he who takes a city, in that he had ruled his own spirit, but he had won the lad’s heart. There were two, instead of one, engaged from that hour in the work of transforming a poor outcast from society. “Go, Jamie, and heaven help you,” were the parting words of the old schoolmaster. It was a long and lonely walk for the lad. Far past his own home he went. Careless now of rabbits' bounding across the path, or of birds flying from their nest, because of his near approach. Even the song of the lark and the hum of insects were as nothing to him. “What if Mag had been his own mither?” Having passed the Girdle Stone — a barren rock seen for quite a dis- tance, and known by that name to all in the Scottish village — Jamie Soutar drew near to the tumble-down cottage known as “hame” to drunken Mag — the only name she was known by to all save two persons now. With a new-born courage the lad approached the door that stood ajar. He knocked, at first gently, but with no response. Then with a much louder sound, until he heard the voice not unknown to him. “Wha’s there?” she said. “It’s me,” responded Jamie bravely. “An’ wha are ye?” “Jamie Soutar wants tae speak tae ye.” And then he heard a noise that made him breathless for a second. Sure enough, Mag bounded towards the door like a wild tigress. She had recognized the voice of an old tormentor. The time of her vengeance had come. Grabbing him by the hair she fairly shrieked with glee. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 45 “I’ve got ye noo, Jamie Soutar. Certa, but ye’ll get mair than is cornin’ tae ye!” And Jamie saw stars in the day-time. His pnnishmenf was most severe. Panting hard, she tried to make of the lad what the had threatened to do — a “dish-cloot” — out of him. When she had finished, because of a lack of strength, Jamie found an opportunity to say “Margaret MacDonald.” It proved the “Open Sesame” to her mind and called for a truce. There was only another who knew her full name in all the region round about. How did the boy know? “Tell me quick, ye scoundrel, hoo ye ken my name, or I’ll lick ye mair!” “The dominie !” was all he said. Mag sobered down at once. There was a charm to her about the name that made her still as the leaves of the trees outside. She was another woman. “Come inside,” she said. But Jamie was unable to get up. The thrashing had been too much for him ; besides, the blood that trickled from his nose made him a sorry object to look upon. The faint spark of womanly feeling had been now lanned into a small flame of pity, as she helped Jamie to get on his feet, for she had done her work of vengeance well. Come inside, laddie. I’ll wash your face for ye. I’ll ‘mask’ a cuppie o’ tea for ye and ye’ll sune be a’ right.” When her mad work had been undone by these tender and wel- come ministries, Mag said, “Hoo did the dominie tell ye my name?” And it was given to the erstwhile “bully” to relate his experiences with the schoolmaster that afternoon. But her exclamation and interjections about her “Johnnie” of the long ago were as mysterious to the boy as the depths of the sea. “Margaret MacDonald,” said Soutar, as he rose to go, having made a free and glad confession of his many sins against her, “the first bairn wha calls ye names in my hearing again gets thrashed, if I hae tae gang tae jail for it. But dinna gang tae the ‘Bull’s Head’ ony mair, Margaret ; keep yer bawbees tae yersel’.” That night was quiet and still ; the stars peeped out one by one, no unwelcome moon shed a radiance over the path she knew so well that led to the dominie’s lodgings. For once the “Bull’s Head” public-house seemed to have no attraction for her. She drew near with stealthy step and slow, until she took up her position by the window of the dominie’s room, which had been left open at the foot. She could see him now. 46 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE although he was not aware of her presence. His head was covered with his hands as his elbows rested on the table. At length he fell on his knees and spoke in familiar tones to his Unseen Friend. “O Lord,” he said, wjth power and passion, “convert her from the error of her ways before it be too late. Polish her, as a bright jewel for the king’s crown. Amen.” As he rosp from his knees he was conscious of a tapping at the window pane outside. Walking towards the window, still open, he looked out and said, “Who’s there?” “John, come oot!” was all he heard, but it was enough. Outside they met and talked. The conversation was not long but effectual. “John,” she said, “I heard ye pray. So did God. I’ve heard ye often, though ye didna ken it. Mony a nicht I’ve crept up here and heard ye pray for me, and ye hae kept me frae suiside. John, ye hae kept me oot o’ hell.” “Margaret, I have not forgotten the time when ye were a bonnie Highland lassie, as pure as the lily in the dell. We will not speak about the dark past and what might have been. Margaret, a Greater says : ‘Sin no more.’ I’m not long for this world. If you mean it, there is something in the bank for you when I am dead and gone. And, IMar- garet, if you can spare it, help Jamie Soutar. He is a likely lad, and I would like to see him through Edinburg University. Just another word, Margaret, keep a flower in Blossom at my headstone. Good-bye, Margaret.” She was as good as her word in after days. The marks of sin were hard to remove from her wrinkled face, but she lived a “white” life, in better surroundings; neither did she forget Jamie Soutar, al- though he could never understand it all perfectly. By the prayers of Dominie Menzies, the kindly feelings of Jamie Soutar, plus the grace of God, Margaret MacDonald was transformed by the renewing of her mind and heart. — Rev. Wm. T. Dorward in Scottish American. AN ANGEL IN A SALOON. One afternoon in the month of June, , a lady in deep mourning, and followed by a child, entered one of the fashionable saloons in the city of N . The writer happened to be passing at the time, and, STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 47 impelled by curiosity, followed her in to see what would ensue. Stepping up to the bar and addressing the proprietor, who happened to be present, she said : “Sir, can you assist me? I have no home, no friends, and am unable to work.” He glanced at her, and then at the child, with a mingled look of curiosity and pity. Evidently he was somewhat surprised to see a woman in such a place begging, but, without asking any questions, gave her some change ; then turning to those present, he said : “Gentlemen, here is a lady in distress. Can’t some of you assist her a little?” They all cheerfully acceded to this request, and soon a purse of two dollars was raised and put in her hand. “Madam,” said the gentleman who gave her the money, “why do you come to a saloon? It isn’t a very proper place for a lady, and why are you driven to such a step ?” “Sir, I know it isn’t a proper place for me to be in, and you ask why I am driven to such a step. I will tell you in one short word,” pointing to a bottle behind the door labeled “Whiskey,” “that is what has driven me to this — Whiskey. I was once happy and surrounded by all the luxuries that wealth could procure, with a fond and indulgent husband. But in an evil hour he was tempted, and not possessing the will to resist that temptation, fell, and in one short year my dream of happiness was over, my home forever broken and desolated, and the kind husband and the wealth some called mine, lost, lost, never to return ; and all by the accursed wine-cup. “You see before you only a wreck of my former self, homeless and friendless, with nothing left me in this world but this little child.” And weeping bitterly, she affectionately caressed the golden curls that shaded a face of exquisite loveliness. Regaining her composure, and turning to the proprietor, she continued : “Sir, the reason I occasionally enter a place like this, is to implore those who deal in the deadly poison to desist, to stop a business that spreads desolation, ruin, poverty and starvation. Think one moment of your own loved ones, and then imagine them in the situation I am in. I appeal to your better nature, I appeal to your heart, for I know you possess a kind one, to retire from a business so ruinous to your patrons. “Did you know that the money you receive across this bar is the same as taking the bread from out of the mouths of the famished wives 48 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE and children of your customers? That it strips the clothes from their backs, deprives them of all the comforts of life, and throws unhappiness, misery, crime, and desolation into their once happy homes? Oh! sir, I implore, beseech, and^ pray you to retire from a business you blush to own you are engaged in before your fellow-men, and enter one that will not only be profitable to yourself, but to your fellow-creatures also. You will excuse me if I have spoken too plainly, but I could not help it when I thought of the misery and unhappiness it has caused me.” “Madam, I am not offended,” he answered in a voice tremulous with emotion, “but thank you from my heart for what you have said.” “Mamma,” said the child — who in the meantime had been spoken to by some of the gentlemen present — taking hold of her mother's hand, “these gentlemen wish me to sing ‘Little Bessie’ for them. Shall I do so?” “Yes, darling, if they wish you to.” They all joined in the request, and' placing her in a chair, she sang in a sweet, childish voice the following beautiful song: Out in the gloomy night sadly I roam, I have no mother dear, no pleasant home; No one cares for me, no one would cry. Even if poor little Bessie would die. Weary and tired. I’ve been wandering all day. Asking for work, but I’m too small, they say; On the damp ground I must lay my head. Father’s a drunkard, and mother is dead! We were so happy till father drank rum. Then all our sorrow and trouble begun; Mother grew pale and wept every day, ■ Baby and I were too hungry to pjay; Slowly they faded, till one summer night Found their dead faces all silent and white; Then with big tears slowly dropping, I said. Father’s a drunkard, and mother is dead! Oh! if the temperance men would only find Poor wretched father, and talk very kind; If they would stop him from drinking, why then, I should be so very happy again! Is it too late, temperance men? Please try. Or poor little Bessie must soon starve and die. All the day long I’ve been begging for bread. Father’s a drunkard, and mother is dead! The games of billiards were left unfinished, the cards were thrown aside upon the counter; all had pressed near, some with curiosity, some fl o ^ t-i ^ bjo .3 p, rG ^ s S'S 3 o 3 j “ M — . § w ® ho c” o « 4 J J 3 O 5 (ts ^ r^H “ ^ 5 ^ ^=2 m bJOS rt a 5 - ° S [q S " ^ .03 ^■35 CC p C r-, f- C 3 , L_. _e H CD ^ ^ Z C W <35 O ” ^■S ^ S 03 ^ 03 0) g P^C-bye, my son, and heaven bless you!” And Tom M’Hardy went out into the night a new man. In course of time an advertisement appeared in the Daily Scotsman. It read: M’Hardy & Son, drapers. Princess street, Edinburg. — Rev. Wm. T. Dorward, in Scottish American. THE SALOON AT THE SETTLEMENT. Mrs. Ephraim Burdick Relates How It Got a Foothold and How the Community Was Rid of It. Burdick settlement has never bin a growin’ place, as you might say, bein’ off the railroad. It is situated in New Berlin township, Greenville 84 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE County, which is a prosp’rous farmin’ district, specially in the line of dairyin’. Yet, as I sed, we never seemed to have any special boom to make us grow. Of course, our church prospered and we had our seasons of spiritual refreshin’. We had a fine, new, brick schoolhouse, with two rooms, and paid first-class wages to our teachers. Three years ago, she that was Cornelia Simms, old Squire Simms’ daughter, who married a wealthy man in Buffalo, sent us a library of five hundred volumes. “But it is a dead town. Nothin’ a-doin’,” sed young Ned Burdick and Luther Sprague every time I saw them. “There ought to be a saloon at The Corners, and it would pick up a little,” sed Luther, winkin’ slyly at Ned. “Don’t you think it would improve business. Aunt Philena?” “Some kinds of business, yes,” sez I. Well, two unexpected things happened. The fishin’ has grown to be uncommon good over to Si Sprague’s pond, now known as Echo Lake, nestled down among the hills and just below The Ledges, which is, if I do say it, a very picturesque spot. Some fellows from Greenville put up a cottage there two years ago. Si leased them the ground for ninety-nine years. It brought a lot of people from Greenville and Si declared he would put up a hotel, and sure enough, it did prove a success. He got some city boarders and then he converted the sulphur spring on the hillside, just above, in a sort of sanitarium, claimin’ it had wonderful medicinal qualities. Well, it was the talk of the town. Si’s folks alus was a little worldly, and they had their dance hall and drawed in lots of young folks. Next thing that happened to boom the town was a big cannin’ factory that was put up right across the road from Phlambert’s house. You see, Carson Sloan fell heir to the old Meeker farm. He had been in the cannin’ business and so he came and built a large factory and converted the fifty acres of good creek bottomland into a garden, and advertised he would buy all the stuff our townspeople could raise besides. He employed about a hundred people in the garden and factory and that made work for everyone around who needed it, and he had to import several hands. They had to have houses to live in, or boardin’ places. That made work for carpenters, a sale for lumber, and a chance to keep boarders for our women folks. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 85 Sloan was a great man at the settlement. Everybody looked up to him. He was a great politician and manager. He attended church and paid well. Why, he often dropped a dollar and sometimes a-“V” in the plate ! He came to all the socials at the church and et dish after dish of ice cream at ten cents a dish. I went up to the city to stay with Philander . a few weeks in case of sickness, and when I got back, what do you think they’d done? Well, that old cheese factory beyond the cannin’ factory, not forty yards from Phlambert’s, had been converted into a saloon, and Clem Miller had taken out the first license issued in New Berlin township in twenty-five years. I sot down in my spare room, with my bonnet still on, and covered my face with my hands and groaned, as it were, with mortal agony. Finally, raisin’ my head, I cried, “Ephraim Burdick ! how did it happen ? “Well, mother,” sez he, “nobody hardly knows. You see, we have got so much goin’ on in our town now, there seemed to be a demand for it. If there is a saloon here, it will draw folks into town, instead of their runnin’ off to London or Greenville to spend their money. It puts money into circulation in our town.” “It puts money into a different set of hands, to be sure. It puts money ito Clem Miller’s hands and it passes from him to the whole- sale dealers, to be sure, but where is the good in that?” “Well, you see, they arger,” sez Ephraim, “that the people will come to town, attracted' by the saloon, and leave more or less money in the stores and business places. Otherwise, they would go to some other town.” “Do you suppose,” sez I, “that the amount they will spend in business places will be as much as our own folks round the settlement would waste in the saloon? Why, Ephraim Burdick! you ought to be on your knees prayin’ that retribution would fall on this accursed business.” Phoebe Esther was terribly wrought up. She did not say much, but her face was set in that determined way and you know she would never give up. “Ain’t it terrible ?” I sez, and it -was all I could say. “It is the same old accursed business,” sez Phoebe Esther, “that has blighted and blasted homes and human lives, that has coiled itself around 86 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE the posts and pillars of our legislative halls and bought the honor and manhood of our so-called statesmen, till purity and honesty and Christian manhood can no longer vie with its mighty political power. Yes, Mother Burdick, it is terrible, but no more terrible because it has settled itself on a little spot in our town. But it shall not stay ! God helping me.” From Phoebe Esther’s kitchen window she could see the saloon and she took notice who went in, and many a boy not of age she seen cross the threshold in the first few weeks. Well, she called the mothers together and they went in a body and forbid Clem Miller a-sellin’ to their boys. He laughed and sed, “If you can’t govern your boys and keep them at home, you needn’t expect me to do it for you.” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 87 Elnath?n, Phoebe Esther’s second son, who is now a lad of sixteen, alius was different than the rest of the children, and since the cigaret episode I told you about one time, his parents have watched him pretty closely. Someone sed he was hangin’ around Miller’s a good deal, gettin’ dismissed from school at half past two in the afternoon on the plea of helpin’ his pa. So Phoebe Esther watched, and about that time she and her daugh- ter Mandy went over and Mandy went to the front door and Phoebe Esther to the back door. As Mandy opened the front door Elnathan seen her and made a dive for the back door and run right into his mother’s arms. She took him by the arm and marshaled him back, and facin’ Clem Miller, she sed; “Now, Elnathan, I want you to tell me how you got to cornin’ in here. Did Mr. Miller invite you?” Elnathan hung his head. Phoebe gave him a good shake. “He — he — he sed if Pd come in here every afternoon and help, and slip out after my folks thought I was in bed an hour or two, he’d give me two dollars a week,” stammered Elnathan. “It’s a lie,” sed Miller. “He struck me for a job.” “Well, you told Bill Chapin to hunt you up a boy, anyhow,” said Elnathan. “We’ll go home now,” said' Phoebe Esther. “Ha*! before Pd be bossed round by my old woman,” sneered a fel- low at a card table. “Dry up,” said Elnathan. With all his faults he respects his mother. “Don’t you think the boy is gettin’ too old to be dictated to about goin’ out?” sed Miller. “Mr. Miller,” said Phoebe Esther, “I don’t believe in bringin’ up children with so much pains and care and just at the time when they need control most, lettin’ them go off and lettin’ them get an idea they are too big to mind. Come on, Elnathan,” and they went home. Well, of course, we all knowed Clem Miller was sellin’ to minors right along, but how was you goin’ to prove it, and if you did, how would you get justice done? It has been tried over and over again. You have read it in your temperance stories ; you have heard it in temperance lectures. The same power that gives a man a saloon protects his business. “So it won’t be any use to go through all that,” sed Phoebe Esther, and our minister, who had seen it all tried in other places, sed the same. 88 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE Phoebe Esther and Phlambert put a watch over Elnathan night and day and exhorted other folks to do the same. “I’ll lock the boy up till he is of age, if necessary,” said Phoebe Esther, “before he shall enter a saloon again.” How about the moral suasion? She gave him that in small doses, you may be sure ; but this was a time for action. But there was lots of folks at the settlement who couldn’t control their boys ; and women who were in mortal fear of their husbands.’’ drinkin’. What could be done? A day was appointed for fastin’ and prayer. The minister gave it out in church. At the close of the day the people who felt the burden of the matter were invited to meet for prayer and conference. Phoebe Esther seemed to be the rulin’ spirit in the agitation over the settlement saloon, and when we gathered at her house at the close of our day of fastin’ and prayer, she spoke with an earnestness and faith that seemed to thrill us all. “We must not let this terrible business go on here in our midst,” sed she. “It’ll be easier to get rid of it now than after it has obtained a footin’. We all know how it works in other places; we are members of temperance societies ; we know of the power of the saloon ; we believe in moral suasion ; we have tried it, but it has not kept the saloon away. The power of the ballot is strong, and yet, in spite of that, the saloon is here, while we know the majority of the people who elected the excise commissioners didn’t want it. If we vote it out, we must wait till next spring. God only knows what evil may be accomplished before then. There has never been a human power found stronger than the saloon. We have little to hope for, humanly speaking. God alone is mightier than the saloon. Why did He not prevent its coming? Because His people did not work with Him. The only way to get His strength is to link ourselves with Him. Then no power on earth can resist His power.” So, with that feelin’ we knelt in prayer. Frank Webb’s folks, Cousin Peleg, who was really waked up to the situation, Ephraim and I, and the minister and his wife, and Squire Dodson, and some of his folks were present. How Phoebe Esther prayed! I never felt that God was so real or near before. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 89 And Frank Webb made a full consecration of all he had, if God wanted it, to bring about the result. He sed: “Oh, Lord, take every cent of my money, if need be, to bring about the overthrow of this business.” And Squire Dodson, who is very well fixed, sed, “Amen ! and mine too, if you need it.” At last we rose from our knees. The room was very still. Outside the low rumble of thunder broke the quietness and an occasional flash of lightnin’ lit up the room, though half an hour before the sky was clear. We stood and sang: “Oh! for a faith that will not shrink. Though pressed by every foe; That will not tremble on the brink Of any earthly woe.” Just then there came a blindin’ flash of lightnin’ and a terrible crash of thunder, but we sang on. The rain came dashing against the win- dows, and a light, not from any flash of lightnin’, lit up the room. We turned to the window. The flames were shootin’ up from Milkr’s saloon. Dark objects were runnin’ to and fro. Our men rushed out to see if anyone was hurt. As it happened, there was no one seriously injured, althought the boy that lived at Sister Blivens’ was badly shocked and Cousin Peleg’s youngest boy was somewhat hurt. There was a good stock of liquor on hand and the buildin’ went like powder, for the bolt of lightnin’ run right into the cellar where the supply was and they never saved a drop. “It looks like it was a torch of God’s own lightnin,,” said Aunt Hannah Jane Bethel. “Poor Clem. I hope he ainT injured, though, for he was such a dear little boy. I took care of him for six months after his own mother died.’ Well, thete was great excitement at the settlement next day. We hoped as Clem Miller had no insurance, he wouldn’t build up again. But we heard that Carson Sloan had promised to back him and he began to look around for a place to open up temporarily. There was the old storeroom belongin’ to Rant Gale. Clem went and made him an offer for* that for six months. We heard of it and Frank Webb and Squire Dodson and Cousin Peleg and Milt Lakin went to see him. They told him it would be a sin to rent it for that purpose and against the rules of the church. But Rant is in a backslidin’ state anyway, and he argered that the room was standin’ idle and no one else would pay like a 90 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE saloonkeeper would, and, of course, there wouldn’t be likely to be an- other store start up in the settlement. Finally Squire Dodson sed, “You may tell Miller you have rented the building for $2.00 a month more than he offered.” “What do you mean?” said Rant. “I mean I will lease it for a year at them figgers and fix up the writin’s before we leave the house today.” So they did it, and Milt Lakin, who had just been appointed postmaster, moved his office into the front part of the room, and they parted off the rear end with screens and fixed it up pretty as a parlor and had the new library in there and some little tables for games. Then Milt’s daughter had a little bakery store in front with candy and bread and cakes to sell. Squire Dodson’s cripple son tended the library and it was all agoin’ inside of a week. “Well, we knew Miller had lost a sight of money; he had his license all paid for and no way to make it up so quick as in the saloon business. So we didn’t expect we had downed him. Still folks was afraid to rent to him for fear something would happen to their buildin’s. Finally, we heard he had hired a part of Jim Ashcraft’s new barn, till he could put up a buildin’ of his own. He didn’t want to use the old site, bein’ it was so near Phoebe Esther’s. Well, we had prayed and committed the matter to God, but we ex- pected to work as He led and to watch and pray, and we certainly- watched. After all, it came about in such a quiet way, God usin’ one of His humblest instruments to work out His will. Aunt Hannah Jane Bethel somehow never gets on the defensive side in such a decided way that every lady don’t claim her as a friend. She ain’t got much active fight in her, yet she is as firm as the everlastin’ hills. She was born a Quaker. She went over to stay to Clem IMiller’s a few days. Mis’ Miller not bein’ well. I got the partic’lars from Mis’ Miller, who overheard the conversation from her bedroom. Clem came in at night just about bedtime and set down by the kitchen stove, where Aunt Hannah Jane set mendin’ his socks. They got to talkin’ about the old times and Clem’s mother. Aunt Hannah Jane sez : “A sweeter, kinder woman never lived. Do you mind, Clem, that night after the funeral, when you set in my lap with your little curly head on my shoulder, and I told you of the beautiful country where she had gone?” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 91 Aunt Hannah Jane hitched her chair up a little cluster and laid her hand on Clem’s knee. “And you sed, T tell you, I’m goin’ to be good all my life, so’s I can go there when I die.” Clem’s voice trembled. “I never cease to miss her. Aunt Hannah Jane. I never shall get that lonesome feelin’ out of my heart.” “Till we meet her over there and are all together again, dear,” sed Aunt Hannah Jane, gently. “Well, I know folks think I’m bad, but a fellow’s got to live, some- way.” “Yes,” sez Aunt Hannah Jane. “Didn’t the farm pay pretty well?” “Yes, but it’s a dog’s life, though to be sure, folks wan’t howling round as they do now.” “You lost a sight of money in the fire, Clem.” “Yes; but Sloan will advance money when I set up again.” “What security will he ask?” “Oh, a mortgage on the farm, but I can soon clear it off.” 92 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “1 remember how glad you were when you got it clear before. Why doa’t you just let it go this time? You see, if the curse of God is on the business, and people are against it here it may not succeed, and then you might lose the farm.” “But I’ve paid for my license and it’s good for a year.” ‘T never see a license,” said Aunt Hannah Jane. “I wish you would show it to me.” “Clem brought it along. Aunt Hannah looked it over carefully and inquired the price. Then she took a roll of bills from her pocket, and spreading them on her knee, sed : “Now, Clem, I have a little money here I’ve saved to put into some good work. Sell me the license. Of course I can’t do business on it without some legal arrangements, but I want to pay you for it. You have lost heavily in the fire, but this will help a little.” I don’t know how it came about, but time run on and the saloon didn’t open up. And after our folks saw it was not likely to, Phlambert and Frank Webb went to Clem with a purse of money they had made up for him to help lift the mortgage he’d put on his stock and team to help raise the money to start the saloon, and he is back in church agnin after bein’ out for years. The other day Aunt Hannah Jane took out a little box, and opening it, she unfolded a piece of p>aper, sayin’, “I don’t mind showin’ you this, if you don’t say anything. Sister Burdick. It was Clem’s license.” “And you was so quiet we never thought you cared about the saloon as we did,” sez I. “I never had any idea Clem Miller would keep saloon long, if I could help it,” sed Aunt Hannah Jane. “Still it was God’s way of answerin’ the prayer of faith.” It wan’t strange He took the humble faithful instrument He did to work out His own Divine will. — Florinda Twichell in Ram’s Horn. THE VOICE OF THE PILOT. “What though the mast be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost, And half our soldiers swallowed in the flood? Yet lives our pilot still.” — Shakespeare, Henry VI. Leonard Newcomb closed the book and tilting back his chair sat with hands clasped behind his head. The bright light from a reading lamp threw his strong young face into bold relief against surrounding STQRIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 93 shadows of the otherwise dim room. His eyes remaintd faster.ed on the cover of the volume he had just closed, as though he still saw the lines which had caught and held him. Unconsciously his mouth settled into firm lines of resolve. With a slight thud the forelegs of his chair reached the floor, as though with them he pinned down some hard-won decision. Rising, he walked slowly up and down the sanctum, with hands thrust deep into his pockets. “Well, I guess that about fits my case,” he soliloquised. “Every- thing will probably have to go by the board, but — I’ll try to keep the pilot in charge of the ship !” With a quick, impulsive gesture he drew out a notebook and copied the lines he had just read. Underlining “pilot,” he wrote in the margin “conscience.” Then, after one quick glance round the cozy den, he opened the door and descended a wide flight of luxuriously carpeted stairs. It was a hard battle which Leonard Newcomb had just won — a hard errand upon which he was bound! He had not thought that life could hold passes so narrow that right and wrong seemed almost to touch. In the recent struggle he had steered through the fret of foaming waters guided solely by the word of his pilot — conscience. Now he was out upon the open sea, ready to face any impending storm, but no longer fearful of the shallows of self-deception. Fifteen years before, when Leonard was a fair-haired little lad of four, he had been taken, and practically adopted, by an older, unmar- ried brother of the father who was to him but a misty memory. Not even that impression remained with him of his young mother’s face. But he had never been allowed to feel his childhood’s loss. His uncle’s affection and the care of a doting nurse, Ellen O’Connor, enwrapped his earlier years. He found himself, now, with scarcely a manhood’s wish ungratified. Only a week before he had returned home one day to find his “den” refurnished in handsome leather and mahogany — a little pri- vate facsimile of the library below. “It is time you had a man’s room, Len,” the elder Newcomb had said, smiling at the young fellow’s pleasure, while they stood surveying the well-filled bookshelves. Leonard halted on the stairs now, catching his breath with a hard jerk of pain as the little scene rose before him. He could not quite remember when first the word “brewery” became associated in his mind with his uncle’s business. But he vividly recalled 94 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE the day, two years before, when, upon exhibiting to some schoolmates a handsome gold watch and seals, the birthday gift of his guardian, one of the boys had turned away with a slight shrug and the muttered com- ment, “Beer!” Leonard never forgot the conflicting sensations of that moment. Indignation, resentment, and underneath all, something — was it shame — stirring into uneasy life? The youthful “pilot,” conscience, tried his sturdy limbs vigorously for the first time that day in an effort to get control of the ship for the voyage of life. Since then Leonard had been more or less aware of that pilot’s presence on board. On this even- ing, however, things had come to a climax. He was forced to decide, once and for all, by whose word he would steer. “Len,” his uncle said, as they sat facing each other at the dinner table, while a soft-footed servant anticipated every want, “how would a three months’ trip abroad strike you for the coming summer?” “Uncle 1” The young fellow’s knife and fork dropped with a little clatter to his plate. His face showed such radiant anticipation that Nathaniel Newcomb smiled. “I think it can be arranged,” the man of wealth went on in a grat- ified tone. “I have, in fact, already had some communication with a young college professor, who would act as your ‘guide, philosopher, and friend.’ ” “Then you could not come?” Leonard’s face fell. “No. But I want you to take the trip. I want you to see a little of the world before — ” The sentence remained unfinished. Mr. New^comb put out his hand to take a dish which the maid had just brought in and, as he did so, the eyes of uncle and nephew met. In that look one of those strange inter- changes of thought seemed to pass between them wdiich do not need w^ords. Leonard shivered, as though a cold wind had touched him. He leaned back in his chair. All appetite for the well-cooked dinner had departed. Could it — could’ it be that his uncle wished him to succeed to the — “business?” That was how he interpreted the look. A sudden feeling of nausea swept over him as the suggestion grew to conviction. “Whew! It is warm in here tonight. May I go. Uncle Nat?” he asked when the coffee had been brought in. Contrary to his usual custom, which was to sit for a while with his uncle in the library, he went at once to his “den” and threw himself into STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 95 one of the deep leather chairs. Everything in the room had been ar- ranged to give him pleasure. Everything was a gift of love from his uncle. Was he justified in going against his wishes — in disappointing him in anything? Eor a while this thought held him. Then rose the other side. To use his manhood, the strength of body and mind which he felt tingling through every vein, the vitality which “rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race,” in the manufacture of beer? For that was practically what it amounted to, even though his work would be in the office. Never! Un- consciously, as he made the decision, his muscular young shoulders straightened. Just at that moment his eyes fell on the open Shakespeare on the table. In the midst of confusion his “pilot” still lived. He would see to it that he keprt control of the ship. Mr. Newcomb was reading near the long library table when he went downstairs again. “Going out this evening, Len?” he asked. “No, Uncle Nat. I — in fact, I want to speak to you.” There was a slight tightening of the lips as Nathaniel Newcomb laid down his book. That the young man before him was quick of percep- tion he knew. The change in his face and loss of appetite at the dinner table had not passed unnoticed by the keen eyes which observed him. “Well?” Unconsciously his voice had stiffened and grown colder. Leonard remained standing, his hand gripping the back of a heavy mahogany chair. “It isn’t fair. Uncle Nat,”’ he began, “to let you go on doing every- thing for me and, perhaps, thinking that I could ever — could ever ” It was harder to say than he thought. He stopped and moistened his lips. “Well?” The word cut the silence in two like cold steel. “Could ever succeed you in the — the business.” It was out! He drew a deep breath of relief. His uncle’s eyes were fixed on the floor; his finger tips tapped the polished surface of the table. “You feel yourself above it — no doubt.” Again the chill tone broke a tense silence. “I do.” Involuntarily Leonard straightened his strong, young body. “Though not in the way you think, uncle. I would do any work — the hardest work — as long as ” 96 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE Mr. Newcomb cut short his eager protestations with one uplifted hand. “Is that all?” “No, I — I would rather — not take — the trip to Europe. I am old enough to — to do something on my own account now.” A bitter smile crossed the elder man’s face. “I understand — perfectly,” he said with slow distinctness. “You are, indeed, your mother’s son ! A Leonard every whit.” He rose deliberately, and going to a desk in one corner of the room, took from it a paper. Holding the document in his left hand, he turned and faced Leonard, whose strong, young face had grown very white. “Twenty-one years ago to-night,” he said, slowly, “your father stood before me and said what you are saying now — said it when I had just drawn up the papers which were to take him into partnership, as” — he tapped with his right forefinger the document which he still had — “I, to-day, pleased myself by drawing up this! He preferred a clerkship on a pittance of twenty dollars a week to a position with me which would have given him more than five times that amount, and — he had his way. It was due to the influence of his wife’s family. You have evidently inherited something from the Leonards besides the name !” With a jerk he tore the paper in two and tossed it aside. The action seemed to unloose all the torrent of his pent-up anger and dis- appointment. “Go!” His voice was as the sudden crash of storm-charged clouds in its vibrant harshness, as he pointed to the door. “Uncle Nat!” Leonard started forw'^ard with outstretched hands, his face pale and quivering — “hear me! Don’t send me from you like this! Don’t you see how much easier it would be for me to do the thing that you wish — to follow ‘the line of least resistance’? But it would mean the death of all that is best in me — of all that will ever make my life worth while! It isn’t that I am ungrateful — that I love you — any — the less ” His voice stopped, shut off by a wall of sobs which his manhood held back. At another time the appeal would have moved and melted the man who loved him. But, unconsciously, Leonard had, in one slash, by his bravely expressed convictions, severed the ropes with THE GHASTLY PRODUCTS MADE IN THE SALOON The Demon — Strong Drink, consumes woman, make Madmen. Convicts and Tramps of men, and blights and desolate* children. A BAD EXAMPLE. Many of the first steps in the liquor habit are the result of just such a condition as this. The boy reasons: “Father drinks, so why can’t I?’’ and at the first opportunity indulges — because Father does. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 97 which, thirty-five years before, Nathaniel Newcomb had bound down his pilot. Those bonds had changed so rapidly into fetters of gold that for years conscience, apparently, slept. Now he realized that the pilot was awake, ready to take vengeance for that long thraldom, that already he had begun to cut with stinging lashes. And Nathaniel Newcomb could not readily forgive the hand which had plunged him into renewed warfare with such a foe. Moreover, the cloak of self-complacent philan- thropy in which he wrapped himself, and which he invariably drew before his eyes when passing a saloon which bore the sign, “Newcomb’s best ale and beer,” slipped from him and he saw Nathaniel Newcomb as he was — a man who catered to the weakness of his fellows and enriched his own coffers by that weakness. But, as yet, the vision brought only a seething wave of anger against the “boy” who had thrust him back into the storm of inner conflict which he had thought forever stilled ; who had, all unwittingly, held up before his eyes his own cramped, sordid soul. “Go !” The word was ground out with labored breath, as he pointed again to the door. “All obligation between you and me is at an end. At least — find the miserable clerkship you prefer and support yourself as soon as possible !” “Got that policy finished, Newcomb?” “Yes, sir.” Mr. Burbank, senior partner of the firm of Burbank & Hubbard, fire insurance agents, took the paper which Leonard brought him and reentered the private office. His critical eye scanned the sheet closely before laying it on his desk. “Young Newcomb takes hold all right,” he remarked to his partner with ‘evident satisfaction. “None of the thoughtless mistakes with which Frank Witter interlarded his work. “Witter only kept the tail-end of his mind on what he was doing, and Newcomb gives himself v/holly to it — that’s the difference,” Mr. Hubbard replied, without lifting his head from the document upon which he was engaged. After a moment’s silence he swung round in his office chair and, with a motion toward the closed door, said, in a lowered tone ; “I wonder what the trouble was between him and the uncle?” Mr. Burbank also turned slowly until he faced the younger man. “I don’t think the answer to that is hard to find.” He waved one hand 98 . STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE toward a window, through which, in the distance, the tall chimneys 6f Newcomb’s brewery could be seen belching out volumes of black smoke. “You think it was that?” Sydney Hubbard’s eyebrows raised them- selves as he followed the other’s glance. “I do.” “Whew ! The lad must have grit. It’s a far cry from a brownstone residence, six thousand dollar touring car and spending money in plenty, to getting along on a salary of ten dollars a week.” “It is. But, if I read him aright, Leonard Newcomb will never juggle with his convictions. It would be impossible for him to follow the slippery path of compromise', because he saw that ultimately the way would be paved with dollars, as, I shrewdly suspect, the uncle did at his age when he accepted a position in Bingham Brothers’ Brewery, as it was then. I used to know Nat Newcomb well in those days — one of the brightest young fellows in the city !” “It must have been a terrible wrench for both of them,” Mr. Hub- bard said, musingly, going back to the primal object of their conver- sation. “I don’t like to think ot it,” the senior partner’s brows drew together as though conjecture about the matter gave him pain, “and it has left its mark on the boy. Sydney, believe me” — the elder man’s voice grew husky — “that lad is fashioned out of the stuff that martyrs are made of. If I am not greatly mistaken, this thing has been to him a case of ‘He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.’ ” In the outer office Leonard bent over his desk, the whole force of his mind concentrated on becoming familiar with the business he had entered and of value to his employers. He could not yet think of the day, nearly two months before, when he had turned his back on the only home he had ever known, without a stab or pain so keen that it seemed to turn everything dark before his eyes. Before leaving the house he had sought out his old nurse, Ellen O’Connor, who now acted as housekeeper, and trying to make her understand what had occurred, begged her to let him have news of his uncle. The good woman flung up her hands in dismay. “Wisha, Mr. Len, ’tisn’t thinkin’ of goin’ ag’en the master’s wishes you’d be?” she demanded. Then, as Leonard, seeing the futility of STORIES OF HELP’S COMMERCE 99 explanation, patted her shoulder affectionately: “Oh, sure, ’tis ruinin’ yer prospects entirely ye are !” She had followed him to the door, pleading, protesting, finally prophesying, with the optimism of her race, that “ ’twas back ag’en the master ’d have him tomorra.” But to-morrow and many morrows passed, and he did not come. Twice he wrote to his uncle short, manly letters, expressive of unfailing gratitude and affection, but touching not at all on the matter which divided them. For Leonard felt that if it were to do over, he must take the same course. A note to Ellen had elicited a tear-blotted reply, in which she jumped from censure at the course he had taken to bemoaning the fact that he had no one to look after him now. Leonard put the letter in his breast pocket, smiling, with moist eyes. “Dear old Ellen ! I suppose I will always be to her the little chap who used to sit on her knee for hours, listening to stories about diminutive men in cocked hats who sat on potato ridges and knew where untold treasure was hidden !” he thought with loyal affection. With renewed vigor he applied himself to his work. But Mr. Bur- bank was right — the parting with his uncle had left its mark on Leonard. In that first fierce storm of life some of the fresh green leaves of boyhood had been blown away, never to return ; but the roots of man- hood, gaining fiber and strength, struck down deep into the soil of eternal truth. One great question was forever decided ^or Leonard Newcomb. Personal gain, personal advancement, personal comfort at the cost of his fellow-men could never again make the slightest appeal to him. He had stamped out forever the ego which, in the arrogance of conscious power and strength of will, says, “Every man for himself !” He had placed the best of which he was capable — his strong young manhood — on the side of Him who said, “My life for every man!” But if the parting had left its mark on Len, what about the uncle who sat alone in his costly house? For hours at a time he remained ' shut up in the library, staring before him with unseeing eyes, his mind busy with scenes which had been enacted in that room. Again he saw the little fair-haired lad, perched on his knee, building air castles about the future and always ending with, “When Fm a great, big man, Kebunk!” The old, childish substitute for “uncle” seem.ed to sound again in his ears. He saw the long-limbed boy, poring over his Latin 100 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE grammar. He saw him, as he had seen him that last night, a man proclaiming his man’s convictions. Every day seemed to bring some- thing which impressed on him more keenly the fact that Leonard was gone. Just now it was the illness of his chauffeur, which made it neces- sary for him to take the street car to and from his office. Although nervous about riding with a stranger, he had never been afraid to trust to Len’s steady head and strong hand. In fact, the evening spin to the office for his uncle, in the luxuriously cushioned automobile, had been one of the young fellow’s pleasurable duties for months past. It was with a fresh stab of loneliness that Mr. Newcomb stepped, one evening, from his office to the dingy street which led to the electric car. As he walked along he became aware of a towering figure ahead, lunging forward with uneven gait. He recognized it at once as that of one of his own workmen, a huge Swede, named Anderson, who had recently been discharged for drunkenness. Mr. Newcomb stood still with suspended breath. Perched on the man’s shoulder sat a fair- haired child of two or three years. One chubby arm encircled her father’s head, the fingers clutching his cap and hair in a frantic effort to retain the uncertain seat. The other hand held a stick of pink candy, upon which she sucked blissfully, unconscious of her peril. Every moment it seemed as if man and child must come crashing to the ground. More than once, when Mr. Newcomb closed his eyes for an instant with sickening certainty that the end had come, the big Swede regained his balance as though by a miracle. Then — a cry of horror burst from the lips of the wealthy brewer — Anderson’s foot caught in the curbstone. With a lunge he pitched heavily forward out into the street. But before he could strike the ground, someone had darted from, behind a passing vehicle and snatched the child from his arms. White and panting, Mr. Newcomb came up, as, with lightning rapidity, a crowd gathered. Across the body of the prostrate man he confronted his nephew, Leonard ! At his full height stood the young man, a head and shoulders above the curious spectators; the child, who now caught her breath in little soft hiccoughs of fear, held safe and unharmed against his breast. And in a flash his uncle realized that thus would he ever stand, while he had breath, against the influences which drag men down, thus would he defend with the last drop of blood in his body the helpless victims of those influences. In that long, intense look, Nathaniel Newcomb STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 101 saw nothing in the eyes that met his own but grief — a grief which seemed to say: “Is our name to be connected, even indirectly, with such work as this ?” The tall figure seemed to waver before his sight, and he saw again the fair-haired little lad, with eyes like those of the child who leaned against Leonard’s shoulder. And he knew that the man before him kept his soul clean and pure, “unspotted from the world,” and, because of that keeping, could claim the “knighthood to God” which he, Nathaniel Newcomb, had forfeited. With bent head, as though suddenly stricken with age, he passed down a side street. The day of reckoning had fully come. The battle which had raged within him for months was at an end. The thing which all along he had tried to smother seemed suddenly to have leaped at him with hideous force. “To his own master he standeth or falleth.” Why did the words rush back on him now? Ah, because he, Nathaniel Newcomb, had fallen! — fallen from the high ideals he had once held. Because, thirty-five years before, he had disregarded the voice of his pilot. To the full he realized now that by that voice each man must steer, no matter what the course, unless he wants to make shipwreck of his life. All these years he had clung to the thing which his con- science disallowed, only to find it rising at last, like a specter, to separate him from the one being on earth whom he loved. Leonard leaned back in his corner of the day coach and, having the seat to himself, stretched his long limbs, cramped from five hours’ enforced inaction. He was returning from a short business trip, upon which he had started with Mr. Hubbard the very morning after his rescue of Anderson’s little girl. The junior partner insisted that he was none too young to learn the duties of inspector, irw case it ever became necessary to send him on “the road.” In reality, Sydney Hubbard’s urgency in the matter was stimulated by a desire that Leonard, to whom he had taken a great liking, should have some change from the confinement and routine of office life, to which he had hitherto been so accustomed. The trip was one of keen interest and pleasure to young New- comb, coming after months of loneliness and hard work. Looking back on the time since he left his uncle’s house, it seemed as though every step had been hewn out of solid rock, but the hewing had developed his moral muscle and given him an exhilarating feeling of strength and endurance. He had followed, fearlessly, one “point of contact with 102 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE God” — the voice of conscience — and it had led him out into fields of experience of which he had only vaguely dreamed. He began to realize that some point of contact with Eternal Truth exists in the life of every man and woman. That to neglect it is to shut the door on all larger vision. To follow it leads inevitably to a knowledge of Him who was Truth — to that most sublime of all confessions, “My Lord and my God !” And in the past week he knew that a friendship had been forged which would enrich his whole life. Sydney Hubbard, although fifteen years his senior, was a man of abounding vitality, strong and purposeful. Together they had visited all kinds of insurance “risks,” from isolated farmhouses tO' city factories, indulging in many a hearty laugh over their experiences. Leonard was now returning home while Mr. Hub- bard took a few days’ holiday. As the train drew up at a wayside station, he leaned from the window and motioned to a newsboy who was vociferously calling: “News, Extra-a ! All about the fire!” With rather languid interest Leonard unfolded the sheet. Then his hands suddenly clutched its edges until they crumpled into shreds. The headline which met his eyes ran: “Fierce blaze destroys entire business block! Newcomb’s Brewery a mass of smolderng ruins.” Instinctively Leonard jumped to his feet. His uncle — to get to him ! That was his first thought. His second came with a throb of thankfulness — he was scarcely thirty miles from home and could be with him in little over an hour. As he sank back into his seat, the name “Newcomb,” coming from the section behind, where two men were sitting, reached him. “Yes, ’twas a bad fire,” one of them was saying, “but Newcomb is sure to have been insured for every penny. You can’t get ahead of him. Anyway, a man who can write his check for six figures can stand some loss !” “I don’t know about the six figures,” his companion replied. “Healy” — mentioning a well-known broker — “tells me that he’s been speculating pretty heavily lately. Lost a cool fifty thousand in some land scheme ! His grip seems to have weakened. He has gone into anything that came along, as though he didn’t care whether he sacrificed money or not. It doesn’t take a man long to go through a pretty big sum at that rate.” Leonard got up and moved to an empty seat in the forward part of the car. He felt sick at heart for his uncle. What if, at the end of all STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 103 these years, everything had been swept away? His longing to reach him outsped the train and made the boy chafe miserably at delay. It was with a lump rising in his' throat from rushing memories that he sprang up the well-known flight of massive stone steps to his old home. Ellen O’Connor opened the door and fell back with upthrown hands at sight of him. “Mr. Len!” — joy and relief ran a race with tears in her voice — “an’ is it yerself? Come inside, asthore! O, but ’tis glad I am to see ye !” “Where is he?” Leonard asked, breathlessly. Ellen jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the library door. But as Leonard strode toward it she caught him back until he stood under the full light of the hall. “Let me have another look at ye !” Tears were streaming, unre- strained, down her honest face. “Me little fair-haired boy that was ! An’ you the splindid man, God bless ye ! Go in to the master, now, ■ for ’tis aitin’ his heart out for a sight of ye he’s been these months past, an’ him too proud to own it !” It might have been the figure of a much older man than his uncle which sat at the library table, the head resting on one hand, when Leonard entered the room, “Kebunk !” The familiar, old name slipped' from his lips as he sank on one knee and laid a strong, young arm across the bent shoulders. Mr. Newcomb shivered, but did not raise his head. “Don’t take it so much to heart, Uncle Nat, don’t — ” Leonard was groping wildly after some fitting consolation. With a spasmodic movement his uncle freed himself and instinctively both rose to their feet. “Do you think I regret that?” Leonard started at sight of the haggard eyes that met his own, “It is the years — the years — the years that I have wasted !” He sank back into his chair while Leonard stood helplessly by. The sight of this grief was terrible to him. “Wasted?” His uncle’s voice was like a wail. “God help me! If that were all, I could bear it and take my punishment.” Leonard drew up a chair and sat with one hand resting on his knee. After a while the older man laid his own upon it, and for some 104 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE time they remained thus in silence. Then Mr. Newcomb withdrew his own and took from an inside pocket a note-book which Len recognized as his. “I found this after you had gone,” his uncle said, in a low voice, “and I found these,” turning to the lines Leonard had copied, “with the date written below. My boy” — he laid the open book on the table and faced his nephew — “thank God — thank God, with your latest breath, that you obeyed the voice of your ‘pilot’ before you had made shipwreck of your life ! I stand to-day where I stood thirty-five years ago, as far as this world’s goods are concerned,” he went on,* in a trembling voice, “and in that space of time I have measured to the full that it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose himself !” “Have — have you nothing left, uncle?” Leonard asked hesitatingly. “Only what will pay my outstanding obligations.” “But — the insurance?” “The old policy lapsed two days ago. I meant to turn what business I controlled in that way over to your firm — if they would take it.” Leonard laid one hand quickly on the elder man’s arm. He knew the motive which underlay this thought. But his heart had given a great bound. Here was his opportunity, the opportunity he had always craved, of showing his love and gratitude to the uncle who had done so much for him ! “It is my turn now. Uncle Nat!” he cried, eagerly. “I can earn enough to keep the wolf from the door of both of us. My salary has been raised and ” But his uncle’s enforced composure had suddenly given away. Tears were coursing slowly down his cheeks a^ he looked with starved eyes into the young face at his side. “I care for nothing — as long as you are spared to me,” he said, chokingly. “It is more than I deserve ! But I need not be a burden to you, my boy. I have some little property, enough to keep me, which came to me from my mother. Only — stay with me, Len, always!” In silence their hands met with a close clasp. A question trembled on Leonard’s lips which they hardly dared to frame. As though in answer to his thought, his uncle said : “I need scarcely say that one stone of the — the brewery” — he brought the word out with a wince — “will never be rebuilt. I am going to give the land to the city for a STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 105 square — a breathing space for some of the people who live around there.” “Hurrah!” Leonard caught up the old note-book and tossing it into the air, caught it again. “Even if mast, cable, anchor and soldiers are gone, ‘Yet lives our pilot still’! Uncle, it is worth everything — all the long months of loneliness and separation that we have both been through — to hear you say that!” In a diminutive garden attached to a small suburban cottage, .a young man, minus hat and coat, worked vigorously spading up the soft earth into ridges, which he fondly hoped would, in due time, yield a flourishing crop of vegetables. Stopping to wipe his moist brow, he threw a bright glance of inquiry at an elderly man who sat watching his labors. “How’s that. Uncle Nat! That ridge look straight to you?” Mr. Newcomb drew one hand across his eyes. In truth, he had seen little of the embryo garden, so occupied had he been with the young gardener’s splendid muscles as he swung his spade. “I think it is straight — it looks so to me,” he said, stooping hastily to hide the emotion which sometimes overcame him when he looked at Leonard. “What do you think, Ellen?” The young man turned to a pleasant- faced woman who was taking some spotless clothes from the line. Ellen O’Connor regarded the operations with pursed-up lips, her head held at a critical angle. “Sure, Mr. Len, a ram’s horn is a fool to it !” she anrlounced, solemnly, with arms akimbo. Leonard, dropping his spade, made a boyish dash at her, before which Ellen, snatching up her basket of linen, beat a panting retreat into the house. As darkness fell, uncle and nephew strolled, arm in arm, round their little domain. When, at last, their steps turned to the house, Nathaniel Newcomb laid one hand on the young man’s arm. “Len,” he said, huskily, “the man who obeys his “pilot’s’ voice, promptly and unswervingly, as you did, not alone saves his own life from shipwreck — but — he may help some struggling craft — which has disregarded orders — to reach harbor — at last.” — Mary L. Cummings in Classmate. 106 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE AT THE STROKE OF NINE. It was a pretty, white cottage, on a broad, green lawn, with a stone walk leading to the gate. By the door a rose climbed over the wall, and the gentle north wind scattered the white petals like snow on the ground. And the perfume from those flowers floated up, rich and sweet, like the breath of incense, burning in the temple of old. A woman, whose hair was just touched with gray, stood in the door- way, and a tall, handsome young man lingered at the gate. “Good-bye,” the woman was saying, “be sure to stop at the hotel with Fred Gilvan. I am sure he will keep you out of mischief. Be a good boy, and remember every night and morning at 9 o’clock I will pray for you.” “Good-bye,” he said, as he closed the gate, “good-bye.” He passed down the street in all the beauty of his young manhood, with his fine square shoulders straight and his proud head erect. Night in the great city, with its revel of sin and crime. It was the same old story; it need not be repeated, how Paul Durgin w’as tempted and amid the jeers of his companions fell; home, mother and every- thing were forgotten. As he staggered down the street, he met Fred Gilvan. “Paul,” said Fred, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder, “what does this mean?” “Oh, I’ve been on a little jaunt,” replied Paul, uneasily. “Paul, do you realize how far you have fallen to-night, have you forgotten the teachings of your mother?” There was no reply, and Fred continued, “Do you realize that to-night you have taken the first step on the downward road ; that you have forged the first link in your chain of destruction, that you are lost unless ” The sentence was never finished, for Paul turned fiercely upon him. “See here,” he said hotly, “you hush ; I’m not going to listen to your eternal preaching. I’ll do as I please, and I won’t take anything off of you, do you understand?” His voice rose and his eyes glowed with a strange light. He was usually slow to anger, but whiskey had fired his brain and he was mad. “Yes,” replied the low voice of his friend, “I understand, but Oh, Paul ! I can’t see you go to destruction without trying to save STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 107 3'-ou; we have always been such good friends, and it breaks my heart to see ” Here, without a word of warning, Paul raised his arm and struck him a blow on the head. There was no moan or outcry, as his gentle, noble, trusting friend fell to the ground. Paul stood still, looking at the prostrate form at his feet; then looking fearfully around, he knelt down and had his hand over his friend’s heart — it was still. His dear old playmate, chum, and friend was beyond recall. The moonbeams fell directly on the white, still face, with its high, white forehead and clustering hair. He knelt there, gazing into that quiet face, eagerly watching for some sign of life, but he watched in vain. As the truth slowly dawned upon him, he covered his face with his hands and moaned aloud : “He is dead,” he said slowly, “dead, and I killed him, but God knows I didn’t mean to — I loved him. Oh, Fred!” He took his hands from his face and looked at them eagerly. They were smooth and white, but he shook his head. “They are covered with blood,” he said with a shudder, “but I was mad with drink, I never was drunk before, but now I am a murderer.” He stretched out his hands to the skies, and just then the clock in the tower chimed out the hour — 1, 2, 3 — 7, 8, 9. “Nine o’clock,” he moaned, “Oh, mother.” !|i * ^ * The large court room was crowded with people to hear the ver- dict, “Ninety-nine years of penal servitude.” The judge asked the prisoner if he had anything to say, and in a trembling voice he said, “Your Honor, I would like to say a few words before I am taken away forever from my fellow-men.” “In memory I can see a little white school-house, with its broad playground shaded by rows of leafy maples. “I see the children as they play their games at recess, and coming home, I see two little boys, side by side, with their lunch baskets; perhaps eating an apple or a piece of cake, each one dividing with the other. “I see them in the sweet summer-time wading in the old mill 108 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE stream, or laying on the grassy bank watching the fish. I see them as they grow to manhood and enter college ; then again I see them standing side by side on the battlefield' in their suits of blue. “But these sweet visions fade, and another one appears. “I see one of them going the downward path; I see him as he staggers down the street, and I see the other one with his high-born, pure face, pleading with the drunken one to reform ; I hear his kind voice as he pleads, but pleads in vain. “And then the drunken one raises his hand and strikes his friend to the ground. I see him as he lies still and motionless in the moon- light. ‘“Then I see a dark, gloomy prison, surrounded by its high walls, and in that prison I see the one who committed the crime, serving his life sentence. “I see him toiling day by day, with never a hope of release, shut in from the busy outside world, never again to wander free, never again to associate with the friends and companions of former years, but there, in that gloomy prison, to toil till life shall end, then be buried in a potter’s field and be forgotten by all who once knew and loved him. “Gentlemen of the jury, I was drunk only once, but it was enough. I have finished.” He covered his face with his hands, as if to shut out the light, and sank into his chair. As they led him from the room, the judge’s wife (a kind-hearted woman who had a son), placed a bouquet of roses in his shackled hands. “Oh !” he exclaimed, burying his face in the fragrant petals, “how sweet, they are like the ones mother used to grow. I shall never pick them again.” And like the knell of a death-bell, the clock in the tower tolled the hour. Nine o’clock. — Ola D. Grant in Home Defender. TOM’S TEMPERANCE LECTURE. It was a bright autumn morning. The fall term of St. Rudolph’s School had begun on Wednesday; now it was Saturday, and the boys had a long holiday before them. Out on the playground, Tom Haddon — a new boy who had only arrived the night before — was standing by himself, and looking about with the curious but sober eyes of a boy STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 109 who felt as if he were in a new world, and who was as yet extremely doubtful as to his chances for happiness in that world. “Hello, Tom Haddon; is that you?” some one called suddenly. Tom’s gloomy face brightened, and he turned eagerly toward a group of boys near him, who were talking and laughing in the manner so expressive at one of good comradeship and much self-importance, that always marks the old boys at the beginning of a new school year. Tom knew several of those boys; he had met them during the summer vacation, and their greetings now were so hearty that in a few minutes he quite forgot that he was that forlorn creature, a strange boy in a large school; and he gladly accepted an invitaion to join his new friends in a tramp over the hills to a village some miles from St. Rudolph’s. In high spirits they set out; the hills were crossed, and early in the afternoon they reached the village. “Now for Cruger’s,” shouted several of the boys, and they led the way to a saloon and boisterously pushed open the door. Tom held back. He did not like the appearance of the place. “What are we going in here for?” he asked. “For a spread, of course,” one of the boys explained. “They cook great dinners here ; come on.” Tom was quite ready for a “spread,” and willingly followed the boys into a little back room where the saloon proprietor assured them they would be undisturbed. Their dinner of oysters and beefsteak was soon served, and thoroughly enjoyed by the hungry boys ; then a dessert of fruit, cake, and pie was ordered, and when the last crumb of the last cake had disappeared and the waiter had removed the dishes from the table, Frank Jones, their acknowledged leader, said gayly: “Now, fellows, before we go, we’ll have a loving cup.” “A loHng cup; what’s that?” Tom asked of the boy nearest him.. “You needn’t be afraid' of it, it won’t hurt you; it’s only beer,” the boy answered. “Beer? I don’t want any,” and Tom pushed back his chair. “Sit still; you can’t go yet,” Frank Jones said, and at that moment the waiter returned with the black beer bottles. Amid the shouts of laughter the corks drawn, and then one of the boys started the song: “And here’s a hand, my trusty friend. And gie’s a hand of thine. And we’ll take a right guid willie-wought ” 110 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “No, no,” Tom Haddon shouted, “this is wrong. I will not drink. Let me go.” The boys stopped singing. “So you are a kill-sport, are you?” one of them said scornfully. “No, no,” Tom cried, “but I can’t drink. Let me go.” The beer was foaming in their glasses, but the boys left it un- touched while they stared at Tom. “You are a fool, Tom,” one of them said. “What harm can a glass of beer do you?” “Come, Tom,” coaxed another, “don’t make a row about nothing; be a man and drink your beer.” “I won’t,” Tom said sharply. “Let me go.” “We aren’t quite ready to let you go yet,” Frank Jones said, angrily. “You are a pretty fellow to kill sport in this way; and now if you won’t drink, you shall give us a temperance lecture. If it is wrong to drink beer, you shall tell us why. Come, boys, pay attention. You will now listen to an address on temperance from the eloquent orator, Thomas Haddon.” “Hear ! Hear !” shouted the boys, and then one of them called ; “Stand him up on the table.” “Up with you,” cried two of the strongest boys, as they seized Tom, and unable to resist, he was forced to mount the table. With a crimson face and something suspiciously like tears in his eyes, he faced his tormentors. “I can’t, boys,” he faltered. “I can’t talk to you.” “More shame to you, then, for spoiling our fun,” growled one of the boys. “Come, you needn’t think we’ll let you off. If you won’t drink beer, you shall give us some good reason for not drinking it. That’s only fair. Come, be quick and begin.” “Boys,” he said, in a clear voice, “I will tell you a story — a true story — a story that belongs to my own life.” “All right,” said Frank Jones, but something in Tom’s face made the other boys watch him in silence. “Boys,” Tom went on, in a tender, pathetic voice, “I knew a little boy once who had a beautiful home. He had a kind father and mother, and he loved them both so much that he could never tell which he loved best. Boys, that little boy’s father had always been a good man; but once, when he wasn’t well, the doctor ordered him to drink beer. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 111 and he began to drink it, and ” Tom’s voice was thrilling in its emphasis now — “he soon began to drink stronger things; and there came a time when that little boy’s home was sO' changed from the lovely place it once was, that it seemed as if a fiend must live there. That little boy heard his father rave and curse like a madman — and he was mad, for rum had made him' so — and he saw — oh, boys, to his dying hour he will remember it — he saw his mother struck down by his drunken father’s hand.” There was a dead silence in that little room. The beer had ceased to foam, but not a boy had tasted it, or noticed it. “Boys,” Tom’s thrilling voice went on, “that little boy is a large boy now, and he is almost alone in the world, for his father and mother are both dead, and now he has no home. Do you wonder?” — and no boy who heard it, ever forgot the pathos of Tom’s tone — “do you wonder, boys, that, standing by his mother’s grave, that boy looked up to heaven, and solemnly vowed never, while he lived, to touch or taste the drink that had made a madman of hie father, ruined his home, and broke his mother’s heart.” Tom ceased, and for a moment not a boy stirred. “You will let me go now,” he said, as he jumped down from his high place, and started for the door; and then with one impetuous rush, the boys gathered around him. “Tom,” Frank Jones said, “you are a hero. Why, I think you aie braver than a soldier. I am proud of you, and I would do just like you if I were in your place.” The boy stopped; a new thought had come to him. He looked around on his companions. “Boys,” he said earnestly, “it seems to me, that what I would do if I were in Tom’s place, I had better do now in my own place.” Perhaps the head master of St. Rudolph’s was never in his long life more happily surprised than he was that evening, when six of his oldest and most influential boys called on him and asked to sign the temperance pledge. Years have passed since that evening, and to-day those boys are mature men and widely parted, but they have never forgotten Tom’s story, and through all the trials and temptations of manhood, with God’s help, they have kept their pledge. — Mary Hubbard Howell in The Evangelical Herald. 112 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE THE SPECTRAL INN-KEEPER. On a raw, disagreeable afternoon in November, I discovered myself in the rather foolish act of journeying on foot (merely in search of amusement or to gratify a somewhat morbid curiosity), through a certain wild and almost uninhabited district of Maryland. With me, at that time, a pedestrian excursion of fifty or a hundred miles was a trifle ; and, having some knight-errantry in my disposition, I was often gratified with adventures which a more discreet person would have been solicitous to avoid. Proceeding, therefore, in pretty good spirits, along a narrow road, through the dense pine woods, I availed myself of the perfect solitude of the place, and entertained myself by reciting choice passages from the Roman classics, being answered, at intervals, by echoes which certainly never spoke Latin before. Sometimes too, the driving autumnal winds whistled and hissed so lifelike among the tops of the spiry pines, that I paused and looked around, apprehensive that my peripatetic recitations were overheard by more auditors than I wished for. At length, while repeating a portion of Virgil’s Lib. vi., with great fervor, methought I heard the words : “A Dutchman, I declare !” “That,” thought I, coming to a full stop, “must be the drollest kind of an echo ; or, if it be the wind, I must say it speaks more intelligibL than ever I heard a breeze discourse before.” “Come here, mister, and get something to drink. Can you fushtay that?” “Who are you, what are you, and where are you?” said I, in some trepidation. “Why, that’s pretty good English, and yet I could have sworn you were speaking Dutch this minute.” I now ascertained that the voice proceeded from a clump of chin- quapin bushes, and, approaching, a little nearer, I saw an elderly man, in rustic costume, sitting on the ground, with a plate containing some edibles in his lap, and a flask containing, as I doubt not, something drinkable, standing by his side. An ax lay near him, and a quantity of chips and branches of trees strewed about, showed him to be a wood- cutter. “What countryman are you?” said he. “A native of this very soil ; nothing else, I assure you,” answered 1. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 113 “Well, mister, I don’t think there’s much good in a man that talks to himself, especially if he talks in a lingo that no Christian can under- stand. May be you’re a fortune-teller?” “No, nothing of the kind. I felt lonesome, and was trying to amuse myself, that’s all.” “Ah! you’re cunning. ‘Talk to yourself, and talk to Old Scratch!’ You’ve heard that old proverb? But come, whatever you are, take a pull at this before you go any further.” “No; thank you. I seldom drink anything stronger than water.” “Well, that looks suspicious, too; but I always try to put the best construction on everything. What can I do for you?” “How far to the nearest tavern?” “None this side of Choptank River, and that’s five miles off, at least. Yes, there is one ” “Well, one’s enough at present. I’m easily accommodated.” “Ay, but nobody lives there. The house has not been occupied for six years. It’s haunted !” “Oh !” said I, smiling perhaps a little incredulously. “It is true, as sure as I live !” said the woodman, with something like a shudder. “I never had much notion of ghosts, but I guess seeing’s believing!” “So you’ve seen a ghost there, eh?” I inquired. “Ay, just as plainly as I see you. I have seen it walking upstairs, before the windows, and stopping sometimes to look out.” “Very natural. But what was it like?” “An old man, with a blue cloth cap and a green baize jacket.” “Oh ! then, you saw the ghosts of a blue cloth cap and a green baize jacket likewise?” “I saw just what I tell you, and hundreds of others have seen the same.” “But why does this spirit choose to walk about in such unfashion- able attire?” asked I. “He can’t rest in his grave,” said the woodman, with a groan. “He’s murdered his own brother in the bar-room of that very tavern. There is blood on the floor to this' day.” “You have seen that?” “No; I never ventured inside of the building; but my wife went 114 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE there to hunt for one of our little children when it was lost, and she saw it.” “Well,” said I, after a pause, “I must either pass the night at this haunted hotel or out of doors ; and it strikes me that, on such an airy night as this, the hotel, with all its horrors, is to be preferred. Woodman, I forgive your suspicions; but do you think I would venture on such a lodging-place if I hadn’t a clear conscience?” “And why not? If you deal with Old Scratch, you are not afraid to meet with him, I suppose. But maybe I am too hard on you ; here, take this flask, you might want it. What time will you be back this way, if ” “If I escape the horrors of this fearful night,” replied I, guessing at his meaning. “I will be back within three days.” “Well, I shall be cutting wood, hereabouts; you will see me and may return my flask; use what’s in it, if you like. But I shall want to hear what happened to you.” “Oh ! certainly, if I am permitted to tell.” I took l&ave of my new acquaintance, having first accepted the flask (for I had no conscientious scruples at that time), and, not with- out some anxious feelings it must be acknowledged, I resumed my walk. The gloom and dreariness of the pine forest seemed to increase from that moment, for my thoughts began to be tinged with the supernatural ; and it is well known what effect the complextion of one’s meditation has on external objects. By the time. I had arrived at the- deserted inn, therefore, I was prepared to see a whole regiment of ghosts in the uniform of blue caps and green jackets. It is well enough to laugh at such fancies sometimes ; but who is entirely free from them in all circumstances? I had been traveling all day in a dreary and desolate region, my imagination had been rambling among poetical descriptions well calculated to excite my superstitious sensibilities. I had, without observing it at the time, been infected with the ghostly horrors of the wood-cutter, and now that I had arrived at the scene of spectral resort. I felt that, if there were any place in the world where ghosts might be supposed to congregate, this was the very spot. The old inn was completely imbedded in the forest ; there was a small space in the rear which had been cleared, probably for a garden, but the intention had never been carried out, and the spot was thickly studded with the stumps of trees blackened b)’’ fire, in an inefliectual STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 115 attempt to burn them to the ground. They looked, in the very dim twilight, like so many elfish figures, in every fantastic attitude, welcom- ing my arrival. The inn itself was built of irregular gray stones, many of which had fallen from their places, causing frightful gaps and dis- figurations on the exterior surface of the walls. The glass of the win- dows had been entirely demolished, and the greater part of the sashes and window-frames had crumbled away and fallen to the ground, ming- ling with a mass' of rubbis'h, consisting of stones, plaster, and decayed wood. Part of the sign still remained — the device was, or had been, a white horse; the post and frame which supported it were placed on the opposite side of the road. The sign itself, as it swung on its rusty staples, produced a sound that might have been mistaken for the shriek of a tortured ghost, or the cry of some human being in mortal agony. But the night was now down upon me, and the wind had become sufficiently piercing to make any shelter desirable ; therefore, I made my way, with some difficulty, through the rubbish and reached the door. It was not fastened in any way, yet it was opened with some difficulty, on account of its great weight and the very rusty condition of its hinges. I found myself in the bar-room, the scene of the murder. I stood on the floor, which I had been told, was incrusted with blood; but the room was too dark to admit of an examination, if I had been disposed to make one. I passed hurriedly through the apartment and ascended the stairs ; opening another door at the head of the staircase, I entered a room that was dimly lighted by a window in the rear of the building. A very young moon shed a feeble ray into this chamber, showing all the furniture it contained, namely, an old table and chair in one corner. Fatigued by my long walk, I threw myself into the chair, and gazed around to assure myself that I was the sole occupant of the premises. Tlie moonlight was sufficient to satisfy me that I was alone. I felt relieved, and, opening my valise, I took out some portable articles of refection, prudently stored away for certain emergencies to which travelers are liable. I arranged my repast on the table, and finally pro- duced the wood-cutter’s flask, which I held up to the moonbeam to ascer- tain the color, if possible, and thus estimate the quality of the contents. At that moment, a deep groan, or rather a howl of anguish, invaded my ears. I looked toward the door which I had shut after me, and found it was now open! More than that, an indistinct figure appeared in the aperture. 116 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE If, like Lord Nelson, I had “never known fear,” I might have had the honor of an introduction to him at that moment; for, although it would be easy enough, at this time to pretend that I received my spectral visitor (or rather my host, for I was really an intruder on his quarters), with the most intrepid cordiality, I will be honest enough to confess that my ruling passion, at that moment, was unmitigated terror. The figure advanced ; I sat like a sculptured image of Time with the hour-glass in his hand (supposing the hour-glass to be represented by the flask of Geneva), and I do not believe that fright left me enough control over my muscles to effect a wink, much less to move hand or foot in an attempt at resistance or escape. The phantom stood before me ; it extended a hand ;I was too much alarmed, at first, to guess what this gesture signified ; but recovering myself a little, I understood that the ghost wished to obtain possession of the flask. I surrendered it promptly ; but instead of raising the vessel to its lips, as I expected, the spectre, uttering a wild execration, dashed the bottle to pieces against the floor. The visionary being then turned and moved toward the door, it paused half-way, and faced me again. The faint moonbeam fell on the countenance; it was deadly pale, but seemed to express more sorrow than anger. I was encouraged ; it beckoned me to follow, and I obeyed. We descended the steps, I keeping at a very respectful distance, you may believe. The staircase ended in the bar-room, and there we stopped. My terrible guide retired to a dark corner, where he became invisible. I gazed steadfastly at the point where he disappeared ; presently I observed a small blue flame, which gradually enlarged and became more ruddy, till I was enabled to see the spectre again. It now held in its hand a lighted lamp, stood before the lattice-work where the liquors had formerly been deposited, and, with a mournful but expressive gesture, invited me to approach. I drew near, and casting my eyes on the floor, in obedience to a direction from the spectral finger, I saw a dark stain upon the boards. “That is the blood of my brother!” When the wretched being had pronounced these words, in a tone that accorded well with his ghostly character, he wrung his hands and uttered a howl like that which had so much alarmed me in the room above. He then glided into the interior of the bar, and returned with STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 117 a long knife, the rusty blade of which he displayed in the lamplight, as he said; “With this was the murder committed !” I had no inclination to make inquiries ; but, after a silence of some moments, interrupted only by another maniac howl, he proceeded: “Yes; with this knife I murdered him, my young brother. He was only nineteen. He never wronged me. We kept this tavern in partner- ship ; I persuaded him to join me in the business, and I murdered him ; this is his blood. I encouraged him to drink ; that caused all the trouble. It was in a drunken quarrel that I killed him. We were both intoxicated ; he struck me, and I stabbed him with this knife. Do you believe that the dead can come back?” I answered as I believed — that such a thing was possible. “Then, why have I never seen him? I, his murderer! Oh! how I wished to see him. I have prayed to see him ; but he will not come. I have watched whole nights in this room. Sometimes, when the wind moans through the old building as it does now, I think I hear him, just as he moaned when he was dying.” Turning to me suddenly, with an altered expression of countenance, he asked, “What brought you here?” “I was benighted on the road; and could find no other shelter.” “You will not betray me?” Without knowing exactly what I promised, I answered that I would not. “I am supposed to be dead — drowned in the Choptank,” said the fratricide. “The neighbors, when they happen to see me, take me for a spirit. I did try to drown, myself, soon after the murder was com- mitted ; but the pure water would not receive me into its bosom ; it threw me ashore, five miles below. I saw it was not my fate to die at that time. I was not permitted to go to my brother, so I returned to this place, hoping to see his ghost and beg forgiveness. An old friend who is acquainted with my secret, supplies me with breadq nothing but bread and water has entered these lips for the last three years. I have sworn to touch no other food during the remainder of my life. Oh ! that I had never touched any other.” He seized me by the arm. I glanced apprehensively at the fatal instrument which he still held in his other hand ; for the horrid deed he had penetrated, and the wildness of his present behavior, naturally 118 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE awakened some anxiety for my personal safety; but another glance at the old man’s grief-stricken countenance convinced me that there was nothing to dread. Gazing at me for a few moments in silence, he said at last: "Do you pity me?” “I do indeed, from my very soul,” answered I. “Would you make some sacrifice to lessen my misery?” “I would ; anything in reason.” “Then give me the consolation of believing that I have induced one human being to abandon the use of that accursed beverage which I prevented you from taking this evening. Swear that you will never touch it again.” “Most willingly,” said I ; and then, with the impressive evidence of the horrors of intemperance before me, with the blood of one of its victims under my feet, and in the presence of a wretch who was even then suffering the unspeakable agonies it had inflicted, I made my first vow of total abstinence. Need I add, reader, that it has been religiously kept? Who could forget the solemn admonitions of such a scene, and under such circumstances? Soon after I stretched myself on a bench which remained in the bar-room, and would have slept; but the exciting events of the evening, the mournful sound of the wind that rushed through the dismantled building, and especially the continued walking to and fro of the penitent- criminal, his lamentations, self-reproaches, and cries of anguish, banished slumber from my uneasy couch. As soon as the morning dawned, I prepared for my day’s journey, glad to escape from the contemplation of so much wretchedness. On taking leave of my unfortunate host, I endeavored to offer some consolation, but soon desisted, convinced that his was a sorrow which no human comforter could have alleviated. He wrung my hand as we parted, and exclaimed, “Remember your oath !” The benefits of the terrible lesson I had received that night were not confined to myself. A few days later, on my return through the pine forest, I encountered my friend, the wood-cutter. With a coun- tenance full of pallid expectation, he heard my narrative. I related ali the circumstances of the frightful interview in the upper chamber, dwelt with emphasis on the destruction of the flask of gin, told him I had been summoned to the scene of the murder, and repeated the confession there made ; but I was careful not to reveal the secret which had been ' STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 119 confided to my keeping. Of course, I was obliged to leave the wood- man under the impression that the being I had seen and conversed with was really a ghost. Finally, I gave my shivering auditor an account of the vow which I had been required to make; and then I paused, to observe the effect of the communication. He was evidently much troubled at this part of my story. I advised him to enter into a similar obligation, and he was easily persuaded to do so. He kept the pledge, as I subsequently found ; for, several years after, I saw this very man emerge from the hold of a wood-boat at Baltimore. He recognized me, and gave me to understand that things had gone prosperously with him since our last meeting. He was now the owner of several vessels, and was driving a lucrative business in the wood trade. All this good fortune he attributed to his temperance engagement in the pine forest. Observing that I smiled m)^steriously, he proceeded to inform me that the whole secret was out. The dead body of the inn-keeper had been found at the door of his- dreary habitation, and that circumstance had quieted the superstitious fears of the neighbor- hood, by convincing the people that the cause of their terror was sub- stantial, and not merely visionary. But, notwithstanding the woodman had become temperate under the influence of supernatural dread, he had sufficiently realized the blessings of sobriety to make him secure against any possibility of a relapse — a proof that superstition itself may occasionally effect some good purpose. — Tract by L. A. Wilmer. LIQUOR’S DEADLY WORK. One day Mr. M. Morrill’s attention was called to a little, pale, thin bootblack who had a bunch of bluebells in his buttonhole. The gen- tleman let the boy black his boots, then balancing a quarter on his finger, said : ■ ■ “Here is ten cents for the shine and fifteen cents for the flowers," pointing to the bluebells. The lad put his small hand over the flowers. “No, sir; I can’t sell them; if I were starving I wouldn’t sell a bluebell.” “And why not, little man?” The lad looked at Mr. Morrill so piteously that he was almost sorry he had asked him. He put his hand on the boy’s head, and said; 120 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Excuse me for asking; you need not tell me unless you wish, and you can keep the quarter besides.” “I like you and I’ll tell you. Just a year ago this month, and it has been such a long year, I thought the bluebells never would come,” and then he stopped and put his hand over his eyes, as if to shut out some horrible sight. Presently he took down his hand, and said abruptly : “My father was a drunkard. We once owned some property, I’ve heard mother say, but that was before I was born. We got so poor, mother had to go out and wash to get food for Bess and me. We lived in a little log house, a quarter of a mile from town. “One Friday morning there was only a plate of cornmeal and about two spoonfuls of molasses. “Mother baked the meal into bread, and told me to feed the baby when she awoke, and to keep a sharp lookout for father, while she was away washing that day. She kissed me at the door. ‘Be a good boy, Willie, and take care of little sister,’ she said. “Bessie slept a long time, and I passed the time sitting by her and going to the door to watch for father. When she woke up, she said, ‘Baby is so hungry; Willie get something to eat.’ ‘Get up, Bessie, and let me dress you, and then we will have some breakfast.’ I had not eaten a mouthful, nor had mother before leaving home, and I was dread- ful hungry. She got up and I dressed, washed and combed her, and when we sat down to the table, Bessie just dropped her curly head right down on the table and sobbed out, ‘O, Willie, I am so tired of cornbread and molasses; I can’t eat it; I want some meat and butter.’ “ ‘Don’t cry, baby,’ I said, stroking her curls, ‘mother will bring home something to-night.’ “ ‘But it is so long to wait.’ “ ‘Try to eat,’ I said, and I put a spoonful of molasses on her plate, and she did try, but she only swallowed a few mouthfuls and then left the table. I ate a small piece of dry bread; I thought she would eat the molasses, so I did not touch it. All day she kept saying she was hungry, but refused to eat. It was a long day to us both. “Father had come home, and it was nearly dark; we were both sitting on the doorstep. Bessie had laid her head against my arm and began to cry, ‘I’m so hungry, Willie ; mother stays so late to-night.’ “ ‘Don’t cry, baby, mother will soon be home.’ ‘Of course she STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 121 will!’ exclaimed George Anderson; he lived a mile beyond us, and as he spoke, he tossed a bunch of bluebells into Bessie’s lap. “ ‘Oh, how pretty !’ she exclaimed, while the tears dropped from her sweet blue eyes on the pretty bluebells. “ ‘Come, Bessie,’ I said, ‘let me fasten them among your curls.’ She stood upon the doorstep with her face toward the house. I stood behind her and tied the bluebells in her golden curls. I had just fastened the last one, when some one jerked me off the step. It was father; he was almost crazy with drink. “He caught Bessie and said, ‘You have been crying; what did Willie do to you?’ “She was so white and scared that I thought she would faint. ‘Willie didn’t do anything,’ she gasped out. “Father let her go and grasped me; he commenced to shake me awful. ‘You rascal, what did you do to Bessie? Tell me, or I’ll shake the life out of you.’ “He shook me so I could not answer. Then little Bessie caught him by the arm. ‘Please, father, don’t hurt Willie ; I was so hungry it made me cry.’ “He looked at the table and saw the bread and molasses. ‘You little white-faced liar, you are not hungry ; look at the table ; there is plenty to eat, and good enough for such a brat as you,’ and he shook her roughly. “She began to cry, and I tried to put my arms around her, but father pushed me away. ‘If you can’t eat anything, I can give yor something to drink,’ and started down the path that led to the pond. “Bessie hushed crying, but she looked awful scared. ‘I’ll give you something to drink,’ he said, when he reached the edge of the water, and I followed, scarcely knowing what I was doing, I was so frightened. “He waded in about knee deep, then took Bessie and put her little curly head down under the water. She threw up her little white hands and cried out, ‘Oh, Willie, take baby!’ just as the curly head went down. “I waded around father and tried with all my strength to raise her little head out of the water, but father held it down. I begged father to take her out, but he would not listen. She threw up her hands wildlv, there was a gurgling sound, then all was still. It seemed hours to me, but father at last lifted up Bessie’s white, dripping face. I called her name wildly, but her blue lips didn’t move ; she was dead. 122 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Father carried her and laid her down on the green grass. T guess she won’t get hungry for awhile,’ he said. “I was so stunned I never moved nor spoke, until I saw the blue- bells that I had twined in Bessie’s hair, floating out on the water. I could not bear to see them drift away, so I waded out after them. The water was deep, and on I went. It was up to my arm-pits, now over my shoulder, still the bluebells were just beyond my reach, but I must have them. The water touched my chin^, another step and I caught them, and just as I did I heard mother call: ‘Willie! oh Willie! where are you?’ “1 looked for father. He was seated on the ground by Bessie. ‘Willie! oh Willie!’ came mother’s voice again.’ “I was out of the water now, but so weak I could scarcely stand. ‘Bessie! oh Bessie!’ I called, ‘Here, mother, at the pond.’ “Father gave one mad leap into the water — he plunged in face down. I was so terrified I did not know what to do. I heard mother coming. I trembled so I could not walk, so I crawled up to Bessie, and took father’s straw hat, put it over Bessie’s dead face to keep mother from seeing it. “In a moment she came in sight. She saw I was dripping with water. ‘Willie, Willie, what is the matter?’ I could not speak. “She lifted the hat from Bessie’s face. She stood for a moment as if turned to stone. ‘Tell me how it happened, Willie; tell me quick!’ Then I found voice and told her everything. She heard me through without a word, but when I had finished, stood with clasped hands over Bessie and shrieked such unearthly cries that soon the neighbor- hood flocked to the spot. “Father had drowned himself, his body was taken from under the beautiful water and buried in the cemetery along side of Bessie. Mother was a raving maniac. I put the bluebells in a little box and hung them around my neck. After the funeral, I lay in the hospital, sick for weeks with brain fever, but when I came to myself, the box was still around my neck; here it is” — and he drew from his bosom a small box containing a few withered leaves. “They speak of sweet baby Bessie,” he said, as he closed^ the box and slipped it back under his shirt bosom. Then he looked Mr. Morrill straight in the eyes, and said : “Please, mister, don’t ever vote for whiskey. It killed niy father STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 123 — .1 and dear little baby Bessie, and it locked mother up in the madhouse. \ Please don’t vote for rum,” — Tract. THE DRIVER’S STORY. ■.;r . In a lonely spot far up on the hillside stands a farmhouse — a plain, W unpainted building that bears the marks of many storms. The windows are boarded up. The door stands partly open, hanging on one hinge I and creaking dismally in the wind. Everything in the place shows signs of neglect and decay. The picket fence surrounding the house has [I partly fallen, and the once well-kept garden, filled with old-fashioned flowers, is a mass of weeds and bushes. A short distance from the house, [ a tall oak tree spreads its gnarled branches heavenward. Under it are two mounds, marked only by two simple crosses. I asked my driver, a man whom I had hired to carry me across the ^ country, how anyone could choose such a lonelyl resting place. He [v hesitated a moment, and then related the following story in a voice that p trembled a little in spite of his visible efforts at self-control; ^ “You ask about those two graves, and well you may wonder how ever they came to be in such a God-forsaken place. You see yonder s ': farm house? Well, in that house a newly wed couple started house- 's keeping, With hearts beating high with youth and happiness they ^ toiled to furnish it and make it comfortable, and even pretty, in a rude sort of way, for in those days people couldn’t have the fancy fixin’s that |;> ' can almost be had for the askin’ now in your big city stores. “Finally, to crown their happiness, a son was added to the family. “As the days and years rolled on, he developed into a beautiful boy, with fair complexion, blue eyes and wavy golden hair. As many fond, I foolish parents do nowadays, they humored his every wish. He was a - slender boy, who cared more for books than for outdoor sports. When he reached the age of sixteen, his parents decided he must have a college i education, so his father gave up his only hired man and cheerfully took : up his double burden of labor, aided by the mother, whose hair was I prematurely gray with constant work and care. “One year, two years, three years of increasing toil and sacrifice went by at the cottage on the hill. Every thought, every heartbeat was for the son, and often, in the evening, when the long day’s work was ■ done, the couple would sit hand in hand and talk of the happy days 124 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE when their son would be at home, when they could rest on his loving support. “Four years, five years, and now the day was approaching when he was to be graduated. They had saved and sacrificed that they might be able to see him graduate. The day before the college exercises were held, they started for the city, picturing their son’s surprise and delight at seeing them, the mother in a flutter of pride and joy, looking almost pretty in spite of bent form and old-fashioned gown ; the father, his heart beating high with happiness that his son had reached the top of the ladder at last. “Arriving in the evening, they walked up through the streets toward the college. Just as they passed a brightly-lighted saloon the door burst open and out came a crowd of drunken college boys. One jostled roughly against the other, and the foremost was tripped and staggered into the street, falling in front of an approaching car. In an .instant it was over; the crushed, mangled form lay motionless. The couple rushed with the crowd to the scene, when the father shrieked, ‘My God! it’s Louis!’ and fell lifeless across the body of his boy. “The bodies were tenderly taken to the farm and buried under the oak tree. The mother is this day a raving maniac, in an insane asylum.” The narrator paused, and, brushing his rough hand across his eyes, huskily added, “That man was my brother, that ruined home was my brother’s, and that family my brother’s family. Do you wonder. Miss, that I hate the accursed saloon with undying hatred?” I went on to X , where I delivered my lecture, but that man’s story remains as vividly in my mind as on the day it was told me. O boys, shun the saloon! Use all your strength to fight back this evil. Then when the good pure manly boys reach manhood, then will the foul stain of intemperance be wiped from our country. — National Advocate. A SCRAP OF BROWN PAPER. Looking at the pretty farmhouse of the Reeds, you would have said that there could not be any trouble in such a delightful spot. It stood on a knoll. Not far away were several maples and tall pines. There was a pleasant piazza, and vines twined around it. Back of the house and on either side stretched a fine, fertile farm. In and out of the doors of this cottage frolicked all day long the three Reed boys. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 125 Their names were DeWitt, James and Warren, and there were no brighter, merrier children to be found. Yet a terrible shadow hung over this beautiful home, and on a certain Thanksgiving morning, about twenty years ago, Mrs. Reed, as she moved about her neat kitchen, preparing the Thanksgiving dinner, was weeping. She did not mean that anybody should see how badly she felt; but suddenly DeWitt, who was ten years old and very observ- ing, came bursting in at the door. The mother wiped her eyes and tried to put on her usual look, but he had seen the tears. “What’s the matter?” he cried, with a sharp pain in his voice. “Never mind, dear,” she said, smiling. “Get the hammer, or what- ever it is that you want, and run out again. It is Thanksgiving Day — and we must think only of our mercies.” “I saw you crying the other day, too,” the boy went on. “It was in the arbor, when you were shelling the beans out there. You didn’t know that I saw you, but I did. Say, mother,” — lowering his voice — “is it — is it — father?” “You must not talk about it,” she said, hurriedly. “There he comes now. You must laugh and play. He will not like it if you don’t.” Mr. Reed’s heavy step sounded just outside the door, and the boy, after an instant’s hesitation, ran away. Mr. Reed’s voice was loud and tremulous and his face was red. It was easy to guess that he was a drunkard. Seeing him, anybody could understand his good wife’s tears. DeWitt went slowly back to the barn, where he had been playing with his brother. He remembered when his father had been very dif- ferent, and when his mother had laughed and sung from morning to night. He thought of the loads of apples which he had helped his father to pick over and take to the cider-press ; and of the barrels of cider which were growing “hard” and “strong” in the cellar. He thought of the great demijohn of whiskey which his father kept in a certain closet, and how he himself had liked to scrape the sugar from the bottom of the glass in which his father mixed hisi “sling.” He remem- bered, too, how his mother had looked very white when she saw him, and whispered, “Please don’t.” There was so much going on all the time, and he had been so busy in school that he had not had time to think of all these things. Now he could see that his father was getting worse very fast — and it was making his mother cry! It was no wonder that DeWitt looked sober as 126 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE he opened the barn door. Of course the others noticed it at once. “What’s up?” cried little Warren, jumping down from a great hay- mow almost upon De Witt’s head. Warren was only eight, but he was very thoughtful. “Is the mortgage going to be closed up, or whatever you call it?” “I wouldn’t wonder,” said DeWitt, gravely. James had been jumping on the hay, too; but presently they all stopped and sat down together, talking in low tones, and with a worried look on their faces. None of them fully understood what a mortgage was, but they knew that it was something dreadful, in their mother’s opinion. They knew, too, that within a few years the Reed family had come to possess one, and that “interest” had to be paid on it. They knew that if this interest were not paid, they would sooner or later lose their pleasant home. Even little Warren dimly connected this chain of terrible facts with the right cause ; for he put in briskly, while his brothers were talking. “Mother said not to drink the cider out of father’s pitcher.” As they talked the boys grew more and more sober. If they had not soon heard their father’s voice calling them in to dinner, they might all have fallen to crying. That night, when their mother went upstairs with them at bedtime^ they all knelt together and said their prayers. It had been her custom, when these were done, to undress Warren, while the other boys undressed themselves. Then she would lie down for a few moments beside each one, and talk softly with him about the events of the day. Something had kept her, during these talks, from speaking of any- thing which might seem to condemn her husband. It had been like a knife to her sopl to see her beautiful boys drinking from the cider pitcher, and scraping with zest the sugar from their father's tumbler. “But if I forbid them, how can I enforce obedience?” she had sard to herself. “I must not take any stand until I can hold it. And I must not ‘nag’ them constantly. If I do, my words will have no weight.” So this wise mother had delayed, giving only an occasional word of counsel and reproof on the subject which most tried her soul. She prayed for help and guidance, and it came. To-night she saw that the boys acted strangely. They looked at each other meaningly. Several times they made disjointed remarks to each other which she could not understand. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 127 At last, they were all in bed. She felt that her time had come. To-night she must speaki It had been the most trying day of her life. Her husband had lain, almost ever since dinner, in a drunken stupor upon the couch. She felt as though she could bear no more. She must speak plainly to her. boys. They were young, but they could see that drink was a horrible evil. They ought to be strong enough to promise never to touch it. She could show them how no one became a drunkard all at once. The beginnings were small, and the habit grew slowly. Oh, if they would only promise never to begin ! Before she could speak a word, DeWitt said, “Is it time now, tellers ?” “Yes!” they cried. And from under his pillow the dear little eldest brother produced a piece of coarse, torn brown wrapping paper, carefully, but not quite neatly, folded. “Read it, mother 1” he commanded, joyously. Taking it to the lamp, she read, scrawled in a big, boyish hand, these words; “Pledge: We ain’t never going to drink no cider. DeWitt Reed. James Reed. Warren Reed. 8 cents.” “You see,” exclaimed James, “we thought we’d give you some Thanksgiving.” Happy tears rolled down their mother’s face, as she kissed and thanked them all. “But what does the ‘8 cents’ mean?” she asked them. “Oh, if any one of us does drink cider, he has got to pay the others eight cents,” laughed DeWitt. “Trouble after trouble came upon us,” Mrs. Reed was in the habit of saying, in later times. ‘We lost our pleasant home — and for years we scarcely knew from one day to another where we were to get our daily bread. But the joy of that happy Thanksgiving made all those sorrows light. For my boys kept their ‘pledge,’ and that rough, torn scrap of brown paper is the dearest thing that I own, and will be till I die.” — Kate Upson Clark in The Ram’s Horn. EXPERIENCE OF COL. S. E. HADLEY. I sat in a saloon in Harlem, a homeless, friendless, dying drunkard. I had pawned or sold everything that would bring a drink. I could not 128 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE sleep unless I was dead drunk. I had not eaten for four days, and for four nights preceding I had suffered with delirium tremens from mid- night till morning. I had often said : ‘T will never be a tramp ; I will never be cornered; for, when that time comes, if it ever does, I will find a home in the bottom of the river.” But the Lord so ordered it, that when the time did come, I was not able to walk one-quarter of the way to the river. As' I sat there thinking, I seemed to feel some great and mighty presence. I did not know then what it was. I did learn afterward that it was Jesus, the sinner’s friend. I walked up to the bar and pounded it with my fist till I made the glasses rattle. Those v.'ho stood by looked on with scornful curiosity. I said I would never take another drink, if I died in the streets; and I felt as though that would happen before morning. Something said, “If you want to keep this promise, go and have yourself locked up.” I went to the nearest station house, a short distance away, and had myself locked up. I was placed in a narrow cell, and it seemed as though all the demons that could find room came in that place with me. This was not all the company I had either. No, praise the. Lord! that dear Spirit that came to me in the saloon was present, and said, “Pray !” I did pray ; and though I did not feel any great help, I kept on praying. As soon as I was able to leave my cell, I was taken to the police court, and remanded back to the cell. I was finally released, and found my way to my brother’s house, where every care was given me. While T was lying in bed, the admonished spirit never left me, and when I arose the following Sabbath morning I felt that day would decide my fate. Many plans were turned over in my mind, but all were rejected; and towards evening it came into my head to go to Jerr}' iSIcAuley’s Mission. I went. The house was' packed, and with great difficulty I made my way to the space near the platform. There I saw the apostle of the drunkard and the outcast — the man of God, Jerry McAuley. He arose, and amid deep silence, told his experience — that simple story that I have heard so many hundred times afterward, but which was ever new: “how he had been a ‘thief,’ an outcast, a drunkard, ‘but I gave my heart to God, and he saved me from everything that’s wicked and bad.’ ” There was a sincerity about this man and his testimony that carried conviction with it, and I found myself saying, “I wonder if God can save me?” I listened to the testimony of t-wenty-five or thirty “In the great library of Carville Tower.” See Page 144 % You feel yourself above it, no doubt. See Page 95 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 129 persons, every one of whom had been saved from ruin, and I made up my mind that I would be saved or die right there. When the invitation was given, I knelt down with quite a crowd of drunkards. Never will I forget that scene ! How I wondered if I would be saved! if God would help me! I was a total stranger; but I felt I had sympathy, and it helped me. Jerry made the first prayer. I shall never forget it. He said : “Dear Saviour, won’t you look down in pity on these poor souls? They need your help,. Lord; they can’t get along without it. Blessed Jesus, these poor sinners have got them- selves into a bad hole. Won’t you help them out? Speak to them, Lord! do, for Jesus’ sake — Amen!” Then Mrs. McAuley prayed fer- vently for us, and Jerry said: “Now, all keep on your knees and keep praying, while I ask these dear souls to pray for themselves.” He spoke to one after another, as he placed his hand on their heads, saying, “Brother, you pray. Now, tell the Lord just what you want Him to do for you.” How I trembled as he approached me ! Though I knelt down with the determination to give my heart to God, when it came to the very moment of grand decision, I felt like backing out. The devil knelt by my side and whispered in my ears crimes I had forgotten for months. “What are you going to do about such and such matters if you start to be a Christian to-night? Now you can’t afford to make a mistake; had you not better think this matter over a while, and try to fix up some of the troubles you are in, and then start?” Oh, what a conflict was going on for my poor soul ! A blessed whisper said, “Come !” The devil said, “Be careful !” Jerry’s hand was on' my head. He said, “Brother, pray.” I said, “Can’t you pray for me?” Jerry said, “All the prayers in the world won’t save you unless you pray for yourself.” I halted but a moment, and then, with a breaking heart, I said, “Dear Jesus, can You help me?” Never with mortal tongue can I describe that moment. Although up to that moment my soul had been filled with indescribable gloom, I felt the glorious brightness of the noonday sun shine into my heart; I felt I was a free man. Oh, the precious feeling of safety, of freedom, of resting on Jesus ! I felt that Christ, with all His brightness and power, had come into my life ; that indeed old things had passed away, and all things' had become new. From that moment until now I have never wanted a drink of whiskey, and I have never seen money enough to make me take one. I promised God that night that if he would take away the appetite for 130 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE strong drink, I would work for Him all my life. He has done His part, and I have been trying to do mine. — Way of Faith. ANTON VESTER’S REVENGE. “John, did you see this letter? It was brought here this afternoon while you were out,” said the minister’s wife to her husband, as he was going up-stairs to his study. The- minister took' the letter, and started to go on again, but at the sight of the address on the envelope he stopped and opened the letter where he was. He read it through, and then went in to the dining room where his wife had gone. “Mary, do you know what this letter is?” Then, without waiting for an answer, the minister went on : “Let me read it to you. I need your advice. “‘Mr. John Glenning — My dear Pastor: I dread to tell you the news again which so often before has caused me anguish and you trouble and vexation But I cannot help coming to you once more. I do not know where else to go. Some one in town has been selling George liquor again. Last night he came home reeling! Is the law powerless to convict those who, contrary to the law of our state, sell the poison secretly? How long shall I pray and weep that my boy may be spared going the way of his brother? For the sake of the Father in heaven, Mr. Glenning, search out the guilty parties and bring them to justice! This is my prayer and the prayer of many another heartbroken mother in this town. I do not sign my name. You know who I am, a mother praying day and night that her youngest boy may be spared from a drunkard’s fate.’ ” The minister looked up from the letter, and his wife’s face was full of sympathetic questions. “It is terrible, John, this great curse of intemperance. But what can you do in this case?” “I can try to find the man who is selling the liquor to George.” “I don’t see how. But what if you do find him?” “Then I will bring him to justice. We have a right to defend our homes and our church from such awful danger.” “Do you think, John, it is your business as a minister to undertake this kind of work?” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 131 “Mary, any kind of work is my business that will save life. If no one else in this town will get the evidence against this person who is selling intoxicants contrary to the law, then I will do it myself.” The minister’s wife was silent a moment. Then she said, “John, I have faith to believe you are right; but I cannot help feeling that you are about to undertake a very difficult and dangerous duty.” “It is no more than I ought to perform. How else can I answer the appeal in this letter?” Mrs. Glenning did not reply. She looked forward with intense anxiety to the task her husband seemed resolved to under- take. She had great confidence in his ability, but she could not help feeling that never in all his parish life had he faced any duty so serious. A week after this talk between them, the minister handed his wife the morning paper, and pointed silently to an article printed very con- spicuously on the local page. It was headed : “LIQUOR SELLER ARRESTED! On Charges Preferred to the County Attorney by Rev. John Clenning. The Case Will Come to Trial in the District Court in One Month.” The article continued: “Last evening Rev. John Glenning filed a stateinent with the county attorney in which he charges Anton Vester with selling liquor in violation of the prohibitory laws of the state. He will appear against Vester as prosecuting witness at the time of the trial. We understand that the evidence is very conclusive.” The minister’s wife looked up from the reading, and her eyes were anxious and troubled. “John, you never told me about it. How did you succeed?” “I did not want to talk about it until I had actually done something. You know that is my way. Well, when I found that the police and the sheriff and the county attorney did not intend to do anything to close up this drinking place, I went myself and secured the evidence of three sales of liquor.” “How could you? Did not this man know you?” “No. He is a comparative stranger. I stood in one end of his place while the purchases were being made. The open violation of the law is very bold. There is no doubt of the fact that he is guilty.” “Do you think he will be convicted? Is it necessary for you to appear against him?” 132 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Yes, I must appear as prosecuting witness. The crisis is a serious one in our town. If some one does not try to prevent the sale of liquor here, our young men will be in danger of being lost, body and soul. You would not have me a coward, Mary?” “No, no ! But, John, I am afraid of what may happen to you. This is a terrible enemy to fight, this liquor enemy.” “I know it, and I believe, Mary, that I have counted the cost. I must go forward now that I have begun. The church people and all the best citizens in town are in sympathy with my efforts. That is a great help. Don’t worry over the result. We are in the hands of God.” For answer the minister's wife put her hand in that of her husband, and pledged him her enthusiastic and loving confidence in the battle he had begun. The month went by, and the day of the trial drew near. But before that date the minister received an anonymous letter, a knowledge of which he carefully kept from his wife until long after the events. that followed. This letter read ; “Rev. Glenning — Sir: If you go on with this case of Anton Vester, you will have reason to be sorry for it. Better take warning and have^ the case dismissed before anything happens to you or yours.” The minister kept this letter a secret from his wife so as not to add to her anxiety. Nevertheless, he felt a little nervous, for it was the first anonymous letter he had ever received. When the day of trial came, the court room was crowded. The liquor men came in a body. The minister’s parish was well represented. It was the first time a minister had appeared as prosecuting witness. The evidence was plain and conclusive. On the day alleged, the minister had gone into the place of Anton "Vester, the accused, and had there seen him sell, contrary to the state laws, three bottles of whiskey. The closest cross-examination failed to shake the evidence in the least, and the jury, after being out less than half an hour, returned a verdict of guilty. Throughout the trial the accused had sat with his wife and little girl close to the jury. The child was beautiful-faced, attractive and winsome. When her father was on the witness stand denying the charges against him, she climbed up into her mother’s lap. When her father came down again, he held her. The minister could not restrain a feeling of pity as he looked at the family. Nothing but his sense of STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 133 duty owed to that other mother whose boy was in danger of r-uin, steadied his purpose as the trial proceeded. When the verdict was given by the foreman, the court-house was very still. As soon as the foreman ceased speaking, the accused and convicted man jumped to his feet, and, beside himself with rage, shook his fist in the minister’s face. ‘T will have revenge! If I go to' jail, watch for yourself!” “Silence in court!” shouted the- judge sternly. “Bailiff, take the prisoner in charge !” The greatest excitement prevailed for a short time. When quiet had been restored, the attorney for the defense moved for a new trial. The court overruled the motion, and at once proceeded to pronounce the sentence. “Prisoner at the bar, you stand committed, according to the law of the state, to the county jail for ninety days, and will pay a fine of three hundred dollars.” The guilty man heard the sentence in silence. As he was being taken out of the court-room, he was heard to mutter, “I will have my revenge !” As the minister, surrounded by several of his parishioners, was leaving the court-room, the wife of the accused confronted him. For a moment it seemed as if she had meant to strike him. Her face grew deadly pale ; she seemed almost like a wild animal about to spring. Sud- denly she turned and went out rapidly, leading the child with her. The minister went home completely exhausted with the nervous tension of the trial and the scenes attending it. “Mary,” he said that night, “this has been the severest experience ©f my whole life.” “Do you still think you have acted wisely, John?” His wife put the question more to satisfy<. herself than her husband. “I have no doubt whatev It was necessary. I have no question as to the perfect right of my action. I regret the suffering that will fall on the innocent as well as the guilty. But that is always the way with sin. It hurts so many others besides the sinner.” It was on the Sunday night succeeding the trial that the minister awoke about two o’clock in the morning with a nervous start that he could not account for. Something was wrong somewnere. There was no noise in the house. Everything was very quiet. It was a winter. 134 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE night, frosty and still. He arose and dressed hurriedly, under the growing impression that in spite of the absence of any definite danger, something was wrong. His wife was frightened. “John! What is the matter? What are you going to do?” “Don’t be frightened, Mary. I want to look around a little.” He walked to the window looking out towards the small stable at the rear end of the yard, and drew up the curtain. As he did so, a strange light flashed up from behind the stable. It grew brighter as he looked. “I believe the stable is on fire ! I must run and see. Pump some water from the cistern, while I run out with a panful.” The minister rushed out. It was only a little way. When he opened the stable door, a volume of smoke and flame poured out. He fought his way in, pouring the water upon the flames where they had begun to run up the side of the building. With great difficulty he suc- ceeded in dragging out of the stable his horse and cow. Then followed a fierce fight with the fire. His wife brought water. The neighbors came to the rescue. And at last the flames were put out, but not before the minister’s hands were terribly burned. The neighbors whispered among themselves, “incendiary fire 1” The minister said little. He was thinking of the man in the court-room and his words at the time he was convicted. He was also calling up the look on the woman’s face as she left the court-room. Three months had gone, and it was the evening of the last day of Anton Vester’s imprisonment. He was to be released at 4 o’clock that afternoon. On the same day Rev. John Glenning, still suffering from the effect of the terrible burning of his hands, had received a note signed by one of his parishioners : “Dear Pastor: I have learned to-day that Mrs. Vester, the wife of the man convicted for liquor selling, is suffering for want of fuel and clothing this severe weather. I am sure you will be glad and able to do something for the woman and her little girl. They live down near the old river bridge, the one that has been condemned as unsafe lately. The house IS tne old brick house standing in the grove of cottonwoods. “Truly yours, CALVIN CLARK.” This letter aroused no suspicion in the minister’s mind. He decided STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 135 to go at once. He left his house a little before five, carrying with him what he thought was necessary. It was a long, cold walk. The winter day was gone, and by the time he reached the river, he could just see the brick house in the grove. He walked rapidly along, and was just passing the end of the old bridge, when he was startled by a woman’s cry coming from the direction of the bridge and out upon it. He put down his blanket and turned about, setting foot carefully on the old timbers of the dangerous bridge ; and, as he advanced, a woman came running towards him. She was the wife of Vester! She was shrieking: “My child! She has fallen into the river! O God ! Save her !” In a second the minister understood. Coming across the old bridge in the dark, the child in some way had fallen through a dangerous place. The mother, who had sent her earlier in the day on an errand, had gone out on the bridge to meet her. No one supposed the bridge was rotten. She had seen the child fall, and turned screaming for help. The river was filled with great blocks of ice. Some of them were thirty feet across. A heavy fall of snow had covered them. Upon one of these blocks, cushioned with snovr, the child had fallen, and the minister could see her dark form against the white. The current was sluggish and the ice was moving slowly. He ran off the bridge and down the bank, watching narrowly for an opportunity to leap on the moving mass. Near the shore a broad band of dark water whirled. He ran on down farther, and at last, as a cake floated nearer, he made a spring and landed on it. Making his way with the utmost courage to the form of the child, he finally reached her and caught her up. She was unconscious. He made his way back cautiously. Great gaps yawned between the blocks — sure death for him. When within twenty feet from the bank, he jumped upon a block that broke under his weight. He went down into the icy water, but to his great joy he felt as the water closed over him, that his feet touched the ground. He struggled with the strength of a giant against the ice that crowded around him, and gradually forced his way to the bank. Dripping and exhausted he bore out of the river the child he had saved. The mother had followed this heroism with feelings of terror. There 136 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE was no time now for anything but action. They wrapped the child in a shawl torn from the mother’s shoulders, and at their best speed hurried t© the brick house. The minister will never forget the scene as they pushed open the door. There stood Anton Vester, the husband, and with him three other men. “Well, where have you been?” were the words with which he greeted his wife. “Have you got that preacher?” Then at sight of Glenning and the bundle in his arms, the man stammered and stood silent. “Anson !” screamed his wife, as she fell on her knees before him. “Our child! Mr. Glenning has saved her life! Think what w’e were about to do !” The man stood stupefied. Then, as the story was told him and he understood what had been done, he sat down and covered his face with his hands, while the other men ran out, obeying the minister’s orders to get a doctor with all speed. When Rev. John Glenning recovered from a long illness caused by that night’s exposure, the best friends he had in his parish were Anton Vester and his wife and child. It was not long after that he learned how his stable had been fired by a friend of Vester’s, and the note sent was forged by another man to lure him to Vester’s house that night, where it was the intention to beat him within an inch of his life. These things are forgotten by Rev. John Glenning as he goes into Anton Vester’s home as his pastor. “My revenge was a failure, Mr. Glenning, God be praised for it. But your revenge was a success.” “How is that?” inquires the minister, as he bends to kiss the sweet child he once saved. “You heaped coals of fire on my head.” “That kind of revenge is very sweet,” replies the Rev. John Glen- ning, smiling. And he goes his way through his parish, thanking God for victory over evil. — Rev. Charles M. Sheldon in The Christian En- deavor World. THE COST OF ONE DRINK. “In a recent visit to the Leavenworth, Kansas, Prison,” said Mi. . Emma Molloy, “during my address on Sabbath morning, I observed a STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 137 boy not more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, on the front seat, intently eyeing me. The look he gave me was so full of earnest longing, it spoke volumes to me. At the close of the service, I asked the warden for an interview with him, which he readily granted. As he approached me his face grew deathly pale; and as he grasped my hand he could not retain the fast-falling tears. Choking with emotion, he said : “I have been in this prison two years, and you are the first person that has called for me — the first woman who has spoken to me.” “ ‘How is this, my child ? Have you no friends that love you ? Where is your mother?” “The great brown eyes, swimming with tears, were slowly uplifted to mine, and he replied : “ ‘My friends are all in Texas. My mother is an invalid, and fearing that the knowledge of the terrible fall would kill her, I have kept my whereabouts a profound secret. For two years I have borne my awful homesickness in silence for her sake.’ “As he buried his face in his hands, and heartsick sobs burst from his trembling frame, it seemed to me I could see a panorama of the days and nights, the long weeks of homesick longing, that had dragged their weary length out over two years, so I ventured to ask: “ ‘How much longer have you to stay?’ “ ‘Three years,’ waS' the reply, as the fair young head dropped lower, and the little hand trembled with suppressed emotion. “‘How did it happen?’ “‘Well,’ he replied, ‘it’s a long story, but I’ll make it short. I started out from home to try to do something for myself. Coming to Leavenworth, I found a cheap boarding-house, and one night I accepted an invitation from one of the young men to go into a drinking saloon. For the first time in my life I drank a glass of liquor; it fired my brain; there is a confused remembrance of the quarrel, somebody was stabbed, the bloody knife was found in my hand, I was indicted for assault with intent to kill.’ , “Five years for the thoughtless acceptance of a glass of liquor is surely illustrating the Scripture truth, that the ‘way of the transgressor is hard !’ I was holding the cold, trembling hand that had crept into mine. He earnestly tightened his grasp as, imploringly, he said': “ ‘O Mrs. Molloy, I want to ask a favor of you.’ “At once I expected he waS' going to ask me to obtain a pardon. 138 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE and in an instant I measured the weight of public reproach that rests upon the victims of this legalized drink traffic. It is all right to legalize a man to craze the brains of our boys ; but not by any means to ask the state to pardon its victims. Interpreting my thought, he said : “ T am not going to ask you to get me a pardon, but I want you to write to my mother and get a letter from her and send it to me. Don’t for the world tell her where I am. Better not tell her anything about me. Just get a line from her, so I can look upon it! Oh, I am so homesick for my mother !’ “The head of the boy dropped down into my lap, with a wailing sob. I laid my hand upon his head. I thought of my own boy, and for a few moments was silent, and let the outburst of sorrow have vent. Presently I said: “ ‘Murray, if I were your mother, and the odor of a thousand prisons was upon you, still you would be my boy. I should like to know where you were. Is it right to keep that mother in suspense? Do you suppose that there has ever been a day or night that she has not prayed for her wandering boy? No, Murray, I will only consent to write to your mother on consideration that you will permit me to write the whole truth, just as one mother can write to another.’ “After some argument his consent was finally obtained, and a letter was hastily penned and sent on its way. A week or so elapsed, when the following letter was received from Texas: “‘Dear sister in Christ: Your letter was this day received, and I hasten to thank you for your words of tender sympathy and for tidings of my boy — the first we have had in two years. When Murray left home, we thought it would not be long. As the months rolled on, the family had given him up for dead, but I felt sure God would give me back my boy. As I write from the couch of an invalid, my husband is in W , nursing another son, who is lying at the gates of death with typhoid fever. I could not wait for his return to write to Murray. I wrote and told him, if I could, how quickly I would go and pillow his head upon my breast, just as I did when he was a little child. My poor, dear boy — so generous, kind, and loving. What could he have done to deserve this punishment? You did not mention his crime, but say it was committed while under the influence of drink. I did not know he had ever tasted liquor. We raised six boys, and never knew one of them to be under the influence of drink. Oh, is there any place in this STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 139 nation that is safe when our boys have left the home-fold? O God, my sorrow is greater than I can bear ! I cannot go to him, but, sister, I pray you to talk to him, and comfort him as you would have some mother talk to your boy, were he in his place. Tell him that when he is released, his place in the old home-nest and his mother’s heart is awaiting him.’ “Then followed the loving mother’s words for Murray, in addition to those written. As I wept bitter tears over the words, so full of heart- break, I asked myself the question : ‘How long will the nation continue to sanction the liquor traffic covenant with death and league with hell, to rob us of our boys ? Lovers of God atid humanity, will you not work for the passage of laws that will save the boys and the agony of mothers like this?” — Selected by Way of Faith. THE COMPANY HE KEPT. The five o’clock afternoon train from Denver pulled into Fort Worth, Texas, a half hour late. The February sun was setting in billows of goldj and a stiff norther sweeping over the prairie city. A tall, dark young man, with disheveled' black hair and haggard eyes, that told more forcibly than words, of an extended “spree’ and attendant debaucheries, stepped upon the platform and gazed about him inquiringly. “Not a living soul that I know, as my name’s Carroll Carlton !” he muttered, “and one dime my only earthly possession ! If I telegraph my firm for another remittance. I’ll be fired from the partnership, and if I pawn my overcoat I’ll freeze in this norther. I’m starving, so here goes the dime for a sandwich, and I’ll walk the streets until two, when an east-bound train goes out.” He started toward' the lunch counter, and came face to face with a pale, hollow-cheeked boy of fifteen. “Why, it’s Billy Barton ! How good to meet somebody from home !” The boy greeted the man joyfully, eagerly. “I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Carlton !” “How’s your mother, and what are you d'oing out here, Billie?” “Haven’t you heard ? Mother’s dead, and I’m going to San Antonio to live with Uncle Dave, father’s brother. But, Mr. Carlton, I’m in so much trouble ! I didn’t have but five dollars left after I’d paid for my ticket, and my pocket was picked between here and Memphis,. I haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday noon, and I’m most starved! Can’t 140 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE you — won’t you lend me a dime? I’ll pay it back, as soon as ” “Gladly will I give you the dime, my boy. Here, take this and get a sandwich. Wish I was in better shape to help you more.” “Maybe you need this dime yourself, Mr. Carlton.” “Me? Oh, I’ll soon be with friends and have all I can devour. Take the dime and welcome, my son.” “Thank you, Mr. Carlton ! This will be bread on the waters, as mother used to say, and come back ” The boyish voice broke. Carlton pressed the thin hand in sympathy, and pushed Billie toward the lunch counter. He turned down the shadowy street. He passed a brightly lighted saloon, and laughed harshly. “No chance for a high-ball here ! But as I tramp the streets to keep warm, maybe I’ll meet some old acquaintance who hasn’t struck hard luck. My, but I’m hungry.” As he walked down the thoroughfare, he resolutely turned his face in an opposite direction when he passed a fruit stall or confectionery, which set forth their appetizing wares. From the rush of the business section, Carlton turned down a side street, and soon found himself on a quiet avenue. Arc lights were few, and pedestrians scattered. He reached a corner, and came face to face with an old, white-haired darkey, who raised his hat, bowed politely, then stood stock still and stared at Carroll with open mouth and round, wondering eyes. Without giving the old man a thought, Carlton strolled on to the next corner and paused under an arc light to decide what direction he would turn his aimless course. What was his surprise to find the old negro almost at his elbow! “What do you want?” asked the young man sharply. “Nothin’, Boss. You jest look so much lack my young Mistis, that I loves to look at you.” The tones were respectful, but Carlton, suspicious of foul play, turned to retrace his steps toward the business center. He reached another crossing and looked back. Only a few paces behind him hobbled the old man. “What are you following me for, you old rascal?” “ ’Scuse me. Boss, but you’s so much lack my Mistis, dat’s been dead these twenty years, dat I can’t keep my eyes offen you.” “See here, old man, you’re after a tip or you’re watching for a chance to rob me, and you may as well save yourself the trouble, for I haven’t got a copper 1” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 141 “No, sir, Boss! No, sir! I ain’t wantin’ no tip, and I wouldn’t tech a hair of yo’ head to hurt it. Boss. But you’s de livin’ image of Miss Sallie Carroll, what married Marse Jim Carlton !” “Can this be Jerry Carroll?” “It sho’ is, Boss. Marse Dave Carroll gin me and my wife, Lucy Ann, to Miss Sallie when she was married', and we lived wid ’em till they died, eben atter freedom broke out.” “My mother was Miss Sallie Carroll. Lam her only son, Carroll Carlton. I remember you now, Jerry, although I haven’t seen you since I was a boy.” “Somethin’ tole me you was Miss Sallie’s boy! Bless de Lawd for dis day! Whar is you stayin’, Marse Carroll?” “Nowhere, Jerry! I’m in hard luck. I’ve been out in the Panhandle on some legal business for our firm, and fell in with some sports, and — well, Jerry, you know the Carlton blood. When they get started they go to the end of the rope. I gave my last dime to a hungry boy, and I’m slrianded.” “Come ’cross here to my house, Marse Carroll. When yo’ paw died, he left me and Lucy Ann a little home. We sold it and come out here ’long of our chillun. But you ’members I was ’zorter on yo’ paw’s plantation, and I’se a preacher now, the pasture of a church here. We has prospered, and de chillen is married and gone, and jest me and Lucy Ann lives in de little house ’round here. Thank de Lawd for sendin’ me a chance to help my young marse !” The old man led the way down a side street to a neat cottage, as clean within and without as mortal hands could scrub it. Lucy Ann was cooking supper, but stopped long enough to joyfully welcome “Marse Carroll,” whom she had nursed as a baby. When the meal yvas ready, she spread the whitest of cloths upon a little table, and with ante-bellum deference served the well-prepared food as though the young man were a prince. Both Jerry and his wife stood behind Carl- ton’s chair, and anticipated every want. He ate ravenously, and when the meal was over, Jerry led him into the front room and said: “You’se plum wo’ out, Marse Carroll, and you must stay here until dat ten o’clock train in the mawnin’.” The most tempting of breakfasts was served next morning, and Lucy Ann had taken the dishes to the kitchen, when Jerry opened a trunk and brought out a small package wrapped in tissue paper. 142 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Dar’s somethin’ I want you to read me, Marse Carroll, ’fore you goes. Yo’ maw. Miss Sallie, gin me dis Bible, and she marked some places she said for me to read when Satan was temptin’ me too hard. My old eyes is too dim to see fine readin’, and I ain’t never been able to bring the glory outen dat book nohow, lack Miss Sallie.” With reverent hand Carlton took the book. Jerry had turned to the sixth chapter of First Corinthians. The ninth and tenth verses were marked with a faint pencil bracket. “She done that! Yo’ maw, Marse Carroll. She read it to me when I had been on a drunk, lack Marse Jim. Chile, he was a mighty fine man, but he most broke Miss Sallie’s heart a drinkin’. She gin me dis little Bible, and I ’members as well as if it was to-day, how she read dem verses. Read ’em, Marse Carlton !” Slowly he read; “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” “Marse Carroll, what would Miss Sallie say if she knowed her little baby boy had growed up a drunkard, and was keepin’ comp’ny ’long of thieves and gamblers and sich? De blood of de Carltons ain’t so strong in you, Marse Carroll, but what de blood of de Lamb, dat Miss Sallie alius pinted to, can help you pull loose from sich company, and' be a man! For Miss Sallie’s sake, won’t you cut loose from dat comp’ny, Marse Carroll?” Memories of childhood were tugging at Carroll Carlton’s heart- strings. He wavered. If he made a promise, he was too true a Carlton to break it. But why deny himself the pleasure of gay friends? Why give up pleasures From the kitchen Lucy Ann’s mellow, plaintive voice rose in the familiar words of a hymn : “When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow. ril strengthen thee, keep thee and cause thee to stand. Upheld by my mighty, omnipotent hand!” How often had he been rocked to sleep in his mother’s arms with that old hymn as a lullaby. He arose, -with a new light shining in his bloodshot eyes. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 143 “I’ll be a man from this hour, Jerry! You’ve done more than minister to my hungry body, — you’ve shown me where I stand!” “Bless de Lawd !” Carlton refused the proffered loan of money, but gratefully accepted the dainty lunch prepared by Lucy Ann, His thanks for hospitalities were somewhat confused, but fully understood by his humble friends. A few years later Honorable Carroll Carlton represented his home county in the state legislature. Not only was he considered the most brilliant member of that body, but he was a staunch advocate of pro- hibition, and his speech on this movement was by far the most forcible and convincing of the session. The papers were full of the young senator’s praise and commenda- tion of his untiring zeal in the temperance cause. From /all over the state came letters of congratulation and words of appreciation. Wives and mothers thanked him gratefully for aiding in a victory that was to protect weak and tempted husbands and sons from the curse of drink. But the commendation that gave Carlton the greatest satisfaction, was an ill-spelled, scrawling letter from an old negro preacher. It was this : “Dere Marse Carol ; You is keepin good compny alrite. Miss Sallie would be proud of her man. Kepe in de rite way. Jerry.” — Jennie M. Standifer in Union Signal. ROGER CARVILLE’S ATONEMENT. PART I. It was cold. A black frost, now in its third week, held the country- side in its grip. Young and old, peasants and gentry, farmer and squire, all were content, the night of which this story opens, to sit clustered around the fire piling high the great Yule logs in the open chimney-piece. It was Christmas Eve. The tenants, one and all, on the Carville estate had reason to be con- tent and to celebrate the occasion with good cheer, song and story. For was not Sir Roger Carville a landlord just and generous! All had shared in his Christmas bounty. In every humble cottage it had been his pleasure to see that there were blankets and fuel and plenty of good Christmas fare. No wonder that the villagers were grateful and vowed that theirs 144 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE was the happiest community in all the countryside. “Not a home,” they told each other, “but wherein happiness, joy and contentment reigns.” And that is where these optimistic souls were mistaken. There was one house where anger and misery had usurped the throne of joyous festivity. In the great library of Carville Tower — that magnificent Elizabethan structure — the owner of this beautiful home and estate was pacing to and fro with stern white face and set lips. Sir Roger Carville was a fine specimen of the old English aristocracy. Upright, just, with a keen sense of his responsibilities as the lord of two manors, and holding five church livings at his disposal ; the fourteenth baronet in direct succession from a noble line of honorable and honored ancestry, he was respected throughout D shire as a worthy represen- tative of the race from which he sprang. His sterling integrity, high sense of justice, and gentle, but direct and generous, Christian spirit, had not only made him respected and looked-up-to by his brother magistrates on the county bench, but honored by those whom he had to punish or judge. In short, a fine gentleman, “and the noblest gift of God — an honest man.” And yet he who had held the honor of his race higher than his life, was to-night facing dishonor in its most bitter, heartbreaking and sordid form. As he paced the floor of the great librar)'^, from the oak- panelled walls of which hung pictures, by famous painters, of his ancestors, noble statesmen, soldiers and judges, or men, like himself, content to further the interests and happiness of the people of his estate, he glanced, from time to time, at the figure of a young man, doubled up and half hidden in the shadows of a great armchair. The youth, for he seemed little more, was in evening dress with shirt front crumpled and tie awry. His face, when a leaping flame from the wood fire illumined it, was haggard and drawn ; around the mouth and under the eyes, were thin, hard lines of dissipation and despair. The clean-cut, handsome features, with the strong chin, were startlingly like those of the elder man ; and, but for a suggestion of weakness about the well- shaped mouth, one would have asserted that their characters were of the same quality and texture. “Roger,” said the elder man, “when the Almighty took from me the noble woman whose life was a sacrifice to your birth, I thought that I had experienced the deepest sorrow that could ever enter my lifh.” He turned his eyes, as he spoke, to the picture of a sweet-faced girl occupying the space above the great mantle- bi O' CG REV. R. A. TORREY The renowned Evangelist and Temperance Orator. Some of his stories and incidents are in this book. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 145 piece. “But to-night I know that I did not, on that sad, never-to-be- forgotten day, taste the cup of bitterness and grief to its dregs. It had been left for you to teach me that it was for her good that she died and for my ill and yours that you lived.” A groan escaped the young man. “Father,” he whispered, “have pity.” “Pity?” replied the other, “what pity have you shown me or the poor girl who, according to your own statement, you have driven to seek protection and support in a world of strangers? What pity or thought for the name you bear did you show when you forged my name to paper involving thousands of pounds? What pity had yoit for a single soul during the past three years of dissipation, debauchery and sin? None! I paid your debts time and again. I have prayed for your reformation with tears, and agony of soul. I have borne with you to the uttermost of my forbearance; now go — go, and never let me see you or hear from you again, unless .” The old man’s voice faltered a moment and then grew strong — “unless you prove yourself worthy, unless you do something to once again restore my confidence and pride in you.” The figure by the fire gave no sign of comprehension other than an involuntary shudder which seemed to pass over him like a cold breath. “Here,” continued Sir Roger, “here are two hundred pounds in Bank of England notes ; take them and go. Go and ” the voice was low and stern — “sin no more.” Silently the young man arose, his face white and strained, but in his eyes gleamed the light of resolve. With unsteady voice he spoke ; “Father, I can’t take the money; it — it would be a wrong start. Keep it and give it to her whom I have wronged. Search for her, and — and if you find her, say that I have gone to — to make good. Good-bye, sir.” He held out his hand to his father, who, turning from him, said : “When you are worthy.” The younger man stumbled, rather than walked, from the room, and mechanically received his overcoat from the half-scared-looking butler, passed out into the night. The crisp, cold air struck his heated brow with a cooling caress, steadying the shaken nerves and bracing him as a tonic. Half way down, the driveway, lined with a noble avenue of trees, he turned and looked back at the home of his childhood, the grand old 146 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE mansion which had sheltered so many of his honored ancestors. Silent and majestic it appeared, bathed in the soft rays of the full moon. He could see the lights in the windows of the room he had just left. In the moonlight he could discern another window, that of his bedroom, where, as a little child, and later, as a happy schoolboy home for the holidays, he had slept the sleep of the innocent and undefiled. Oh, how the memories of those days, now gone for ever, burned his mind and soul. He could see in the pages of the past the old dad’s proud and happy face as he welcomed' him on his return home for those same holidays. Never once had the dear old “guv’nor” failed to meet him at the little country station; and always was he accorded the privilege of taking the reins and driving the pair of high-stepping bays back to the Towers, where the servants were wont to gather in the great entrance hall to bid him welcome with smiling faces and respectful greeting. And later, when his time came to leave Rugby, and to enter college at Oxford, he recalled the words with which he bade his father good- bye at the railroad station : “Never fear, dear old guv’nor. I’ll do you credit. When my time comes to leave Oxford, it will be with a doi:ble fist and a M. A. tacked onto my name.” And the dear old dad, with proud tears glistening in his eyes, had answered': “I know it, my boy ; go in and win, and . God bless you !” Oh, the pity of it all. Where now the high resolves, the proud aspirations? He, Roger Carville, the pride and hope of his father’s heart, was turned from that same proud parent, from the home ol his youth, an outcast and a thief. How he cursed his weakness and want of balance. He remembered, as though ’twere yesterday, how, in the exuberance of his budding man- hood, he had plunged into the pleasures and dissipations of the fast student set at Oxford. Cards, horse-racing, drink and debt ; he had gone the limit. Again and again he was compelled to go to his father for assistance to meet these “debts of honor;” until at last the generosit}' and patience of this firm friend and fond parent was exhausted, and he had been told that the next offence would mean his withdrawal from college and all that it held for him. Then a new influence had entered his life. A theatrical company came to the town of Oxford, and' he received an introduction to a chorus STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 147 girl attached to the combination. She was a sweet, winsome, womanly girl, experiencing for the first time the vicissitudes of the player’s life. Nine months earlier her mother, the sole relation she possessed in the world, since the death of her father, who had been an underpaid curate in a country town, had died, leaving her dependent on the sympathies or otherwise of a hard, cold world. She had a nest egg of two hundred pounds — all that her mother had been able to leave her. She was the possessor of a singularly beautiful contralto voice, and, acting upon the advice of acquaintances in the church choir, where she was wont to sing on Sundays, she went to London, and for six months studied voice culture, living modestly the meanwhile in furnished lodgings. At the end of that time, her money being nearly expended, she tried to obtain engagements at private concerts. Lack of influence and an inability to dress in an extravagant or costly manner, spelt failure. Eventually she was compelled to accept a position in the chorus of a musical comedy company, where her innocence, refinement and unsophisticated manners were the butt of many a coarse and humiliating witticism. Her wondrous beauty and natural refinement attracted Roger tc the extent of his falling hopelessly in love. He, for the time being, forsook the fast set of Oxford, and devoted himself to the innocent girl who had so aroused his admiration. She, on her part, was touched by his devotion and the air of gentlemanly grace and courtesy with which he treated her. She seemed, when in his company, to be living in a different atmosphere from that of the dressing-room and stage. Before the week of the company’s stay was up, they were mutually in love ; and he, using all the arguments of impetuous youth, had persuaded her to marry him then and there ; the theatrical company going on to the next town without her. For a month they were supremely happy. He took rooms for her a little way out of the town, in an old-fashioned house kept by a maiden lady of small means. But owing to the fact that he had not dared to declare his marriage either to his father or his fellow- students, he ofttimes found himself in a dilemma to explain his absence from old haunts and companions. On the fifth week, to avert suspicion, he went on two occasions to the rooms of a college friend who played cards with boon companions for high stakes. Excited by the wine he 148 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE drank there, Roger allowed himself to be drawn into a game of cards and lost heavily. It was the beginning of the end. Night after night he played, losing more and more, and drinking furiously as he realized the position he was getting into. On several occasions he returned to the gentle girl-wife mad with drink and disap- pointment, and twice in his delirious rage he had struck her and accused her of being the cause of his downfall. At last his companions began to press him for the money which he had lost to them at cards. He dared not go to his father and confess, so, after a last furious scene with the sweet girl to whom he had given his name, he went to his bachelor rooms, and, crazed with drink and fear, had signed his father’s name to a cheque for a large amount. Armed with this, he started in to play that night more recklessly than before, and, as usual, lost. He paid his debts with the forged check, receiving the balance in cash. Three days later he stumbled into his wife’s room to find two letters, addressed to him, lying on the dressing- table. Mechanically he opened the first; it was in his wife’s handwriting, and read as follows ; “Dear Roger : I have tried so hard to believe in you ; I have prayed so earnestly for you. But it seems hopeless. After your words to me when you left me last night, when you told me I was unworthy of you, that I was standing in the way of your future career, I felt there was nothing left for me but to rid you of my presence and to seek my own living. It will be useless for you to try to find me, even if you wished to. In spite of everything, I still love you, and shall always pray for you, and that some day things will come right. God bless you! Your wife, Mildred.” Half dazed he sank into a chair. “The night before last,” it said in the letter. Then she, his innocent girl-wife, had been gone nearly two days. Good God ! Alone, to battle her own way. He was sober enough now, as he sprang to his feet in the determination to rush forth, seek and find her at all costs. But what was this ? His startled eyes rested on the other letter. It was in his father’s handwriting. The blood which had mounted to his cheeks in his excitement receded, leaving his face deadly pale. The consciousness of guilt was upon him; he felt the icy grip of fear. With shaking fingers he opened the envelope and straightened out the folded sheet inside. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 149 Without preface or introduction, it read as follows: “It has come to my ears that you are living with a woman calling herself Mrs. Roger Carville, at the address to which this letter is directed. That and a communication^ from my bankers require an immediate explanation. Unless this is forthcoming before Wednesday next, Christ- mas Eve, I shall be compelled to place the matter in the hands of detectives for the honor of the family and that of your grieved and broken-hearted father. Roger Carville.” Wednesday! Christmas Eve! Why, why, this was Tuesday night. No time to lose; what should he do? Fly? Suicide? Was there no other way of escape? No! no! he would go to his father; he had never failed him. And yet, how could' he confess? He would emigrate. But then — Mildred. He couldn’t leave her to be thought of as . Quick! A telegraph form! Ah, here it is: “Letter just received; coming immediately; Roger.” Now a cab. “Post office.” Telegram dispatched, there was just time to catch the midnight train to London and the early morning one from there to D shire. The journey passed as in a dream. It was dark when, on Wednesday evening, he stepped from the train at the little West of England station. The silent drive to the house, and then the long, interminable scene in the library. What was that? The dreamer started, and turned toward the gates of the avenue, leading to the high road. Through the midnight air rang out the Christmas chimes. Down in the bell tower of old Carville church the ringers were pulling lustily, telling the world the news of “Peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” At the gates, the old lodge-keeper was standing at his open door, silently welcoming in the Christmas morn. “God bless you. Master Roger, and a happy Christmas,” said the old man, as he recognized the figure passing out through the great gates. “Happy Christmas,” said Roger absently, and turning on his heel, strode down the moonlit highway. PART H. A year has passed. It is once more the eve of Christmas. In a tiny room, away up under the eaves of a London lodging-house, a young mother is soothing her tiny babe. “There, darling, mamma will only leave you for a little while and then return with milk for her little one. 150 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE Yes, milk and — coals, baby; coals to make you warm. Oh! my little love, to think that mummy must go out on this bitter night, and sell her body to keep her babe from starving. But there’s nothing else, baby. You don’t know, dear, how hard mummy has tried to get work; and now, now, dear mite, she must face shame and dishonor that you may live. O God, pity me ; if it were not for you, my sweet, death would be welcome.” Tucking the thin covering closer around the tiny three-months-old baby boy, the mother silently left the room. Down the dirty, creaking stairs she went, and out into the street. Softly fell the snow in great white flakes, deadening the sound of the traffic in the mighty arteries of the city, and rapidly soaking through the thin soles of her small shoes. Swiftly she made her way along the embankment of the black, sluggish Thames, and passing up one of the side streets, emerged in the current of life and bright lights which thronged the Strand. Already her scanty garments were becoming dampened by the thickening snow- flakes. Breathlessly, with a tightening of the heart, she watched from a doorway bad women, unfortunates of the streets, accost men in well- cut evening dress — sometimes to meet with a rebuff, as often, after a short conversation, to be joined by the accosted and escorted to the entrance of some brilliantly-lighted saloon or cafe, or after some alcoholic refreshment, passing out with flushed faces, to drive away with the companion of their sin in a quickly-summoned hansom cab. Could she? — Dare she? — Twice she made as though to approach a stranger; twice she retreated: Once a man, overflowing with alcoholic exuberance, made to take her arm, muttering the while through drink-sodden lips a filthy remark. Oh, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t. And yet — Baby! O, better they both die than — that! As she stood in miserable indecision, a gentle voice fell on her ear and a soft touch rested on her arm. “Sister, are you in trouble?” Turning, she looked into a pair of tender blue eyes, smiling with kindly interest from beneath a Salvation Army bonnet. Mildred — for it was she — had often' seen, these lassies on their errands of mercy and love, but never gave them more than a passing thought. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 151 “No, no,” she answered. “I’m — I’m quite all right, thank you.” “Is that the truth?” asked the Salvation lassie. “I think you are in trouble; won’t you let me help you?” “I — oh, I” — and then the poor wounded spirit broke down, and before Mildred knew what had happened, she was sobbing out her story on the sympathetic breast of her listener. Within an hour, Mildred and her babe were installed in comfort and warmth within the walls of one of The Army’s Rescue Homes. Her story verified, the tender-hearted matron interested herself on Mildred’s behalf to such purpose, that before two months had passed she found herself engaged as companion and secretary to Lady Z., wife of the newly-appointed Governor of a distant colony. Lady Z. knew her story from start to finish, and her kindly woman’s heart rebelled at the thought of separating mother and child ; so that, after much coaxing and gentle feminine persuasion, she gained the consent of her good- natured husband to include both Mildred and Baby Roger in the Government House party sailing for the Golonies. During the voyage and once duly installed in the Government House, Baby Roger quickly became the ruler and gurgling tyrant of the household. Once more the joy of life and living had entered the breast of his gentle mother. During all this time never once had she heard from or of, her husband ; Roger was as one dead. She never ceased to pray for him and to hope that one day he would be restored to her, a changed man. ^ :1c >(: sic ^ Three years passed happily and uneventfully in the sunny city, when one morning, among his mail, Lord Z. found a letter from his old friend, Sir Roger Garville. The letter stated that since the disappearance of his only son, he had been in indifferent health. He had tried long and unsuccessfully to trace either Roger or the girl whom he married secretly. The worry had undermined his naturally strong constitution and his doctors ordered a complete change of scene and the effects of a sea voyage. Might he, therefore, consider himself welcome, if he paid a visit to his old friend in the Antipodes? The Governor’s reply, after a short consultation with his wife, was in the form of a cablegram which read' as follows: “Delighted; come at once and stay as long as you like.” Mildred was not taken into the 152 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE secret. Lady Z., with a woman’s natural love for a mystery, commanded silence on the subject of Sir Roger’s visit, trusting to her native wit to make the occasion of the meeting between him and his daughter-in-law one of peace and mutual reconciliation. In due course Sir Roger arrived and was cordially welcomed by his old friends. Mildred and her boy, now a sturdy young- Colonial nearing the manly age of four, were visiting friends of Lady Z.’s some little way from the city. It was three days after Sir Roger’s arrival that they returned to the Government House. Sir Roger was sitting on the veranda as the carriage containing Mildred and her boy pulled up at the entrance. Mildred, looking sweet and winsome in her whue frock, passed in through the open doorway. Master Roger, with the assurance and natural curiosity of “nearly four,” called after her: “Tummin’ d’ectly, mumsey,” and proceeded to investigate and examine the strange, sad, white-haired gentleman who was quietly smoking his cigar in the rocking chair. “How-do-you-do?” he asked gravely, plunging his hands into the pockets of his small, white sailor suit. “I don’t fink I’ve seen you ’fore. I’m nearly four years old; how old is you — no, I mean am you — ‘is’ is wrong, ’cause mumsey said so.” All this was rattled off in one breath, and he paused with a very red face and large, inquiring eyes for the answer. “Well, young man,” said the strange “gen’l’m,” “I’m very well, thank you. You are right; we haven’t met before, and I am more than four years old. Now, perhaps, you’ll be good enough to tell me your name, also why you left your sister just now to come and talk to me?'’ “Dat wasn’t my sister; haven’t dot a sister; and, ’sides, I don’t like girls; dat was my mumsey!” “Oh, I beg your pardon.” The kind eyes twinkled. “Now, may I ask your name?” “Oh! I fordot. I beg your pardon. My name is Wodger Car- ville — what’s yours?” “Good heavens ! Say it again, child, say it again !” “I fink you’re vewy wude to shout,” answered the wee man with a tiny dignified frown, “I said my name is Wodger Carville !” “Thank God !” said the stranger, “and — and that young lady in white is your ?” “Dat’s my mumsey, I — I take care of her.” And the baby lips STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 153 quivered tremulously at the suddenly conceived notion that this strange, white-haired man might want to harm his “mumsey.” “Oh, little lad, little lad,” said the stranger as, lifting Baby Roger in his arms, he strode into the open hall. “Wot ’r’ you kyin’ for?” inquired the young man, “nearly four.” “For joy, laddie, for joy,” whispered the old man huskily. We will draw a veil over that meeting between the old man and his newly-discovered daughter. His joy was wonderful when he found and fathomed her sweet nature. Master Roger’s joy was also intense when he realized the “strange gene’l’m was a real live gran’pa,” and one who never tired of playing “Piggy backs” and “Ride-a-cock-horse.” Lady Z. said to her husband, a week later, “I knew he would be bound to love her as his own daughter, if once they met.” Lord Z. looked at her with admiration and vowed to himself that his wife was the most wonderful and clever little woman in the world. PART III. Away up in a mining camp of the Goldfields, two men were taking their “billy” and tea outside their miner’s tent. One was a man of about forty, with iron-gray hair and bronzed face, showing where the thick beard was not. His expression was one of quiet determination, combined with the softened lines of one who had passed through much disappointment and come through the fire trusting in a Higher Power for wisdom and strength. The other was a tall, magnificently built man not yet out of his twenties. His face, with sunbrowned, handsome features, had the appearance of one who carried a great sorrow. His gray eyes constantly wore a far-away, strained, hopeless expression like unto that of a faith- ful dog discovered in wrongdoing and undergoing its just punishment.' Just now they burned with a fierce, resentful light. “It’s no good,” said the owner. “We’ve been plugging away at this old mine for nearly two years now. And what have we got? What are we worth? About five hundred pounds apiece.” “Laddie, a tell ye, theere’s a sicht o’ gold' awa doon ; an’ moR Rogers, ye maist hae’ patience,” replied' the elder man. “I tell you it’s no good, Scottie,” answered the man addressed aS Rogers, with an impatient gesture. “I’ve tried to believe in the old claim; I’ve tried to play the game with you and — and others.” The 154 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE gray eyes took on the far-away look. “But I can’t do it any longer. Three days from now it’ll be Christmas. I’m going down into the city, and try to drown my sorrows for a week. It’ll be the first drop for four years, but I must do it or go mad. I’ll come back, my dear old pard, never fear” “Dinna dae it, laddie; dinna dae it.” “I must, Scottie — I must!” ^ ^ ‘ Two evenings later the one who called himself Rogers stepped from the train at the railway terminus in the great city, the centre of activities. It was Christmas Eve. The air was intolerably hot. The day had been one of oppressing closeness. Should he take a drink — his first for four years — or should he seek a hotel and freshen up after his tiring journey? He decided on the latter course. Once settled in his hotel he had a bath, and throwing himself on the bed “for forty winks,” as he told himself, he fell into a heavy slumber. It was some hours later that he awoke with a start. He looked at his watch. It was approaching midnight. Suddenly it struck him as curious that he should be able to discern that time, since his gas jet was not lighted. Glancing at the window, he noticed a red glow entering and illuminating the room. With a spring he was off the bed. Rushing to his window he beheld a sight that momentarily chilled the blood in his veins. The big, fashion- able hotel across the street was one sheet of flame. Downstairs he flew and standing in the doorway watched, awestruck, the conflagration before him. As he gazed at the terror-stricken guests rushing pellmell through the open hatl door of the doomed building, his heart gave a sudden bound. For, staggering out into the street, he beheld his father, his dear old guv’nor whom he had not Seen for exactly four years. As he sprang to meet him, a might)'- shout arose from the crowd, and looking up, he saw standing at the open bedroom window on the third floor of the blazing building — his wife. There was no mistaking her. The hungry flames mounting higher and higher, lighted up her beautiful face, as with a child in her arms she looked appealingly down at the helpless crowd beneath. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 155 A fireman was bravely battling up the fire-escape. A groan came from the crowd as the poor fellow, overcome by tne smoke and fumes, fell back into the arms of the man behind and was taken down by him. “Stand back, we can do nothing,” cried the chief of the fire brigade. And the crowd stood in awe-stricken silence, awaiting with palsied hearts the seemingly inevitable. But what was this? A shout went up, another and yet another, as the breathless multitude watched a man, strong and supple, mount the ladder, rung after rung, toward the window where the woman and child were standing. Would he do it? Could he do it? A groan arose as he was seen to falter and then disappear from view in a blinding cloud of smoke and flame. A cheer, a roar; he has gained the window ledge — he is inside! A frightened hush succeeds as all three retreat inward from the view of the crowd. Would he be mad enough to try to force his way down the stairway? It was a sheet of flame and meant certain death. No. There he is again, beckoning to the firemen. Ah! they under- stand, and train a spray of water onto the escape. A roar, then again silence. He has them strapped to him, enveloped in a blanket. Can he hold them? One arm only has he with which to cling to the ladder. Down, foot by foot, carefully feeling his way, he moves toward safety. The crowd is afraid to breathe. The firemen are doing their work well. He will — he will — he has. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! The pent-up feelings of the crowd burst forth and men are shaking hands and hugging each other hysterically. “Who’s the man?” “Does any one know him?” “He’s a hero!” and so they comment. Meanwhile friendly hands had quickly carried the rescued and res- cuer to a nearby house, where their burns and injuries were skillfully tended by eager physicians. Two weeks later an interesting and wonderfully happy group might have been seen seated around the invalid-chair of the man who dared. 156 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Roger, my son,” said the white-haired man (a very much happier man than when we last saw him), “You have made your atonement. You have lived a clean life since that night four years ago, when I was wicked enough to turn you away from my home and heart. I, too, have suffered for my pride, my boy.” “But, dear guv’nor, about the life I led — I — that night I came into town to ” “Yes, we know, ‘Scottie’ told us when he came to town the follow- ing day to save you, to tell you that your claim has, at last, proved to be one of the best in the camp ” “You don’t mean? ” “Yes, it is true, dear,” suddenly interrupted the soft voice of Mil- dred, “your claim is full of the golden treasure.” “It is nothing to the treasures I have found in the city,” answered Roger, as he turned his glistening eyes to his dear ones in turn. “Thank God, Lady Z. had to send you to the hotel to make room for her Christ- mas guests.” “Yes,” agreed a small voice, “t’ank Dod !” — War Cry THE PAUPER WOMAN’S SPEECH. At a certain meeting in Pennsylvania, the question came up, whether any person should be licensed to sell rum. The clergyman, the deacon and physician, strange as it may appear, all favored license. One man only spoke against it, because of the mischief it did. The question was about to be put, when all at once there aYose from a corner a miserable old woman. She was thinly clad, and her appearance indicated the utmost wretchedness, and that her mortal career had almost closed. After a moment of silence, during which all eyes were fixed on her, she stretched her body to its utmost height, and then her arms to their greatest length, and raising her voice to a shrill pitch, she called to look upon her. “Yes,” she said, “look upon me and hear me. All that the last speaker has said relative to temperate drinking as the father of drunkenness, is true. All drinking of alcoholic poison as a beverage is excess. Look upon me! You all know me, or at least once did. You all know that I was once mistress of the best place in town ; )"ou all know, too, that I had one of the best and most devoted husbands; you all know that I had five noble-hearted, industrious boys. Where are STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 157 they now? Doctor, where are they now? You all know; you know they lie in a row, side by side, in yonder churchyard, every one of them filled a drunkard’s grave. They were all taught to believe that temperate drinking was safe ; that excess only ought to be avoided, and they never acknowledged excess. They quoted you, and you, and you,” pointing her finger to the minister, deacon, and doctor, “as authority.’ They thought themselves safe under such teachers. But with dismay and horror, I saw the gradual change come' over my family and prospects. I felt that we were all to be oyerwhelmed in one common ruin. I tried to break the spell in which the idea of the benefits of temperate drinking had involved my husband and sons. I begged, I prayed, but the odds were against me. The minister said that the poison that was destroying my husband and boys was a good creature of God ; the deacon who sits under the pulpit there, sold them the poison, and took our homd to pay the bills ; the doctor said a little was good, and excess only ought to be avoided. My poor husband and sons fell into the snare and they could not escape, and one after another was conveyed to the sorrowful grave of a drunkard. “Now, look at me again! You probably may see me for the last time ; my sands have almost run. I have dragged my exhausted frame from my present home — your poorhouse — to warn you all; to warn you, false teachers of God’s word !” and with her arms flung high, and her tall frame stretched to its utmost, and her voice raised to an unearthly pitch, she exclaimed: “I shall soon stand before the judg- ment seat of God, I shall meet you there, you false guides, and be witness against you all !” The miserable old woman vanished, a dead silence pervaded the assembly; the minister, deacon and the physician hung their heads, and the president of the court put the question : “Shall any license be granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors?” The unanimous response was, “NO !” If all paupers could speak, if maniacs could testify, if the 65,000 prisoners in this land could tell of their temptation, sin and ruin ; if the wives and children of living drunkards, and the widows and orphans of the dead ones, could come before us; if the countless tenants of drunkard’s graves could appear and exhibit their fleshless forms, and lift up their skeleton hands, and tell how they were tempted, ruined and destroyed — it would need no further argument or plea to arouse 158 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE all good and honest men, to warn, and testify, and denounce, and destroy with utter destruction, a business which curses humanity, and is accursed of the Most High God.— Tract. YOU NEVER TOLD US. He stood in the door of the Sabbath-school room, waiting to finish a conversation with a lady who held a boy by the hand. “Don’t you think it would be well to let the scholars take part in some exercise on the subject of temperance, Mr. Johnson?” asked the lady. “You are the superintendent, and if you should assign the scholars any texts or verses about the subject, I know they would be glad to get them. You would, Eddie, wouldn’t you?” “What! Say something, say a verse?” asked the boy, one of the kind whose eyes are forever snapping, hands forever moving, head for- ever turning, and to whom all occupation is a delight because a con- stitutional necessity. “I would, and I know lots of others would speak.” “Temperance, did you say?” inquired Mr. Johnson, so coldly, that Mrs. Atwood felt a shiver at once. “Yes, sir.” “Ahem! — it is not judicious, I think, to speak on controverted sub- jects in the Sabbath-school, and where a difference of opinion exists. I feel that it is better for people to think about temperance as they please. But it is time for me to call the school together,” and the speaker moved along the entry like an iceberg drifting out of sight. “What did he say, mother?” asked Eddie. “That people had better think about temperance as they please?” Mrs. Atwood was so absorbed in her painful thoughts that she did not pay attention to the question. Days, weeks, months, even years slipped by. A “hard winter” visited the city of N . There was hardness in every direction. The severe cold that prevailed so long, seemed to freeze up everj-thing. It reached the money bags in the vaults, and the tills in the counters, and the purses in the pockets of capitalists, ice forming everywhere and stopping the flow of money. At least a very scanty stream of the article' dribbled into one poor home in a tall, gaunt tenement house. A mother was there, watching by the bed of a consumptive son, a young man. “A cold night,” he said, “mother?” “Yes, it is.” STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 159 “What makes you think it is snowing? Seems as if it were getting into bed,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “It is snowing.” She went to the window and looked down into the street. A rough wind was driving the flakes in clouds through the streets, threatening to smother the lamp post and the very houses. “I can’t seem to see anyone coming,” she muttered. “It is so cold here.” “I can’t tell whether it is the snow or the serpents,” said the son, in a loud whisper. “He is wandering again,” said the mother, bending over the bed. “It will be warm soon, I think.” “Yes, warm soon — soon — ha! ha!” His laugh was that of a mind breaking like a ship from all moorings and drifting out into a dark sea. That evening a note had been left at the door of a gentleman in the neighborhood, and it read thus: “There is a sick man, a consumptive, living in the district at No. 182 Putnam Street. They are pretty destitute, and if you could get them some wood and coal to-night, I know it would be acceptable.” “A note from our minister,” said Mr. Berry. “He has been calling there to-day, probably. I will take some wood and coal with me and go at once. I wpnder if my guest wouldn’t like to come with me? He will have some idea of one of our poor districts.” The gentleman visiting Mr. Berry said he would like to go, and the two started off, a basket of coal and wood hanging on Mr. Berry’s arm. Through the snow they tugged, and then they climbed a dark flight of stairs leadine up somewhere from the black hole labeled “182.” “Whew! how cold. We’ll have a fire at once,” said Mr. Berry, as he stooped over the stove in the consumptive’s room, quickly changing the mute, rusty piece of iron into a creature that laughed and sang, chuckled and roared, flashing out into the room a cheery warmth. The companion of Mr. Berry had gone to the sick young man’s bed: “I am sorrv you are sick,” said the visitor. “Thank you. but the snakes are bad.” “He is wandering, sir,” exclaimed the mother. “But you wait a moment. His mind will come back again.” The young man had fastened his dark, sunken eyes on the stranger. 160 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE and seemed to be making an eftort to recognize him. It was a painful effort. It was hard to bring back the ship that had broken from its moorings, drifting off into the wildness and blackness of the sea. “Don’t — don’t I know you?” he asked. “Perhaps so.” “Did you keep Sabbath-school — once?” “Yes.” “Did — Eddie — Atwood — ever — go to you?” “Oh, yes, I remember him.” “Didn’t — you — once — say — you wouldn’t have a temperance ser- vice — and people — had better think — as they please?” “I dare say. People were rather fanatical on the subject.” “I am — Eddie — Atwood — .” “I wouldn’t,” said his mother. “It will make you cough.” “Just — raise — me — once. I only say — it — Mr. Johnson — for you may still — be superintendent — and will know — what — to — do — another — time. I acted as you advised — and — did — as I pleased. You never — told us of — the evil of strong drink. I ruined — myself — in that way, and — here — I am — .” “Oh, don’t don’t, Edward! Oh, quick, quick! Help!” screamed the mother. But no help could reach Eddie Atwoed. His soul had drifted out upon the sea from which no vessel ever returns. — Way of Faith. WHAT CAME TO BILLY’S HOUSE. Dilly was perched on a fence post, her light hair flying about her face and her little hands clasped behind her back. The small toes that peeped through her ragged shoes were red also, for the day was cold, but Dilly was used to such trifles. Toddles, the baby, who could not climb the fence, contented himself with looking through. He was bundled up in an old shawl, and, if the round face that peeped through the fence rails was roughened by the chill wind, he, like Dilly, had grown accustomed to such discomforts. It occurred to Freddy Burr, in the next yard, that their situation was scarcely agreeable. He looked up from the stick he was trying to split with his new hatchet, and asked : STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 161 “What makes you sit up there such a day as this? Why don’t you go into the house and keep warm?” ' “ ’Cause I’d rather stay here and watch you,” said Dilly, serenely. “ ’Tain’t no fun in the house.” “Well, I wouldn’t think it was any fun out here, I can tell you, if I didn’t have a warm coat and scarf and these thick boots,” remarked Freddy. Dilly looked at them, and an odd, vague wonder awoke, as she did so, and grew more distinct, until presently it took shape in words. “Why don’t I have such things, too, Freddy Burr — shoes and new clothes and something to wear on my head?” ) “ ’Cause your father drinks ’em up,” answered Freddy promptly “No, he don’t, either,” said Dilly; “folks can’t drink such things. Where do you get yours?” “My father buys ’em for me ; and' the reason yours don’t get any for you, is ’cause they all go into old Barney’s rum barrels down at the corner. That’s the way of it, true as you live, Dilly Keene, and it’s awful mean, too,” declared Freddy, growing indignant. Then a voice from the pretty house beyond called Freddy, and he ran in, while Dilly and Toddles, with their amusement of watching ended, turned slowly away. Dilly surveyed the baby and herself thought- fully, and sat down upon an' old log to meditate. If what Freddy Burr had told her was true, something ought to be done about it; and the longer she pondered, the more fully she became convinced that she had heard the truth. “ ’Cause other folks has things and we don’t, and it must be ours go somewhere,” she reasoned. “They can’t be any good there, either. I’m just sure they can’t. Mebby I’ve got a hood — mebby it would be a nice red one, pretty and warm. Wish I had it now. Wish Toddles had ” She stopped, as a brilliant plan flashed suddenly through her brain. Wouldn’t her mother be surprised if she could do that — poor mother who was out washing andi would be so tired when she came home at night. “Toddles, let’s do it!” she said, springing up, excitedly. “Let’s go j an’ see if we can get some of ’em.” “Yah!” answered Toddles, contentedly; and, taking his hand, Dilly I opened the creaking gate and led the way down the street. 162 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE There were a number of men in the store at the corner — a queer store, with a curtain across the lower half of its front window. Dilly saw them when the door opened, but she was a determined little body when she had decided on the proper thing to do. So she only clasped Toddles’ hand closer and walked in and up to the counter, making an extra effort to speak distinctly betause her heart beat so fast. “Please, sir, have you got anything of ours a soak here?” There was an instant’s silence, and then a shout of laughter from the men.. “Well, now, that’s a neat way of putting it. Hey, Keene, these youngsters of yours want to know if Barney has you in soak here?” An old slouched hat behind the stove was raised a little, but there was no other sign that the man heard. Dilly shrank back abashed. “Oh, I didn’t mean him !” “What did you mean, then?” asked a coarse, red-faced man, advanc- I ing behind the bar, and speaking in tones not at all gentle or amiable, j “Shoes and coats and such things,” faltered Dilly. “Hoods — I’m | afraid it’s spoiled with the whiskey, but mebby ma could wash it out. Wouldn’t you take some of them out of your barrel, Mr. Barney? We need ’em awful bad.” “I should think as much,” muttered one of the bystanders, sur- veying the two dilapidated figures ; but Mr. Barney’s wrath was rising. “What barrel? Who sent you here?” he demanded angrily. “Your rum barrel,” answered Dilly, standing her ground desperatel 3 % though with a little catch in her breath that was just ready to break into a sob. “Ma works hard all the time, and she looks so sorry; and we don’t have any nice dinners at our house like Freddy Burr’s; and no new shoes, nor caps, nor anything. I asked Freddy where our good things went to, ’cause they don’t come to our house, and he said you had ’em in your barrels. Please take some of ’em out, Mr. Barney. I’m sure it can’t make anybody’s drink taste a bit better to have a poor little boy’s and girl’s new shoes and dresses and everything in the barrel.” “You’re right there, sissy. It’s nigh about spoiled the taste of 1 mine,” said one of the group, putting down, the glass with a perplexed ( look. But the barkeeper’s look was wrathful. “We’ve had enough of this i STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 163 nonsense. Now leave, you rag mufifins, as fast as your legs can carry you, and never let me catch you inside these doors again.” He stepped toward them. The man behind the stove suddenly arose. “Take care, Barney; you’d better not touch them.” There was fire in the eyes under the old slouch hat before which Mr. Barney drew back. Both children were crying by this time, but the father took a hand of each and passed into the street. Two weeks later Dilly completed the story to Freddy Burr. “See here,” she said, pushing the toes of a stout pair of new shoes through the fence, “and here,” bobbing up for an instant to show the hood that covered her yellow hair. “Where did you get ’em?” asked Freddy. “Why, pa worked and bought ’em, and brought ’em home, and they didn’t get into nobody’s barrel,” explained Dilly, with great pride and little regard for grammar. “You see, the billennium has come to our house. The ‘billennium’ — it’s a pretty long word,’ said Dilly, com- placently, “but it means ‘good times.’ It was just this way, Freddy, When you told me Mr. Barney had all our nice things in his barrel, I just went right down there and asked him for ’em, me and Toddles.” “You didn’t!” exclaimed Freddy. “Did too!” declared Dilly, “Well, he wouldn’t give me one of ’em, and was just as cross as anything. So then pa got up from the stove and walked home with us. He didn’t scold a bit; he just sat down before the fire and thinked and thinked. At last he put his hand in one pocket, but there was not anything there. Then he put his hand in the other pocket, and found ten cents, and went out and bought some meat for supper. Then when ma came home he talked to her, and they both cried ; I don’t know what for, ’less ’twas ’cause we couldn’t get the things out of the barrel. And ma hugged and kissed me most to death that ‘night. Well, my pa got some work next day, and brought home some money; and now he has a place to work every day. He bought all these things, and he says his little boy and girl shall have things like other folks. So now you’ll know what the billennial means. Freddy, when anybody asks you, and you can tell ’em Dilly Keene ’splained it to you.” — Independent. THE WIDOW AND THE JUDGE. Some time about the commencement of the year 1874, a train was 164 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE passing over the Northwestern Railroad, between Oshkosh and Madison. In two of the seats facing each other, sat three lawyers engaged at cards. Their fourth player had just left the car, and they needed another to take his place. “Come, Judge, take a hand,” they said to a grave magistrate, who' sat looking on, but whose face indicated no approval of their play. He shook his head, but after repeated urgings, finally with a flushed countenance, took a seat among them, and the play went on. A venerable woman, gray and bent with years, sat and watched the judge from her seat near the end of the railway car. After the game had progressed a while, she arose, and with tremb- ling frame, and almost overcome with emotion, approached the group. Fixing her eyes intently upon the judge, she said, in a tremulous voice, “Do you know me. Judge ?” “No, mother, I don't remember you,” said the judge pleasantly. “Where have we met?” “My name is Smith,” said she ; “I was with my poor boy three days off and on, in the court room at Oshkosh, when he was tried for — rob- bing some bank, and you are the man that sent him to prison for ten years, and he died there last June.” All faces were now sober, and the passengers began to gather around and stand up, all over the car, to listen to, and see what was going on. She did not give the judge time to answer her but becoming more and more excited, she went on: “He was a good boy, if you did send him to jail. He helped us to clear the farm, and when his father was taken sick and died, he done all the work, and we were getting along right smart. He was a stiddy boy till he got to keard- playin’ and drinkin’, and then, somehow, he didn’t like to work after that, but used to stay out often till mornin’, and he’d sleep so late, and I couldn’t wake him, when I knew he’d been so late the night afore. And then the farm kinder run down, and then we lost the team; one of them got killed, when he’d been to town one awful cold night. He’d stayed late, and I suppose they got cold standin’ out, and got skeered and broke loose, and run most home, but run against a fence ; and a stake run into one of ’em ; and when we found it next mornin’ it was dead, and the other was standin’ under the shed. “And so after a while, he coaxed me to sell the farm and buy a house and lot in the village, and he’d work at carpenter work. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 165 And so I did, as we couldn’t do nothing on the farm. But he grew worse than ever, and after awhile, he couldn’t get work, and wouldn’t do anything but gamble and drink all the time. I used to do everything I could to get him to quit, and be a good, industrious boy again, but he used to get mad after awhile, and once he struck me, and then in the morning I found he had taken what little money there was left of the farm, and had run off. “After that time I got along as well as I could, cleanin’ house for folks and washin’, but I didn’t hear nothing of him for four or five years ; but when he got arrested, and was took up to Oshkosh for trial, he writ to me.” By this time there was not a dry eye in the car, and the cards had disappeared. The old lady herself was weepin^g silently, and speaking betimes. But recovering herself, she went on : “But what could I do? I sold the house and lot to get money to hire a lawyer, and I believe he is here, somewhere, looking around. Oh, ^ yes, there he is, Mr. , pointing to Lawyer , who had not taken part in the play.” And this is the man, I am sure, who argued agin him,” pointing to Mr. , the district attorney. “And you, Judge , sent him to prison for ten years ; ’spose it was right, for the poor boy told me that he really did rob the bank, but he must have been drunk, for they had been playin’ keards most all the night and drinkin’. But, oh, dear ! it seems to me kinder as though, if he hadn’t got to playin’ keards, he might ’a been alive yet. But, when I used to tell him it i was wrong and bad to play, he would say: ‘Why mother; everybody j plays now. I never bet only for candy or cigars, or something like that.’ “And when we heard that the young folks played keards down to Mr. Culver’s donation party, and that Squire Ring was goin’ to get a billiard table for his young folks to play on at home, I couldn’t do nothing with him. We used to think it awful to do that way, when I was young, but it just seems to me as if everybody nowadays was goin’ wrong into something or other. “But maybe it isn’t right for me to talk to you, judge, in this way, but it jist seems to me as if the very sight of them keards would kill me, judge; I thought if you knew how I felt, you would not play so; and then to think, right here before all these folks ! Maybe, judge, you don’t know h'ow young folks, especially boys, look up to such as you, and then I can’t help thinkin’ that, maybe if them that ought to know better. 166 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE learn them to do so, and them as are higher learnt and all that, wouldn’t set sich examples, my poor Tom would be alive and caring for his poor mother; but now there ain’t any of my family left but me and my poor gran’chile, my darter’s little girl, and we are going to stop with my brother in Illinois.” A more eloquent sermon is seldom preached than was heard from that gray, withered, old lady, trembling with age, excitement and fear that she was doing wrong. I can’t recall half she said, as she, a poor, lone beggard widow, stood before these noble-looking men, and pleaded the cause of the rising generation. The look they bore as she poured forth the sorrowful tale \vas indescribable. To say that they looked like animals at the bar, would be a faint description. I can imagine how they felt. The old lady tottered to her seat, and taking her little grandchild in her lap, hid her face on her neck. The little one stroked her gray hair, and said: “Don’t cry, granma; don’t cry, granma.” Eyes unused to weeping were red for many a mile on that journey. And I can hardly believe that one who witnessed that scene ever touched a card again. It is but just to say, that when the passengers came to themselves, they generously responded to the judge, who, hat in hand, silently passed through her little audience. — “Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer.” A BOTTLE OF TEARS. Many years ago, while holding a meeting just over the Virginia line, I heard the following story, which was afterwards confirmed by a man who knew the parties and was acquainted with all its details. One evening in October, a sweet girl of sixteen stood by the bap- tismal font and answered the questions which stood for fidelity to her Lord and the church forever. Only two years later she stood by those same altars by the side of a strong, noble man, to whom she pledged un- broken loyalty. The future was promising indeed, and ever3-body seemed to catch the spirit of gladness as they passed under the wedding arch, amid strains of music, to the carriage awaiting them, and were wheeled to the station. They soon left old friends and old scenes behind them, as they went sweeping through strange scenery on the way to the homestead of the groom, to which he had fallen heir and to which he was taking his beautiful young bride. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 167 Two mornings later they came to the place that was to be their fu- ture home. Everything was beautiful, and it seemed to the young bride that nothing short of paradise could surpass its beauty or be more replete with bliss. Between this lovely mansion and the well-kept farm , three miles away was a place the threshold of which the young husband had never crossed, the gathering place of the rough element of that section of the country. But one evening he did turn in with a friend. Later he visited the place alone. He sipped, he treated, he drank, he gambled, he sopn became a drunkard, and one day he was murdered and carried home to be buried in the family garden. This brief recital covers a period of from ten to twelve years. The morning after the broken-hearted woman had laid her husband away, a note was handed her by the bar-keeper, from his employer, in which he claimed that he held a mortgage on the place, including farm implements, household furniture, and even all wearing apparel, in fact everything she possessed that had not already been lost by her departed husband. This was a great blow to the suffering woman, as she believed there was still left her the house and a few acres of land on which the house stood. She rested her aching head on her hands and shed burning tears, which unconsciously to herself fell into a saucer that was lying in her lap, and from which her youngest child had just eaten its breakfast. As she looked down and saw the tears that had rained into the saucer, she took them and poured them into a phial, which she placed in the folds of her wedding dress that had hung in her wardrobe since the day of her wedding. Then she wrote him a letter, in substance as follows : “Sir, you demand the keys. I send them herewith. The one with a red string unlocks my wardrobe. In the right side you will find my wedding dress. I never wore it but once. In its folds you will find a small bottle containing a few tears.” Then she went on to relate the story of her courtship* and marriage, of their short honeymoon, of the time that she was brought into this home the happy bride of one of the noblest of husbands. Then came the sad story of the first time her husband crossed the threshold of the one who sold him the liquor that caused his downfall ; of the first time she detected the odor of liquor on his breath ; of the many promises that it would never happen again ; of the time that he 168 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE became a tippler; of the first time his step was unsteady, and then his rapid decline until he became a confirmed drunkard. One child was born, and he promised to leave off his habit of drink- ing. New hope sprang up in her breast, only to be dashed to pieces in but a few days. The fiabit had/ taken such strong hold of him that he could not resist, and was soon in its clutches again. Then another child was soon given to them. It was the old story of the flight of luxury; of the desertion of friends ; of the curtailing of expenses in order to meet the claims of the liquor dealer; of the decline of health; of the times that she had to flee with her children from rum-crazed husband and father. Then a third child came, which added to the weight of struggle to keep the wolf from the door. One night she cried out in her anguish of heart, and it wakened her oldest child, who came to her bedside and asked to know the cause of it all. She was told that her mother was dying and that she would have to take the place of her mother in caring for papa and the little sisters, that papa was a hopeless drunkard and she would soon be the only bread-winner. The child met her father in the early morning as he came staggering up the walk, and throwing her arms around him told him of her mother’s condition, and pleaded with him to give up his drinking habits. His only reply was an oath and a blow felled her to the ground, and then he came into the house and met his wife with curses and blows. But it did not end with that, and one day he was carried into her home by four of the liquor dealer’s henchmen, dead. Some friendly negroes dug the grave in what she supposed to be her own garden and buried him there under his favorite apple tree. But now even that is gone from her and she is left a widow Avith three children to care for and not even a roof over her head. A So that is the meaning of the bottle of tears, and some day the one who sold this young man the liquor will have to answer for it before the judgment bar of God ; answer for a blighted home, a widow’s broken heart and three children left without a home, left to struggle along in this world without a father’s protection and care with onl}' the memory of a murdered father filling a drunkard’s grave. — Selected by The Mis- sionary Worker. s STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 169 THE STANDARD-BEARER. He came into a small Western city to take charge of Christian work. He had just finished a course in theology, having graduated from the regular course several years before. He was not young. I fancy he had already entered the thirties. He had worked his way through college and had overcome all manner of obstacles in order to complete his education and prepare for the life work which he had chosen. His boyhood, I fancy, had not been care-free. His family was poor, and had little more than bare necessities. But Norman was born with a love for the beautiful things of life. His desires ran to fine books, flowers, pictures and music. From boyhood he had hungered for those things which he had not. Then came a time when they lay at his feet. This little Western city was the home of wealth. I do not know that it was any better or worse than the average towns of the country. There were many churches ; a few drinking and gambling places ; but the popular sentiment was in favor of morality and high ideals of living. There were several beautiful streets of fine homes, with beautiful lawns and servants in livery. Here the majority of the men and women were college-bred and many had studied abroad. In such an atmosphere Norman was placed. He was fresh from privations, poverty and the struggle for self-maintenance. The people were pleased with him. They recognized him as a man of ability; they admired his self-reliance; they respected his principle. They were ready to listen to him, to follow him as a leader. He was received everywhere. Old conservative families who made few friends received him warmly. Here came the test of his moral strength, but he did not recognize it as such. He had risen above adversity; he had succeeded against poverty ; unknown and obscure, he had made known his views from the isolated portion of his world. All this may a man of average moral caliber- do ; but to withstand and to grow strong among the seducing, effeminating influence of wealth demands a moral giant. Norman had looked upon the liquor traffic as the handmaid of the evil one. He had used in private and public his influence against it He had abstained from the use of tobacco in any form. But the cultivated people of the town were accustomed to serve 170 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE wines at their banquets and dinners. They were not intemperate, but they were not total abstainers. Norman had been in charge of these Christian workers but a short time, when he was invited to a reception at a home where there were several young men. A room on the third' floor had been set aside as a smoking room. Here a number of the men met, Norman among them. Without a demur, he partook of the wine and cigars. Both were dis- tasteful to him, but he made a pretense of enjoying them. Among the guests was an eccentric character, a man of middle age, who was known as a non-believer, but who was an intellectual giant, fearless in the expression of his opinion and independent in his action. This man, Norman had been striving for months to reach. He had accomplished so much that the man had listened to his discourses and had debated the subject in private with him. He entered the smoking room just as Norman took up his wineglass. The host offered him the wine. “You’ll bear us company, Mr. Miller?” he asked. “You know that I will not,” he replied bluntly. “You knew that before you asked.” The others looked up in surprise. Several laughed. “Miller acts as though he had been insulted,” said one young man, “in place of being treated with courtesy.” “That’s just the way I feel about it,” retorted Air. Miller. “To ask me such a question places me in one of two positions ; either as a man without an opinion, or a man whose opinion changes with the hour.” He crossed the room and seated himself in a comfortable position, as he continued. “I’ve lived in this town sixty years. Allowing the first twenty years to be the time when my judgment was not ripe enough to have my opinions considered, there yet remains to me about forty years of responsible time. Now from the very first, I’ve been strong against this drinking habit, both for the individual and for the nation. I look upon liquor as an agent of Satan. I believe more evil has been brought into the world through it than by all other means combined. “Now, I’ve believed that for forty years ; I am under the impression that I’ve expressed myself along that line, yet rnv words must have been weak, or our host would not have offered me a wine-glass.” His hearers felt that he meant every word he said, yet they joined in his bland, genial smile which swept the room, embracing everyone within it. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 171 “Either my words were weak, or my friends entertain the opinion that I play follow the leader; and I’d as soon be called an imbecile as a weakling that does anything because some other fellow does it. No wine, no cigars for me.” He waved his hand as though to dismiss them and the subject. As they quitted the mansion, Mr. Miller joined Norman on his way home. As he placed his- hand on the younger man’s arm, he said bluntly, “I wish to ask you a question. Doesn’t the religion you have accepted and represent, look with disfavor upon the use of liquors? Did you not read to me during our last confidential hour that beautiful sentiment, ‘If meat make my brother to offend’?” He looked up inquiringly into his companion’s face. He was not in a critical mood, nor had he asked the question for the sake of argument. “Yes; to all your questions,” said Norman. “You yourself know it to be the instrument of evil. You know that the greater per cent of crimitial cases, imbecile children and poverty, are the direct cause of its use.” “Yes, I know that,” replied Norman. “Then why did you touch it this evening? You told me once that you did not know the taste of it. I believed you. But why did you do as you did this evening?” “I never tasted it before. I have no desire to do so again. But my desire is to get closer to those young men. They have never let me come near them. I thought if perhaps I should put my own principles aside, they would feel free and easier in my presence, and after a time I might influence them to accept these same principles and teaching.” “You never made a greater mistake, my friend. We never can elevate anyone by coming down to him. Principle is a thing that cannot be lowered. When we think we are doing so, we are satisfying ourselves with the semblance of the thing; the principle itself has been lost. “As a nation, we did not win respect for our flag by lowering it. We kept it dying high and compelled others to look up to it.” “You believe that your conduct should reflect your belief. Your presence alone, sir, without words, should tell a man what you have accepted. No man has ever been so morally weak that he did not despise moral weakness in another. We love a hero, whatever the way his heroism flaunts itself. 172 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “No, my friend, to-tiight was your opportunity to come nearer in friendship to those young men. You missed it. They are further from you than before, and, if I read the stars aright, they will never come closer.” Norman took the advice in good part; but he did not heed it. He continued as he had begun. He lowered his standard so frequently that it was more often trailing in the wind that floating in the sunshine. His influence for good was weakened, for when the desire to fight a good fight is awakened within one, even the most evil of mankind, he wishes to follow a standard whicli is never lowered. — ^Jean K. Baird in Phila- delphia Westminister. LITTLE BRIDGET. It was Sunday afternoon. In a prosperous dramshop in the most densely populated district of the city, a crowd of loafers were tossing coppers for drinks, singing snatches of street ballads and exchanging coarse jests, when a pale, slight child burst into the place, closely pur- sued by a virago armed with the rung of a chair. There was a cruel purple welt across the little one’s forehead, and her eyes were swollen with crying. She flew to one of the men, who set her behind the bar in safety. The woman hurled blasphemy and invectives at the man, and gave him a heavy blow with the stick she carried. The piercing cries of the terrified child soon brought a policeman to the spot, when the arrest of both the man and the woman followed, and they were led away, the child meanwhile crouching behind the bar. “Now that you’ve yelled your father and mother into the lock-up, get out of here, you little brat !” said the proprietor of the saloon, and the girl, a child of less than nine years, shrunk from the place. “I guess Mag belts the kid every chance she gets, now,” said one of the loungers, and another answered : “It’s a good thing John was sober enough to stand up for her, or she’d have been laid out this time sure. The old girl is crazy drunk.” Meanwhile the little one turned into a by-street which led to her home, but she paused at the sound of singing in a neighboring room, and, as she stood sadly listening, a lady asked her to enter. The voice was gentle, the face kind, and the child laid her hand confidingly in that STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 173 of her guide and was soon seated beside her and listening to the ever- winning, Of Jesus and his love.” “Tell me the old, old story There were all classes gathered in that homely room. But of them all no one was so sore-hearted and hopeless as little Alice Barney when she entered there, and no soul had ever been happier than hers when she went away. She was cheered and' comforted, and accepted with en- tire comprehension and faith the whole of the beautiful old, old story of Jesus and his love. A simple thing to do, but it changed her whole life. Her eyes beamed, her feet seemed to tread on air, she was lifted out of herself, and the dreadful world she had known existed for her no longer. The next day she learned that her mother had been sent to the workhouse for ten days, but her father came home not only sober, but ashamed. He found the poor room swept, and upon the table were clean cups and plates, with bread neatly sliced and the coffee hot. The little girl had lost all her shrinking timidity, and seemed to her father a new being. She told the story of her experience at the mission school, and in a sweet, fearless way, born of her joy, she said : “They are going to tell more of the blessed Jesus on the street to- night, father, and there will be singing, too. Will you go with me to hear it?” “No, child’, I am not fit, but you can go and have as much as you like of it.” What need to narrate the work of grace in this little one chosen of the Lord? Before her mother returned she was at home with the city missionaries, and enlisted heart and soul i,n the work. Her father did not oppose her, though he refused to go with her, but her mother was bitter in her denunciation of what she called the canting, ranting Christians. Alice, however, with a sweet wisdom and courage, went her way. She seemed to be living the lines of Sir Galahad, “My strength is as the strength of ten. Because my heart is pure.” — Selected by Way of Faith. 174 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE MARRIED TO A DRUNKARD. She arose suddenly in the meeting, and spoke as follows: “Married to a drunkard! Yes, I was married to a drunkard. Look at me ! I am talking to the girls.” We all turned and looked at her. She was a wan woman with dark, sad eyes, and white hair, placed smoothly over a brow that denoted intellect. “When I married a drunkard, I reached the acme of misery,” she continued, “1 was young, and oh, so happy I married the man I loved, and who professed to love me. He was a drunkard, and I knew it, knew it but did not understand it. There is not a young girl in this building that does understand it, unless she has a drunkard in her family ; then, perhaps, she knows how deeply the iron enters the soul of a woman when she loves and is allied to a drunkard, whether father, brother, husband or son. Girls believe me, when I tell you that to marry a drunkard, to love a drunkard, is the crown of all misery. I have gone through the deep waters, and I have gained the fearful knowledge at the expense of happiness, sanity, almost life itself. Do you wonder my hair is white? It turned white in a night — ‘bleached by sorrow,’ as Marie Antoinette said of her hair. I am not forty years old, yet the sorrows of seventy rest upon my head; and upon my heart — ah! I cannot begin to count the winters resting there,” she said, with unutter- able pathos in her voice. “My husband was a professional man. His calling took him from home frequently at night, and when he returned, he returned drunk. Gradually he gave way to temptation in the day, until he was rarely sober. I had two lovely little girls and a boy.” Her voice faltered, and we sat in deep silence, listening to her story. “My husband had been drinking deeply. I had not seen him for two days. He had kept away from his home. One night I was seated beside my sick boy ; the two girls were in bed in the next room, while beyond, was another room into which I heard my husband go, as he entered the house. That room communicated with the one in which my little girls were sleeping. I do not know why, but a feeling of terror suddenly took hold of me, and I felt that my little girls were in danger. “I arose and went to the room. The door was locked. I knocked STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 175 on it frantically, but no answer came. I seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength, and throwing myself with all my force against the door, the lock gave way, and the door flew open. “Oh, the sight ! the terrible sight !” she wailed out, in a voice that haunts me now; and she covered her face with her hands, and when she removed them, it was whiter and more sad than ever. “Delirium tremens! You have never seen it, girls; God grant you never may. My husband stood beside the bed, his eyes glaring with insanity, and in his hand a large knife. ‘Take them away,’ he screamed. ‘The horrible things are crawling all over me. Take them away, I say r and he flourished the knife in the air. Regardless of danger, I rushed to the bed and my heart seemed, suddenly to cease beating. There lay my children, covered with their life-blood, slain by their own father! For a moment I could not utter a sound. I was literally dumb in the presence of this terrible sorrow. I scarcely heeded the maniac at my side — the man who had brought me all this woe. Then I uttered a , loud scream, and my wailing filled the air. The servants heard me and hastened to the room, and when my husband saw them, he sud- denly drew the knife across his own throat. I knew nothing more. I was borne from the room that contained my slaughtered children and the body of my husband. ' The next day my hair was white and my mind was so shattered that I knew no one.” She ceased ! Our eyes were riveted upon her wan face, and some one present sobbed aloud, while there was scarcely a dry eye in that temperance meeting. So much sorrow we thought, and through no fault of her own. We saw that she was not done speaking, and was only waiting to subdue her emotion to resume her story. “Two years,” she continued, “I was a mental wreck; then I recovered from the shock, and absorbed myself in the care of my boy. But the sin of the father was visited upon the child, and six months ago my boy of eighteen was placed in a drunkard’s grave; and I turned unto my desolate home a childless woman — one on whom the hand of God had rested heavily.” “Girls, it is you that I wish to rescue from the fate that overtook me. Do not blast your life as I blasted mine, do not be drawn into the madness of marrying a drunkard. You love him! So much the worse fdr you, for, married to him, the greater will be your misery 176 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE because of your love. You will marry him and then reform him, so you say. Ah ! a woman sadly over-rates her strength when she under- takes to do this. You are no match for the giant demon, drink, when he possesses a man’s body and soul. You are no match for him, I say. What is your puny strength beside this gigantic force? He will crush you, too. It is to save you, girls, from the sorrow that wrecked my happiness, that I have unfolded my history to you. I am a stranger in this great city. I am merely passing through it; and I have a message to bear to every girl in America — never marry a drunkard.” I can see her now, as she stood there amid the hushed audience, her dark eyes glowing, and her frame quivering with emotion, as she uttered her impassioned appeal, then she hurried out, and we never saw her again. Her words, “fitly spoken,” were not without effect, however, and because of them, there is one girl single now. — “Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer.” ALLEN BANCROFT’S PLEDGE. “So this is our new cabin-boy,” soliloquized Lieutenant , as t.e caught sight of a dark-eyed, handsome youth, leaning against the railing and gazing with a far-away look at the foamy waves that closed, with rushing sweep, white and bubbling in the wake of the swiftly moving vessel. “Well, he looks like an interesting subject I’m curious to know more about him.” Soon afterwards rough shouts and laughter attracted the lieutenant to the forward deck, where he found a group of sailors trying their utmost to persuade the boy to share their grog. “Laugh on,” Allen was just replying; “but I’ll never taste a drop. You ought to be ashamed to drink yourselves, much more to offer it to another.” A second shout of laughter greeted this reply, and a sailor, em- boldened by the approach of the captain, whom all knew to be a great drinker, said: ‘^Now, my hearty, get ready to keel over on your beam ends, when you’ve swallowed this.” He was about to pour the liquor down Allen’s throat, when, quick as a flash, the latter seized the bottle and flung it far overboard. At the FRANCES E. WILLARD. Of this Ijlessed “daughter of The King,” it might be said with Solomon: “Many daughters liave done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.” She was insistent for sobriety in high places aiid in low, and demanded the majesty of civil law against tlie Evil of Intemperance.” (Bishopl John i** "'lewman, author of “Lead Kindly T ight.” LILLIAN M. N. STEVENS President of the National W. C. T. U. This organization to whicn Frances E. Willard devoted the best part of her noble life, did most of the Pioneer work which has '"esulted in the great agitation against intemperance. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 177 instant. Captain Harden, his face scarlet with rage, grasped the boy’s arm and shouted: “Hoist this fellow aloft into the maintopsail. I’ll teach him better than to waste my property !” “I’ll go myself, captain,' said Allen, quietly waving the sailors back, “and I hope you will pardon me; I meant no offense.” “Faster!” cried the captain, as he saw with what care the boy was measuring his steps, for it was extremely dangerous for one unused to the sea, to climb that height. Faster Allen tried to go, but his foot slipped, and he dangled by his arms in mid-air. A coarse laugh from the captain greeted this mishap and a jeer from the sailors, but with a strong effort, Allen caught hold of the rigging again and was soon in the fatch-basket. “Now, stay there, you young scamp, and get some of the spirit frozen out of you,” muttered the captain, as he went below. But at nightfall the lieutenant ventured to say to the captain, who had been drinking freely all the afternoon : “Pardon my intrusion. Captain Harden, but I’m afraid our cabin boy will be sick if he is compelled to stay up there much longer.” “Sick ! bah ! not a bit of it ; he’s got too much grit in him to yield to such nonsense ; no one on board my ship ever gets sick ; all know better than to play that game on me. But I’ll go and see what he is doing, anyhow.” “Ho, my lad !” he shouted through his trumpet. “Ay, ay, sir,” was the faint but prompt response, as an eager face looked down for release. “How do you like your new berth?” was the mocking question. “Better than grog or whiskey, sir.” “If I allow you to come down, will you drink this?” asked the cap- tain, holding up a sparkling glass of wine. “I have forsworn all intoxicating drinks, sir, and I will not break my pledge, even at the risk of my life.” “There, that settles it,” said the captain to the lieutenant; “he’s got to stay up there to-night ; he’ll be toned down by morning.” But at dawn there was no response to the captain’s “Ho, my lad I” When two sailors brought the boy’s limp form into his presence, his voice softened, as he said : “Here, my lad, drink this glass of warm wine and eat the soaked biscuit, and I will trouble you no more.” 178 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Captain Harden,” said Allen, in a hoarse whisper, “will you allow me to tell you a little of my history?” “Go on,” said the captain, “but do not think it will change my mind; you have to drink this, just to show you how I bend stiff necks on board my ship.” “Two weeks before I came on board this ship, I stood beside my mother’s coffin. I heard the dull thud of falling earth as the sexton filled the grave which held her remains. I saw the people leave the spot. I was alone ; yes, alone, for she who loved and cared for me, was gone. I knelt for a moment upon the fresh turf ; and, while the hot tears rolled down my cheeks, I vowed never to taste the liquor that had broken my mother’s heart and ruined my father’s life. Two days later, I stretched my hand through the prison bars, behind which my father was confined. I told him of my intention to go to sea. Do with me what you will, captain ; let me freeze to death in the maintop ; throw me into the sea, anything, but do not, for my dead mother’s sake, force me to drink that poison that has ruined my father and killed my mother. Do not let it ruin a mother’s son !” The captain stepped forward ; and, laying his hand, which trembled a little, upon the head of the sobbing lad, said to the crew who had gathered around: “For our mothers’ sake, let us respect Allen Ban- croft’s pledge. And never,” he continued, glancing ominously at the sailors, “never let me catch any of you ill-treating him.” He then hastily withdrew and the sailors went forward. “Lieutenant ,” exclaimed the bewildered Allen, “what does this mean? Is it possible that — that — ” “That you are free,” replied the lieutenant, “and that no one will trouble you again.” “Lieutenant,” said the boy, “if I were not so sick and cold just now, I think I’d just toss my hat and give three cheers for Captain Harden.” He served on the vessel three years, and became a favorite with all. In his presence even the rudest sailor would not dare to utter coarse jests, and there was a noticeable decrease in the profanity on board. When he left, as the lieutenant tells the story. Captain Harden pre- sented Allen with a handsome gold watch as a memento of his night in the maintop. STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 179 How well this illustrates Lamartine’s saying, that there is only one stimulant that never fails and yet never intoxicates — duty. Duty puts a blue sky over every man — up in his heart, maybe — into which the skylark Happiness always goes singing. — Success. MRS. CLAPSADDLE’S EXPERIENCE WITH STUFFLIE’S SALTED WHISKY. “Dear me!” sighed little Mrs. Clapsaddle, laying down her fork, “I certainly do feel dreadful this spring. I don’t know when I’ve felt so run down. Nothing tastes good any more.” She pushed her plate back on the table, and regarded it indifferently. Then she rose, and, after giving the food she could not eat to Lucretia Borgia, the cat, wearily crossed the room and gazed into the little, plush-framed looking- glass. “Yee,” sighed Mrs. Clapsaddle, sadly shaking her head at her reflection, “my looks tell me plainly that I’m feelin’ real miserable. Dear ! dear ! I don’t know what I shall do. I certainly hate to be sick and have a doctor. If I only had an appetite, I wouldn’t worry. I guess I’ll see if I can’t dig me some horse-radish this afternoon If I can’t. I’ll get me some mustard.” Mrs. Clapsaddle, a good, simple-minded, old-fashioned woman, was of the opinion that if her stomach did not cry for food, it ought to be spurred to do its duty. She did not know that long confinement without exercise, in her small, hot, badly ventilated rooms, coupled with im- proper food and advancing age, were the causes of her run-down con- dition. What she did realize was that never before had she felt so thoroughly “out of sorts,” and she thought the first thing to do was to tone up her stomach with something hot, and then get some medicine. That afternoon she pulled and grated some horseradish — a procedure that “tuckered her out” completely. Thinking that she would better be thorough, while she was about it, she also bought some ground mustard and mixed it with vinegar. Under the influence of this fiery combination, she became quite sick and much discouraged. Besides, a new ailment had appeared — she had a “crick” in her back. “Dear me !” she murmured, as she picked up a magazine a friend had brought in, “I never felt so blue in my life. Something’s got to 180 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE be Oone.” She began turning the pages in the back of the periodical, and suddenly an alluring advertisement caught her eye. “Take Dosem’s Vivifier for that Tired Feeling,” she read. The testimonials of the persons that had been cured were very interesting, and she did not skip a word. “Frawd’s Restorative Will Cure You,” appeared on the opposite page. “Have you tried Pippin’s Paiii Killer?” next greeted her. Then she was informed that “Fakem’s Aquazone” would kill every disease germ in the body. Plainly, there was no need of suffering longer. Mrs. Clapsaddle had never used any patent medicines, but these wonderful testimonials decided her to try a bottle of each of those so highly recom- mended. But “Dosem’s Vivifier” — she would — yes, indeed, she would have two of that, for it was the one recommended by the great Dr. Maltage, whose sermons she read every week. And Congressman Beaver, her own congressman, said he was cured by “Frawd’s Restora- tive,” so it must be fine. By the end of the next week, Mrs. Clapsaddle’s cupboard shelves resembled a miniature drug store. Frawd’s Restorative touched shoul- ders with Fakem’s Aquazone, while Dosem’s Vivifier and Pippin’s Pain Killer crowded each other with claims for recognition. Beside, there was a box of “Green Pills for Blue People,” which Mrs. Clapsaddle thought might be useful as she felt so blue. Mrs. Clapsaddle had now only to lie on her lounge when her scanty meals were over, take her medicine, and get well. But the medicines were a little disappointing. After the delightful exhilaration which fol- lowed each dose, a dreadful depression took possession of her, which continued until it was time for more medicine. She found herself begin- ning to look forward eagerly to the taking of the doses, as they were such a relief from that feeling of “goneness” which troubled her. “What you need,” said her friend Hazel Morton, who called one morning with some magazines, “is to stop thinking so much about your ailments. It is enougii to make anyone sick, living in the house all the time, as you do. Get out of doors all 3-ou can. The weather will soon be warm enough for you to work a little in 3'our garden, and out- door air exercise will be better for j^ou than any medicine. Your back is well now, is it not?” “Yes,” admitted Mrs. Clapsaddle, “it got well before I tried the Pain STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 181 Killer. But I am very weak and nervous. Her faded blue eyes gazed wistfully up at the bright vivacious face of the young girl. “Oh!” comforted Hazel, “you’ll come out all right, I’m sure. If I were you, I should quit drinking tea and coffee. What we eat and drink has much to do with the way we feel. I have brought you a loaf of graham bread; let me set it in the cupboard. You need not get up.” As she opened the cupboard doors, the girl’s quick eyes caught sight of the nostrums, and with difficulty she suppressed the sudden laughter that bubbled to her lips. “Why,” she exclaimed, “it isn’t any wonder you are sick. Have you really been taking these things all this time, Mrs. Clapsaddle? They’re fakes, every one of them. That is nothing but cheap whiskey,” she said, pointing to Frawd’s Restorative, “and Dosem’s Vivifier is very dangerous, for it contains coca as well as alcohol.” “In this health journal,” she went on, turning the pages, “there’s a department devoted to exposing medical frauds. See this about Fakem’s Aquazone, for instance, Tt is composed of water with the addition of enough sulphuric and sulphurous acids to make it taste sour. It costs less than three cents a gallon to produce. Some children have died from using it.’ And the Green Pills for Blue People are made of green vitriol, starch and sugar. It’s a wicked shame that you should have been fooled into spending money on such things.” • “But there must be good in some of them,” objected Mrs. Clap- saddle. “Think of the people that have been cured I See their tes- timonials I” “Yes,” laughed Hazel, “but some of these testimonials have been proved to be as big frauds as the medicines. Some are written by silent partners in the business ; many are paid for, prominent people receiving large sums, and poor people a few dollars or some photographs, or some of the medicine. Others are from vain people who love to have their pictures in the papers and can’t get them in any other way. But, Mrs. Clapsaddle, I am learning from these health journals, that if people are careful, they will rarely, if ever, need medicine. If you will read them, I am sure they will interest and help you.” “Now, please don’t be offended,” she pleaded as she arose to go. “If you are not vexed with me, promise that you’ll go to church with me next Sunday if you are able. You ought to be out more; it would 182 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE cheer you to go to church.” “All right,” responded Mrs. Clapsaddle, if the weather permits, and I feel able, I will go.” “However, as soon as Hazel had left the house, Mrs. Clapsaddle, who was really hurt and offended, pushed the health journals uncere- moniously under the lounge. “Just as if Dr. Maltage’s testimonial could be a fraud ! And all the papers printing his wonderful sermons ! She thinks that she knows more than that great man !” And she picked up a patent medicine almanac she had got at the drug store, and read over the wonderful list of cures once more. In spite of herself, when she went next to her medicine shelf, she eyes somewhat suspiciously the array of half-empty bottles, feeling almost glad their contents were so nearly gone. What if Hazel was right? But she could not be. It was impossible that Dr. Maltage and Congressman Beaver should not know. When the bottles were all emptied, IMrs. Clapsaddle regretted she had not purchased a larger supply, for she knew they were cheaper bought in quantity. She was really feeling better ; and, of course, her improved spirits and increased appetite must be due to the medicines. She never thought of giving the credit to her out-door work in the vegetable garden and flower beds. Hazel had been wrong about Dosem’s Vivifier, anyway. She always felt better after taking that. If it had been possible, IMrs. Clapsaddle would have invested with- out delay in a new supply of medicine. But the rent had to be met, her supply of money was low, and no more pension was forthcoming for some weeks. Could she do without medicine for awhile? It would be hard, for she felt “all gone” without it. Two days passed. Mrs. Clapsaddle was miserably nervous. Her old symptoms seemed to be returning. “O, I shall be real sick again if I can’t have some medicine. What shall I do? I wonder if there is not a cheaper kind that would do till I have more money?” She picked up the magazine in which she had seen the Vivifier advertisement and turned its pages eagerly. But no cheaper medicine was offered. With a sigh she dropped the magazine and leaned her head upon her hands. A knock at the door awoke her from her reverie. She opened the door and peered into the twilight. In a few brisk words the visitor told his errand. He was agent for a medical company and had learned that she was' in poor health, so he called to see if she would let him help her. Mrs. C. was naturally suspicious of strangers, but STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 183 this man’s kindness and her own great need caused her to admit him. He soon had the poor woman’s story of her sickness and her present weak feelings for want of medicine. He expressed great sympathy for her, and said that his house permitted him to give five bottles free of their great remedy for a run-down condition, asking only the person’s name to a prepared testimonial, saying the medicine had effected a cure. Mrs. Clapsaddle was greatly impressed by the philanthropic spirit of the medical firm, but when the agent produced the testimonial for her to sign, she said, “Why, you don’t want me to sign it before I try the medicine, do you?” “Oh ! that’s all right,” he answered. “It is sure to cure you ; can’t fail. You’ll soon feel like a different woman.” Mrs. Clapsaddle picked up the testimonial. With a start she read the heading, “Stufflie’s Salted Whisky.” “Oh !” she cried, “you did not tell me it was whisky. You said it was medicine. I never touched whisky in my life. Why, I’m a church member!” The man laughed aloud. “My dear woman, didn’t you know that the Restorative you said did so much good, is just a cheap kind of whisky, sweetened and flavored, and the Vivifier is the same with coca added? We don’t fool the people by calling our whisky any fancy names; we make an article that medical doctors and doctors of divinity alike endorse. Ours is no common whisky. It is a medicine. Read what these ministers say about it. You’re a church member, you say.” Tremblingly she took the book offered her and read. The whisky medicine certainly was endorsed by doctors and ministers. The man was not lying. And there, sure enough, was the picture of the minister who buried dear John. And he said it cured him. It must be a good thing. But she wished, they called it by some other name. She looked at the name again. “Why do you put salt in it?” she asked. “O, salt is a great germ cure, you know. What the whiskey will not cure, the salt will, and what the salt won’t cure, the whisky will, so you see it is perfect. It takes only a very few grains of salt to a bottle. You may not notice it, but it’s there doing its work.” It was not so hard to gain Mrs. Clapsaddle’s consent to sign the testimonial, after she had read the testimony of the minister who buried her husband. She hated to do it, but five bottles of medicine free why, that was five dollars saved ! She would be well before it was all 184 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE used. So down went the signature in trembling hand, “Mrs. John Clap- saddle, 127 Tremaine St.” The man left one bottle of the “medicine,” and said he would send the remainder in a few days. Hazel Morton, who had been away on a prolonged visit, called upon her return to see her friend, and to ask her to go to prayer-meeting. Receiving no reply to her knock, she pushed the door open and went in. She was greeted by a disheveled woman, walking somewhat unsteadily across the floor. The unsteady movements, the thick speech, and the unmistakable od >r, told a pitiful story. Mrs. Clapsaddle was sobered by the shock of discovery, and she realized that Hazel understood. She burst into a fit of sobbing, and dropped back upon the lounge. “O, Hazel,” she cried, “the man said it was only medicine, good medicine.” “Dear Mrs. Clapsaddle,” said Hazel, softly touching the trembling woman’s arm, “I came to ask you to go with me to prayer-meeting, but shall we not have a prayer-meeting right here by ourselves, you and I? No one shall ever know about — about — O, Mrs. Clapsaddle, I am so sorry for you !” “I’ll do anything you say,” she sobbed. “If I had listened to your warnings, I would never have done this wicked thing.” The young girl and the elderly woman kneeled together, and asked help of the Great Physician that the craving for alcoholics which had unwittingly come upon one of His children, might be removed. The next day Hazel brought with her a sweet-faced nurse, w’ho stayed with Mrs. Clapsaddle until she felt well enough to be left alone. The remaining bottles of “medicine” were broken to pieces in the little back-yard. The following winter a friend living in California sent Mrs. Clap- saddle a Stufflie’s Salted Whisky advertisement with a picture of an aged woman, and a testimonial bearing her name. The friend asked, “Can it be possible that you have aged so rapidly?” The picture was that of Mrs. Clapsaddle’s grandmother. The agent had abstracted it from a pile of old photographs while Mrs. Clapsaddle had been reading jjis booklets. — Tract, STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 185 HANDICAPPED. Little Mrs. Winston turned from her tea-table with a sigh of satis- faction, pushed aside the heavy window curtain and looked out into the twilight of a blustering March day. A trail of pale gold, left by the setting sun, was the only gleam of brightness in a sky full of gray clouds, scurrying over a world of brown earth and muddy pools, fast skimming with ice. She shivered as she came back to the light and warmth within, the blazing woodfire on the hearth making a halo of her boy’s sunny curls as he lay stretched upon a fur rug, poring over a picture book. She stooped to lay a light hand on the hot cheek next to the fire, moved an armchair to a more inviting angle, and went back to the table. Nowhere could a touch improve that. From the glass dish of pussy- willows and hardy ferns in the centre, flanked by crisp, lemon-tinted lettuce and amber peaches in their lucent syrup, to the shining silver service, and the blossom-sprigged china awaiting the hot dishes on the kitchen stove, all was perfect. She picked up an uncut magazine and laid it down again with the cutter half through the first leaf ; threaded a needle with embroidery silk and put it back in her work basket ; drew her low chair near the larger one in the chimney corner, and piled another stock upon the glowing coals. She could settle to nothing. Clearly Mrs. Winston was waiting in suspense. “Poor fellow,” she said, thinking aloud, “he will need all the brightness we can give him,” and again she sighed, a sigh of sympathy. Her heart was heavy for her husband, who had been hastily summoned to the deathbed of a brother, in a distant state. From rumors that had come to them for several years, it was feared that bereavement was not the saddest feature of the trouble in his family. Letters telling of the arrival of her husband, and of the death and funeral quickly following, had not lessened these fears. At last the familiar ring at the doorbell sent her into the hall, eager questions on her lips. These died into silence at the sight of a shrinking little figure, in a pitifully small suit of mourning, whose hand her hus- band held, drawing the child forward, with the words, “I had to bring her. I hated to add to your cares, but there was no help for it.” “Never mind me,” she answered, quickly, “I dare say she will be 186 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE more help than trouble, and Bert will be so glad of a playmate. Now we will have tea before either of you go upstairs.” “Yes, indeed, let us have tea, and how good the oysters smell. I am glad you have something hot. I feel as if every drop of blood were a separate point of ice pricking my veins.” Sitting at the table, unable to eat, the little girl had not spoken. Bert’s shy attempts at making friends with her brought a convulsive, sobbing catch in her throat, so distressing that Mrs. Winston waited only to pour the tea and attend to her boy’s wants before taking the child upstairs. A little room, opening out of her own, was soon made ready, and preparations for bed went on, still in silence. “What is your name, dear child?” she asked at last. The dark-rimmed eyes were lifted to hers for a moment, but the quivering lips could not frame the words to answer. “You will not be afraid, or lonely, with the door open,” went on the soothing voice, “and I can hear if my little girl needs anything in the night.” “I’m mamma’s little girl, if I did have to leave her,” in a defiant tone. “O, yes. But all little girls like to visit their aunties, and I have to call you that because you do not tell me your name.” “Edna,” in a lower key. “You were named for your father, then. I knew him when he was a nice little boy, no older than you.” The child threw herself across the bed with a heartbroken wail, “O, papa dear, papa dear ! I cannot bear it ! I cannot bear it ! God is not good. Papa did not know what he was doing when he was cruel, and God does know what He is doing !” Mrs. Winston gathered the writhing little form in her arms. “What is it, dear child?” “The preacher said no drunkard could enter heaven. Papa was so bonny when he was good, and we loved him so ! He used to hurt mamma when he wasn’t himself, hurt mamma. But we wouldn’t punish him forever and ever. We would remember how nice he was some times. Say it isn’t true, auntie.” “Can you listen to me, Edna?” holding the thin, trembling hands m STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 187 her soft grasp. A movement of the head on her arm assented. “God is good. Mamma and you loved papa, but you could not help him?” A dreary “No” answered. “You saw him grow worse and worse every day. God loves him more, far more than anyone else can, and he has taken papa out of a world where he would never be any better. God loves and knows how to help. Let us trust papa to that great and wise love.” When the long-drawn sobs had ceased in sleep, Mrs. Winston went down stairs to find her boy asleep on the couch, her husband cowering over the fire. Hastily clearing the tea-table she had set with so much pride, she drew her low chair to her husband’s side and waited for his version of the dreadful story she had heard upstairs. “It was worse than we thought,” he began. “Nothing was left, even for necessaries. The whole family were ragged and famished. Neighbors had brought in food and coal before I arrived. There was not a trace of my brother in the bloated face we shut away under the coffin lid.” “If you had only known sooner ! But they were so far away.” “I could not have helped him. It was all his own fault. On her deathbed my mother reminded us of the birthright of evil we had inherited, and begged us never to awaken the sleeping appetite. We promised. I met. every offer of the stuff by frankly avowing the pledge to mother. I had to endure some good-natured banter and some ill- mannered sneers, but a laugh often turned both aside. Ned would flush up in wrath, making himself a fit subject for teasing.” “But he was standing firm when I last knew him ; before I left our home village.” “Yes, and such a foolish thing kindled the flame at last; a sudden fancy for a city guest in a friend’s house, when he had really loved another from childhood. The city girl was bright and attractive; she liked to show her power over him, and he gave way to her tempting offer of a glass of wine, again and again. She soon went away, caring nothing for him, but his ruin was sure, even then. He tried to rally time after time, only to fail under the many temptations around him. The girl he loved was willing to risk her life with his, she had always loved him. He married and went to a prohibition state, but he was not safe even there. Prohibition does not prohibit in the drug store and doctor’s office.” 188 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Where are his family now?” “A brother of his wife wanted the boy, a winning little fellow. His wife went home to her mother with the baby. No one wanted the girl. It was more than hinted to me that I could well afford to take her, having no daughter of my own.” “I am not sorry to have a girl in the house, to bear me company when my boy asserts his sex by insisting upon living out doors.” “You would not confess, if you were sorry,” he answered with a smile, caressing the face upturned to his. She exclaimed at the hot touch of his hand and hurried him off to bed. When she came to him, after settling Bert for the night, he was shaking in a chill. A doctor was called, who at once spoke the dreaded word — pneumonia. The days that followed were like a confused dream to the anxious wife. She hardly noticed the children, though she was dimly con- scious that Edna kept her boys busy and content by the arts so aptly learned in a drunkard’s home. Stopping once to kiss the child, she was surprised by a passion of sobs, when she said, “Auntie sees how you are trying to help her, but she cannot stay now to tell you how much she loves you for it.” “1 am not a burden you will soon get rid of, as Uncle Tom said you would, when he came to take brother away.” “You shall never go until mamma says she must have you again. But Uncle Bob needs all my time now, I must go to him.” With slow-dropping, thankful tears, Mrs. Winston heard at last a word of hope from the doctor’s lips. “But you must take the greatest £are,” he cautioned. “Give him a spoonful of brandy every hour.” “He cannot take it,” she cried in dismay. “Isn’t there something else?” “Nothing else will tide him over the next few days. He may go off like a flash without it. I am a temperance man myself, but in such a case,, foolish scruples must be laid aside.” “He would not take it, if he knew.” “It would be suicide to refuse. If you care so little for your hus- band’s life, I care for my professional reputation, which is at stake.” She gave way at the cruel words. She could stand firm by herself, but her husband’s life was more to her than her own. The spoonful of brandy was but a beginning. Strength was slow STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 189 in returning, and he must have a bottle of beer to quicken his digestion ; when able to again take up his business cares, he came home so exhausted, a glass of wine was necessary to restore him. His wife’s gentle warnings and entreaties sent him to outside sources for the stimulants his awakened appetite craved. A year had not passed before it was a common thing for him to come home so under the influence of liquor, he had to sleep it off before appearing in his family. He was always good-tempered, but wife and boy shrank from his maudlin caresses. Edna always gave a sigh of relief when he was safely asleep. She knew what it was to dread violence. Penitence and promises followed, when the stupor was over, but such a little thing would bring about his fall again; an invitation to drink, from a friend, the sight of beer bottles at a saloon door, the flavor of brandy in the pudding sauce, when dining away from home, the sip of wine at the communion table, all served to shatter the most solemn pledges. Perhaps the hardest to bear happened one spring day, when hope was stronger, because of temptation resisted for a longer period than ever before. Bert had been ailing, and as Mrs. Winston was passing along the street, she met her pastor’s wife, who spoke of the boy’s pallor. “He needs a tonic,” she said. “I always make my own black- berry wine and will send you a bottle.” “Bert is almost well,” answered the mother quickly. “His cough will wear off with warmer weather.” “I shall send a bottle to hasten the cure,” insisted the lady, and Mrs. Winston was too timid to speak out the indignant remonstrance surging within. 'She blamed herself all the afternoon for not making the refusal more decided. Edna met her at the door, in the tempest of tears to which she so rarely gave way. Inside, her husband lay on the bed in a heavy sleep of drunkenness. On the couch her boy was gasping in the throes of a fit of nausea. When he was relieved and sleeping lightly in her arms, she listened to the story the little girl told between her sobs. “Mrs. Wilde came to the door with a bottle, and Uncle Rob went out to see her. When he came back, he mixed a glassful of something out of the bottle with sugar and water, for Bert. He didn’t like it, and uncle said I must coax him to take it. He said I could do it if I wasn’t so stubborn. Uncle Rob doesn’t love me, auntie. When I cried, Bert 190 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE swallowed the stuff, and in a little while it made him so sick. O auntie, is he poisoned? Will he die?” “He is indeed poisoned, but the first time will not kill him. Where is the bottle ?” “Uncle drank the rest of it and went out. He came in — like he is now.” The poor man blamed no one but himself. “1 wanted to taste the thing, and, for an excuse, mixed a dose for Bert, as the woman left directions for you. It maddened me to see the children shrink from me and refuse to obey. It is true, I cannot bear the girl ; she reminds me of that fatal journey.” “Shall we send her to her mother?” “No. That would do me no good, and I can see she is a comfort to you and the boy. The mite has been through it all before, and is wise beyond her — size.” Bert awoke in terror. “I did not know I was breaking my pledge, mamma. Must I go on like papa and Uncle Ned? Edna is afraid I will.” “No, my boy ! A soldier does not give up the battle with the first wound. We will fight on, and God will help.” “I do not like the taste of it, mamma. The thought of it makes me sick.” “We’ll thank God for that.” “And, mamma, when I’m a man I mean to be a doctor, and help people fight against the dreadful thing when they are too sick to fight for them.selves.” For ten years the struggle lasted. Then another attack of pneu- monia found Robert Winston without strength to resist its inroads. When the end came, the love-light shone again in his eyes, as he opened them for the last time upon those of his wife, dimmed with tears, kneeling beside him. “Be glad for me, sweetheart,” he whispered, “and glad for your- self. This is the only way out of the disgrace — and the sin.” “God knows you could not help it, dear one !” “And He has come now with the only help. Good-night.” — A story from real life in tract. 191 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE A PAYING RESULT. The landlady Jooked at him disapprovingly. Young men would be young men, she knew that, but she had hoped better things of this one, who came to her with such clear eyes, with such a clean, ruddy com- plexion, and so carefully groomed, that it was a pleasure to look at him. “You are late this morning,” she said, with unconscious severity. “Yes,” he answered, sulkily, “a fellow can’t be up half the night and out with the larks.” “That’s the trouble with you, I guess — too much lark,” she replied, with grim pleasantry. “You’d better cut it out, my lad. I have boys myself, and I know how mothers feel.” The young man winced. Better than she could tell him, he knew how his mother would have felt to hear him stumbling up to his room in the small hours of the night, but she should never know if he could help it. Already weak resolutions were forming in his befogged brain to “cut it out,” as the landlady had said, and he looked- up at her with an unsteady smile. “You bet I will, Mrs. Parks. No more wine sup- pers for yours truly.” Mrs. Parks sighed as she went about her work. Even to her not over critical mind, the slang and tone in which it was uttered showed the deterioration in the young man’s character quite as clearly as the blood- shot eyes, and downcast, shamed look on his flushed face. “Too bad — too bad,” she mused. Two years ago Harry Brayton had come to this larger town from an inland village, to work in a bank as junior clerk. He had been so proud of his position, so sure of working up and earning promotion, that at first he had bent every energy to doing his work well, and pleasing his employers. He had been brought up to be a total abstainer, but, unhappily for him, the bank force was made up mainly of “society men.” A drunkard would not have been tolerated among them for a moment, but the moderate drinker, the fellow who could toss off a few glasses of wine of an evening and do his work the next day, was their ideal of strength, and the atmosphere insensibly affected the younger and untried man. Several saloonkeepers were customers of the bank, and his duties as coi!er(.!r led him often into their places of business, so, little by little, 192 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE his “prejudices of education,” as the cashier called temperance prin- ciples, were undermined, and he began to accept the treats so freely- offered, at first with reluctance, but later on with evident pleasure. “He’s coming to it fine,” said the barkeeper, with a wink to the proprietor, as Harry left the place one day, wiping his lips. “Don’t have to urge him now. He’ll make a valuable customer before long.” These were not the dens where such unspeakable things Avere done, that even the mayor had to take notice occasionally, but respectable, high-toned places, where a gentleman could go in and out without reproach. Harry had been a church-goer in the home town, but here it was different. Work was strenuous on Saturdays, and “the boys” usually had something planned for Sunday quite foreign to church, and the bells which at first caused him uneasiness of conscience, now scarcely awakened a thought. The downward road is a long and easy slope for some, but for others a toboggan slide, swift, and terribly certain as to the end. “Mother, I feel worried about Harry,” said Nettie Brayton one morning, as the two sat together at the breakfast table. “He hasn’t written for weeks, and when we see him, it is for so short a time, that we know almost nothing of his real self.” A sigh escaped Mrs. Brayton. “I know, Nettie,” she replied sadly. “I feel that I am losing my boy, but what are we to do?” “If you can spare me, mother, I would like to go down and spend a week with him,” replied Nettie thoughtfully. “Surely in that time I should learn something of his inner life, for we have always been chums. Next Sunday is Temperance Sunday, and I would like to see its observance in a large town.” So it came about that, when Harry came home to his six o’clock dinner that memorable day, an eager face peeped out of the shabby little parlor, and seeing him alone, two loving arms Avere throAvn around his neck, and a warm kiss pressed his feA^erish lips. “Why Nettie, Avhy didn’t you let a fellow know you were coming?” he stammered in his surprise and chagrin, for he could not help realizing that he Avas not a fit object for a sister’s pure kiss. He had just throA\m aAvay the stub of a cheap cigar, and last night’s excess Avas yet in eA’idence in his breatli. “I wanted to surprise you. Don’t you remember Iioaa^ aa'c used to play surprise when we were little tads together?” REV. SAM JONES ■'I’ve seen a man and a dog go into a saloon, and in an hour the man would get beastly drunk and stagger out like a hog, while the dog would come out and walk away like a Gentleman.” — Sam Jones. THE POLYGOT PETITION STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 193 Harry was really glad to see his sister, after the first shock of the meeting was over, but her heart sank as the truth came home to her of the sad change in him since he had left home, and she fell on her knees by her bedside in an agony of weeping, when at last she was shown to her room for the night, as she realized what this knowledge she had gained would mean to her mother. She was- a Christian girl, and prayer her first recourse in time of trouble. “O pitiful Christ, spare my brother and give him back to us,” she sobbed. “I’m glad you’ve come, miss,” said the somewhat voluble Mrs. Parks, next day. Harry had eaten a hasty breakfast and hurried away. “The boss’ll kick if I’m not on time, but amuse yourself till after lunch. Sis, and I’ll get out early and chase the elephant with you this afternoon,” he had said, as he kissed her good-bye. He had made a careful toilet, and seemed more like himself after his night’s rest. Mrs. Parks was sitting in his vacant chair, her elbows on the table in a confidential mood. “I have boys of my own, and I have a mother’s feelings when young men that are away from home come into my house. I took a liking to your brother from the first, and I says to my husband, ‘There’s a boy that’s been brought up by a good mother, and taught to do right, and I know it.’ He was that clean and nice about the house — but I don’t like that crowd he trains with now, and that’s the truth. Society swells, with their money and their, loose ideas, aren’t very safe examples for a young man who has his way to make in the world, but they never seem to think. To have a rollicking good time, and get just as near the edge of the pit as they can and not fall in head foremost, seems to be all they care about.” “You are right, Mrs. Parks,” Nettie said, as her entertainer .paused for breath. “Harry and I have been brought up carefully by the dearest and best of mothers, but even a mother cannot follow her boy out into the cruel world; she can only pray — and weep, when she must,” and tears filled the sister’s eyes. “I’m not saying that your brother is as bad as some of the rest of them,” interposed Mrs. Parks hastily, at sight of the tears, “but he is in danger, anyone can see that. When a young fellow gets where he isn’t afraid of the saloons, and of wine suppers, he has lost his best hold. I hope you can help him.” With all her heart Nettie echoed the kindly wish, and by every 194 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE means in her power she strove to bring the wholesome influences of home upon him in the days which followed. “I’ll tell you how it happened, Net, that you caught me looking and feeling so like a bum that day you came,” he said, one evening. “I ought not to have gone to that wine supper, I know that now ; but it was the first really swell function I had ever had a chance at. Ten dollars a plate and all that sort of thing, you know, and when the governor passed around free tickets to some of us — a sort of reward of merit for good, little boys, you see — why, I was just too tickled to think straight, and climbed into my glad rags as fast as I could, and went along.” “Who is the governor, Harry?” Nettie asked, innocently. “Why, Mr. Nash, the president,” Harry colored uneasily, for he knew his sister was not so ignorant as she seemed. “Of course, there were muffs there who turned down their glasses and didn’t even drink their lemon punch, but somehow I’m not built that way.” “I wish you were, Harry, with all my heart,” replied Nettie, sadly. “1 wish you could refuse the evil and deliberately choose the good before men.” “A fellow might as well be out of the world as in it and not do as others do,” remarked Harry, pettishly. “Were those ‘muffs’ you speak of, so very low down in the social scale?” “No, not exactly,” Harry admitted reluctantly. “Judge Lane, Senator Ince, and others ; your pious sort, all of them.” “Yet I do not think they were disgraced because they could walk straight when they went home,” said Nettie, with a sigh. “Our dear father would have been a ‘muff’ in the same place ; are you more manly than he?” “I shall never be half the man my father was,” Harry replied, gloomily. “Talk about something else, Nettie. I’m getting into the dumps.” “Do you know what mother found in father’s diary — in his own handwriting, and almost the last entry he had ever made?” “What was it?” asked Harry. “ ‘My dear, dear boy. How I wish that I might bind upon his heart that most true and important scripture, “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup — in the end it biteth STORIES OF HELL'S COMMERCE 195 like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.” ’ You see, father was loving you, fearing for you even then.” “Don’t, Net. You break my heart ” cried Harry in a strange, muffled voice, as he arose and went to the window, where he stood looking out into the night with unseeing eyes. It was a difficult town in which to preach the gospel of temperance, yet the faithful who were true to their trust, never gave up. The recent wonderful victories in state and counties had made the cause more popular of late, and the W. C. T. U. women were making an extra effort to bring the subject home to the people on World’s Tem- perance Sunday as they had never done before. “The trouble is, that there won’t be a blessed soul there that needs it,” remarked Mrs. Cummings, regretfully. “Only the Christian people who have heard temperance texts and temperance teaching since their infancy.” “I’m not so sure of that, Mrs. Cummings,” replied the president of the union, Mrs. Hicks. “We may never know, but I think there is much good done by our public meetings. In union is strength, you know, and the solid front shown to the enemy is a power for good in itself.” “Well, I’m ready to face the enemy, if it’s front you want,” laughed Mrs. Cummings, who was a large, finely proportioned woman, “and I’ll do more than that if you can trace up any real results from the effort. I’ll give ten dollars to the cause for every case you find.” “I hope we can bankrupt 3^ou, Mrs. Cummings,” cried Mrs. Hicks joyfully, “and you may be sure we shall be out with a searchlight after the day is over.” Although nearly all the pastors of the city had promised to preach along specific temperance lines, yet it was thought best to concentrate on one particular church and unite in its service for the day. It was the church of the denomination to which Nettie belonged, and she was looking forward to the service with hopeful anticipation. It was a very beautiful church and to-day it v/as profusely decorated with white satin ribbons as for a bridal. There were reserved seats near the front, and presently the temperance forces came marching in, while the organist played a stirring voluntary. There were young and old among them, and all wore the white ribbon, the emblem of temperance and purity. Tears came into Nettie’s eyes as slje whispered to Harry, “How I wish that mother were here to enjoy it with us.” 196 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE In the rear of the house, near the door, sat a man who would attract attention anywhere, by his fine, intelligent face and commanding figure. He was a stranger in the churches of the town, and he could not him- self account for the impulse which had led him to come in and take a seat to-day, but having come, he looked around with an interested eye and alert ear. Beside him sat a fine, manly boy, and it may have been the passion of the child for music which had lured him, for the eyes of the boy were fixed eagerly upon the great organ and its player, and later upon the throng of white-ribboned women. “Say, father, we don’t have anything like that down at The Cabin, do we?” The father shook his head. “No, son. Hush, kiddie, the folks’ll hear you.” There was a story wrapped up in the seemingly simple incident of the father and son coming to church that particular day, for the father was a bartender in one of the saloons of the city, though how he had drifted into such an ignoble business was a wonder to those who knew him. Upright and honest, strictly temperate, it seemed a terrible anomaly to see such a man handing out to others the dangerous stuff which he so carefully avoided himself. The boy’s bright eyes sought his father’s eagerly, as the pastor read the Scripture, “Woe unto him who putteth the bottle to his neighbor’s lips,” and he crept closer to his side with a loving, protective gesture as the reading went on. The pastor was terribly in earnest, and his words fairly burned into the consciences of two of his audience, as he poured out his heart in an eloquent denunciation of the evils of drink selling and of drink buying. Nettie could feel Harry’s form tremble beside her, as the sermon aroused his slumbering conscience to an almost white heat. It was such a sermon as his father would have preached to him, had he been living, and it came to him with a strange power that day, as if he were the only one in the crowded church to whom the pastor was speaking. There was an opportunity at the close of the service for any one who wished to sign the pledge. “The merest formality,” whispered l^Irs. Cummings to her neighbor. “As if any one would have the courage to rise up in this respectable crowd and proclaim himself in need of a pledge.” “You doubting Thomas!” replied her companion, and even as she STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 19Y i spoke, a young man arose and walked up to the table, his face white, ! his hands trembling with excitement. Nettie hesitated a moment, then I arose and followed him, and together they signed the pledge that meant r so much to them both. Others followed, but in all the large congregation i there was probably not another one who needed the protection of the ! pledge more than Harry Brayton. “I want to thank you for this service, and for what it has done for my dear brother,” said Nettie, her eyes moist, her voice trembling with deep feeling, as she addressed Mrs. Hicks. A member of the Young Men’s Bible class had captured Harry for the Sunday School hour, and the two were standing alone together. “He is alone in the city, and he I — needed it so. May I ask if you will mother him a little, you tem- I perance ladies? He is not bad — only away from home and ” her 1 voice failed altogether. “Indeed we will, dear girl. Take heart, my child, for there must be i 'much of good in your brother, else he would not have taken the public stand he did.” ; They gathered around her, the white ribbon mothers and sisters, with kindly words of cheer and hopefulness, and Nettie’s heart was lighter than it had been for weeks, as she listened. The pastor was at ; the entrance as the congregation passed out, and the man with the little boy lingered for a word, as the minister pressed his hand. 1 “Thank you for the sermon, sir,” he said. “You have put an old subject before me in a new light. I should like to call upon you when j you are at liberty.” [ It was a touching story the pastor heard the following evening in ^ the quiet of his study. Of aspirations unrealized, and hopes deferred. “I was never taught to see the wickedness of it whem I was a boy,” he 1 said humbly, “and when I was offered a fine paying position with easy i work under such circumstances, can you wonder that I accepted it?” i “No, no, sir. Some of us who are better trained might not have I done any better,” replied the pastor, with ready sympathy, “but now that you see the evil, what will you do?” “The Lord knows, sir, I don’t,” shaking his head disconsolately. “The expert mixer of drinks has been my trade for years I know no other — I never touch the stuff myself, so I have not the appetite to overcome, but what can I do?” “You are strong and capable,” the pastor looked at his caller with 198 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE admiration. “Why, man, if I had your splendid physique, I should feel able to conquer the world.” “It takes more than ph3^sique to keep soul and body together, sir. I have two little boys and a wife depending on me for support, and it is a question of dollars and cents as well as of principle.” “You are right, quite right, and I will stir myself at once and see what I can do to help.” “Any honest work, no matter how hard, that I can earn a living at,” said the man with wistful gratitude, and then the pastor touched the deeper -strings of his heart with tender, reverent hand, and found them strangely responsive. ***** Mrs. Cummings paid over two glittering ten-dollar gold pieces, fresh from the mint, as a special compliment to the occasion, and did so gladly and willingly. “I wish it might have been more,” she said earnestly, “for what are dollars compared with such splendid results as these?” “And on the other hand, it takes dollars to bring results, and I can see where every penny of this can be used to the very best advantage,” replied Mrs. Hicks, as she passed the money over to the smiling treasurer. — Mrs. F. M. Howard in Union Signal. TIMMY FLANNIGAN AND HIS PROMOTION. About twenty years ago this experience came into my life, when I was a teacher in a primary school in IMaine. My brother was school superintendent at the time, and of course, as he visited the different schools, he saw many bright, wide-awake bo}"S. But Timmy Flannigan, a boy about nine years of age, attracted him especial!}’. No matter what the question, Timmy knew what to reply; no matter how long the column of figures, Timmy was always the first to give the right answer. This was rather discouraging to the other scholars, so one day Mr. C., the superintendent, said ; “Now, Timmy, you keep still awhile. I can’t find out how much the other boys and girls know, if you answer all the questions.” Tim obeyed, but it was hard work, and his eyes fairly danced with excitement and impatience. At last came the end of the school year. When the examinations STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 199 were over, Timmy Flannigan’s name was the first on the list of those promoted to the niext higher grade. A dainty diploma for each scholar had been prepared by the teacher, and when Mr. C. passed Timmy’s to him, his “I thank you” was heard throughout the large school-room, he felt so proud and happy. As Mr. C. was returning to his home that day, he met Mr. Flan- nigan, Tim’s father, a hard-working man, employed at good wages in one of the large cotton mills. Though naturally a warm-hearted man, Mr. C. knew that he loved liquor better than anything else in the world, and most of his earnings found their way to the saloon-keeper’s pocket. So, in the faint hope of arousing him to some sense of his duty towards his family, he stopped to speak to him. “Mr. Flannigan, do you know you have one of the brightest and most promising boys in town? You must do well by him, keep him at school, give him every possible chance for an education, and in years to come he will repay it all.” “Indeed, now, but I mean to do that same thing, Mr. C. I am going to have that boy graduate at Bowdoin College, sure as I live. He shall have a better education than his poor, old father had. Thank you for your good words about him, sir. Saying this, he turned the next corner and went into the first saloon. Four hours later, Timmy was working at home, helping to- care for the little Flannigans, of whom there were five besides himself, when he suddenly heard footsteps stumbling up the stairs. His mother called out to him in anxious tones which he knew only too well : “O Tim, your father’s bad again ! Keep out of his way, for when he is like this, there’s no knowing what he will do.” Trembling with fear, Tim hastened to escape, but the motherly warning had come too late. Even as she spoke, Mr. Flannigan had caught sight of the boy at the head of the stairs, and, imagining in his drunkenness, that he was in his way, he lifted his heavy boot, gave one kick, and dear, bright, helpless little Timmy lay a crippled mass upon the flopr below. His mother gave one terrified scream and fainted; the father stag- gered stupidly along into the bedroom, where he fell in a drunken sleep upon the floor. Kind neighbors gathered in haste, lifted the poor lad in their arms, and carried him to his bed. The doctors soon arrived. 200 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE “Concussion of the brain,” was all they said ; then they went carefully to work to see what could be done for the little sufiferer. While they were setting the broken arm and leg, attending to the scalp wound, and binding up the little hand upon which two fingers were broken, the father, who had promised to do so much for his boy, was sleeping a drunken sleep, unconscious of the terrible crime he had committed. Many reproaches were hurled at the senseless form, but nothing could be done to avert the consequences of the act. Weeks passed, and Timmy was at last able to get about the town on crutches. But it was not the same Timmy who had received his diploma with such joy only a few short weeks before. All the bright- ness was gone from his face. That cruel kick had stolen his brain. The fall term had commenced, and one morning, as I sat in my school-room, I heard the sound of crutches in the entry. I went to the door, and there stood Timmy. In response to my smile, he muttered. “Tim — school — boys — Tim.” “Yes,” I said, “we all want you, Tim; come in.” He shambled in as best he could, fell in a chair, and gazed vacantly about. I went on with the lesson as usual, but it was all a mystery to poor little Tim. When he tried to talk, the result was only a few disconnected words ; it was impossible for him to frame a sentence. Day after day he visited my school, making no trouble in any way, but you can imagine what a temperance lesson, what a lesson of love, of kindly S3'mpathy, of continued thoughtfulness and generosity, his daily visits were! There was an object lesson, indeed! The scholars vied with each other in doing for him — a pair of shoes one day, a pretty necktie the next, and toys, fruit and flowers in abundance. I could tell you of many sacrifices made by these little children for poor, helpless Tim. At last we missed his accustomed visits, and upon inquiry- I found he was sick with typhoid fever, from which his mother had just died. The other members of the family were being cared for by strangers, the wretched father was in jail, and there was no place for Timmj- but the town farm. He was tenderly cared for there. ]\I)r little scholars kept him supplied with fruit and flowers, and whenever they went to see him, he would say, “Tim — boys — Tim.” " As the weeks passed, he grew weaker and weaker. One da)-- an old woman who had lived at the farm many years, was holding him in her arms and crooning to him in a quavering voice: STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 201 “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child.” Those who stood near, said a look almost of intelligence passed over his face. He smiled ; he was not suffering, and if he were thinking, his thoughts were happy; no clouds obscured his vision of the heavenly home. I think he had a glimpse , into the “Home Beautiful,” where cruelty and bitter wrongs are not known, and where his plaintive cry of “Tim — boys — Tim” was answered by the group of boys who had gone on before him. Poor little Timmy. His time of rejoicing had come, for he had a glorious promotion, “Unto that school. Where he no longer needs our protection. And Christ Himself doth rule.” — By Margaret Arnold, in Zion’s Herald. REBELLION OF “FRONT NO. 3.” The big hotel swarmed with guests, and Front No. 3 certainly had enough to keep him busy. At least, it seemed to him as if the clerk’s bell was never quiet. People were continually coming and going, thronging the corridors, and keeping everybody connected with the house running and hurrying about with trunks, valises, bags, messages and errands of all sorts. Front No. 3 had his share. He was the new bell boy, but he promised to be of the right sort, as he proved to be alert and quick to learn. Senator Robinson, the idol of the district, was coming to town, and he was booked for a banquet and a speech-making in Parlor A that very night, and everybody from far and near had been invited to attend and meet the great man. It seemed as if the big register would not hold all the names of those w'^ho made application for rooms. When the clerk began reluctantly turning people away. Front No. 3 knew that the only vacant rooms left in the hotel were those that had been reserved for the occupancy of the Senator and his friends. The morning had almost passed, when a cheer went up from the crowd that had gathered outside the doors, and when a large, genial- faced man entered, everybody at once became aware that the Senator had arrived. The new boy did not stare, much as he would like to, but 202 STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE ran to his side in an instant to take charge of the hand luggage, a privilege that the other fellows would almost have fought for, had they not happened to be in various parts of the hotel on as many errands at the time. “Show the Senator his rooms. Front,” was the word. The boy obeyed with alacrity, and the elevator man performed his little part with all due dignity. Showing every required courtesy and service. Front No. 3 safely bestowed the distinguished guest in his room and was backing in the direction of the door, when the Senator stopped him. “Boy, bring up a bottle of whiskey, some water and glasses.” The shoulders of Front No. 3 straightened almost imperceptibly and his eyes grew suddenly tense. He had not planned for anything quite like this. He had thought the waiters would be called upon for any- thing of that sort. But here was a guest, a great man in the eyes of the people of the district and state, asking a temperance boy for whiskey, and poor little Front No. 3 was stunned a little and started to hesitate. The Senator noticed the momentary silence, and glancing up from a letter he held in his hand, said a bit impatiently: “Well, that’s all.” The bell boy found his voice, and “dared to be a Daniel” yet again. “Fm sorry, sir.” “Well, sorry for what? What’s the matter — no whiskey in the house? Or, what’s the trouble. Out with it.” Few boys could prevent themselves from trembling in their shoes with a difficulty of this sort presented and in such a presence. Front No. 3 trembled and looked sadly confused, but he managed to lift his eyes as he bravely said: “The trouble is, sir, Fve made a promise, and I can’t break it if I lose my place — no, not for the President of the United States.” It was the Senator’s turn to be somewhat astounded now, though he laid aside his letter and gazed at the boy with more curiosity than dis- pleasure in his face. “Why, boy, what do you mean? What are you here for in this hotel? Have you been here long? I ought to be angry with you and send a complaint to the office. But — well there, I am accustomed to have folks speak up when they have a grievance. I'm waiting. ’ “I confess I am a new boy, sir, and I never expected to be called STORIES OF HELL’S COMMERCE 203 upon to order intoxicating liquors or I never should have tried for- the place. But I suppose it’s all up with me now. I can’t take your order downstairs, sir.” “Tell me why,” temporized the Senator, with something like amus