The Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell

CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—Unfermented Grape Juice CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—Unfermented Grape Juice W ELL, as I said in my last chapter, it is time for me to get down to brass tacks and describe just what those barrooms that has been vanished was like so that future generations of posterity will know what they missed, and to tell the truth in all particulars, so help me. Some of them was that arted up with hand paintings that if you had all them paintings in your home you would feel proud of yourself, like Solomon in all his glory, and would feel like you was living in the midst of a high art museum, and the shining brass cuspidores to spit in and the brass rail and all them shiny glasses and bottles and mirrors made up a scene of grandeur and glory like the good book mentions and you would think you was King Faro of Egypt, if you lived in the midst of all that or Job in all his riches before the itch broke out on him. Well, speaking of the Good Book, my wife has always been more or less of a prohibitionist in order to show me that she is independent of me, and one day one of these here church friends of hers tries to tell me all the liquor that was drinked in the Bible wasn't nothing but unfermented grape juice. Yes, it was, I said, don't you believe it was, like hell it was. You go and get your testament and see where King Solomon talks about the stuff that makes the heart merry and then go and swill yourself with grape juice and see if you could get the way he was when he wrote eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow ye die. And how about the time them two women came to him with that one child and both claimed that it was hern and he says to the officer on duty, let me see that there sword of yourn for a minute I'll darned soon see who this kid belongs to. And verily the officer drawed his sword and the King he heaved it up and was about to cut the kid in two when one of the women says to stop unhand him King and not do the rash act it is the other woman's yew lamb and let her have it, it being her own all the time and her one yew lamb and her preferring to see the other woman grab it off than have half of it. Well, says the King, half a loaf is better than no bread, but with infants it is different, take the child, it is yours woman, and go and sin no more. Well, now, I ask you, was King Solomon drinking the unfermented juice of the grape when he got that there hunch, or was he not? I will say he was not. Them radical and righteous ideas never come to a man when he is cold sober. He has got to have a shot of something moving around under his belt before he gets thataway. And how about them Bible hangovers, I said to this here church person. Man and boy I been a student of the Bible from cover to cover for a good many years now and I never seen a book with more evidences of hangovers and katzenjammers into it. How about that there book that says vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Well, I ask you, did you ever get that way in the morning after you had spent the night before drinking the unfermented juice of the grape. That there Book of Exclusiastics is just one long howl from the next morning head. Things seem right, says old Exclusiastic, and they look right; but if you bite into them they don't taste right, or words to that effect. And you stick around awhile, says old man Exclusiastic, and you'll darned soon see they ain't nothing right nowhere and never will be again. Moreover, says he, I was wrong when I used to think things was right; there ain't never anything anywhere been all right and I was all wrong when I was a young feller and used to think things was right and the wrongest thing about the whole business is the darned fools like I used to be who go around saying things is all right, and the sum and substance of everything is vanity, says he, vanity, vanity, all is vanity. You could tell some folks that that there old Exclusiastic was writing as the result of unfermented grape juice, but a man with any experience of his own knows a good deal better and what kind of a taste was in his mouth. You can't tell an old Bible reader like me anything about this unfermented stuff. The trouble with these here church people is that too many of them ain't never read the Bible, or if they did read it they read it with the idea that it was saying something else like they wanted it to say. I always stuck to the Bible in spite of the church folks and I always will for it has got some kick into it. There is three things in the world I always stick to, the Bible and hard liquor and calomel, for they has got the kick to them. You can have all your light wines and unfermented stuff and all your pretty new-thought religions and all your new-fangled medicines you want to, but for me I will stick to the Old Testament and corn whiskey and calomel like my forefathers done before me. You can't pull any of that unfermented stuff on me and get away with it. CHAPTER FIFTEEN—Political Talk T HE Old Soak came in to see us during the recent Presidential campaign. “What I expected has come to pass,” he said, sorrowfully. “This here Cox that everybody hoped was a Wet Prohibitionist ain't that at all. He ain't nothin' but a Dry Liquor Man. I been a Republican ever sense the days of Abraham Lincoln, but I had an idee this year I was goin' to have fer to leave the old party flat on account o' rumours I hearn that this here Cox was comin' out for liquor. My conscience is Republican, but my religion is liquor; an' I would of voted agin any conscience fer the sake o' my religion. But I ain't goin' to be compelled fer to make that sacrifice. I'd ruther vote fer an outan'-out Prohibitionist than one of these here fellers that gits the word passed private to the wets that they'll be a stick in the lemonade, and gets the word passed private to the drys that what he means is nothin' but a stick o' pep'mint candy. They ain't no hope fer liquor in public life no more; it has become a question fer the home. As fur es my own private stock is concerned, it mostly ain't. But I got a grand idee workin' up. My old woman's got a niece who's come to live with us, an' I'm tryin' to marry that there gal to a revenue agent. I see by the papers they are always trackin' down a couple thousand gallons somewheres or other, and I don't hear no glass crashin' nowheres to indicate where them bottles is bein' busted. I wants somebody in the fambly that will take me along on some of these here raids I read about.” CHAPTER SIXTEEN—The History Continued—Prohibition and Winter Weather W ELL, when I seen all them men shovelling snow and ice in the streets and no place to go for a drink and maybe one of them spring thaws coming along soon now which they are always full of these here la grip germs I says to myself them Prohibitionists think they have done something pretty smart but they got another think coming to them. I never been much of a hand to kick against the weather. As a fact, I use to like all kinds of weather as it come along. You went into a place and you said to Ed it looks like one of them cold rains is going to start up pretty soon, Ed. Yes, sir, Ed says, it is pretty raw. The wind is rawring. What will you have? Well, I use to say, I was wondering about a little Scotch with boiling water into it and a lump of butter and a lump of sugar into it I knowed a fellow used to treat himself thataway one time. No, sir, says Ed, I wouldn't advise anything like that sir, it will get you sweating inside of you all around your stomach and lungs and then you will go out and swallow some cold damp air and take one of them inside colds, sir, and it may run into new-monia or this here pellicanitis. Well, Ed, I don't want to ketch none of them germs, you would say to him, and how about some rock and rye. You better stick to straight rye and leave out the rock. When you was in here a little bit ago you was drinking straight rye and you don't want to be mixing them too much, says Ed. And no sooner said than done. Or maybe it was summer time and a hot day and you would say to Ed I wonder how many people is getting sun struck to-day, Ed. A good many says Ed they drink too much cold water and it gets to them. I am glad I don't have to go out into the awful heat, you would say. The main thing is to keep your pores open says Ed for if you stop the presspiration that means a sun stroke. The main thing is to encourage the presspiration to sweat itself out of you. I think you are right Ed you says and I was wondering about some beer. No, sir, not for you, says Ed, I wouldn't advise no beer. You put these here temperance drinks like beer and sassperiller into your stomach, sir, and it takes up a lot of room you will wish you had later in the day. For some people I would say beer wouldn't do no harm, sir, but I should say, sir, that it was the wrong thing for you. One of them long silver fizzes with ice shook up into it would sound nice to my ears as it went down my oozlygoozlum you would say to Ed. Ed he is kind of lazy with the heat and he don't want to shake it up so he says to you on a hot day like this you are taking chances with your life every time you put ice drinks into you and he says what's the matter with that rye you been drinking all the early part of the day that is the best thing to keep the presspiration coming out of your sweat pores. Well, no sooner said than done. The number of times them old-fashioned bartenders has saved my life summer and winter with good advice is as too numerous to mention as is the stars in the sky and their name is legend as the good book says. In them days when there was a barroom on every corner and sometimes four barrooms on every four corners I never cared about the weather at all for I knowed no matter what the weather was I could keep my health safe. If you was to look out the barroom window and see a sudden change in the weather you could make a sudden change and switch to some other kind of drink and keep yourself protected from them sudden changes. But in these days when a sudden change in the weather comes what protection have you got I would like to know. You are running the risks of them sudden changes all the time day and night, and no chance to change your drink to meet them with for you are lucky if you have one kind of liquor let alone all the different kinds of ingredients you used to ornament your digestion with. Nowadays when the weather ain't just right I have to stay home in my own room up to the top of the house where I got that little bar rigged up where I wait on myself and staying to home all the time ain't any too good for me. It don't give me a chance to get any outdoor exercise, staying at home don't and a man needs outdoor exercise if he is going to keep his health. That is another thing Prohibition has done to me: it has took away all my chance for outdoor exercise. I reckon them Prohibitionists will be satisfied when they got everybody's health broke down on account of them sudden changes in the weather and nobody getting any outdoor exercise any more. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—The Old Soak Finds a Way Y ES, sir; yes, sir!” said the Old Soak, with a happy smile on his face. “I've done found out the way to beat the game—! Ask me no questions, and I'll tell ye no lies as to how I done it. “Ye see this here bottle, do ye? Kentucky Bourbon, and nothin' else. Bottled in bond, an' there's plenty more where that comes from.—Ask me no questions, and I'll enrich ye with no misinformations!—Ye see that there little car parked out there by the curbstone, do ye? Well, sir, that there car is my car, and under the back seat of it is twelve quarts of this here stuff!—And it ain't home brewed, neither; it's some of the best liquor you ever throwed your lips over!—How do I do it?—Don't ply me with no questions, and I won't bring you no false witnesses! “Notice these here new clothes of mine? Well, sir, that there suit's a bargain.—It only cost me two cases of rye.—I got three new suits like that to home, an' I'm figgerin' on buying one of these here low neck an' short sleeve dress suits for to wear to banquets this winter.—They's a whole passel o' folks would like to give me banquets this cornin' season.—How do I do it?—Ask me no questions, and I'll give you no back talk! “If you was to come out to the house, I'd interduce ye to quite a lot of good liquor.—Can't drink no more, huh?—Ain't ye got a friend ye could bring?—I'd like to have ye meet my son-in-law. “Yes, sir; yes, sir! Daughter was married two months ago. The youngest one. Her and her husband is makin' their home with us temporary.—I'm tryin' to persuade of 'em to stop to our house permanent.—Yes, sir, my son-in-law, he is one of these here revenooers.—Well, so long!—I gotto see an old friend o' mine that lives up to the Bronx this afternoon.—He ain't had a real drink fer nigh onto three months, he tells me.—I'm headin' a rescue party into them there regions. “Yes, sir; yes, sir! I figger my daughter married well!—Bring up yer kids in the way they should go like the Good Book says, and Providence will do the rest.—Henry, that's my son-in-law, is figgerin' mebby he can get my son Jim made a revenooer, too.—Ask me no questions, an I'll give away no fambly secrets!” CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—The History Continued—the Barroom's Good Influence A NOTHER thing I miss in regard to all them vanished barrooms being closed up is kind feeling about respect to the old especially to parents and them that has departed. Where is the younger generations of posterity going to learn how to be kind hearted about home and mother now that the barrooms is all closed up I would like to know? It used to be that a lot of fellows would get all tanked up of an afternoon or evening and in the right sort of a place they would get to singing songs. All them songs about home and mother and to treat her right now that her hair had turned gray. I never was much of a one to sing myself especially unless I had a few drinks into me. But whether I helped sing them or not all them songs would make a better man of me. You stand up to a bar or sit down at a table and listen to them songs for two or three hours and if you are any kind of a man at all you will wish you had always done the right thing and now that all them songs about home and mother has been took away from me I ain't the man I used to be at all. I feel myself going down hill because my softer emotions and feelings ain't never stirred up by nothing any more. Well, this Eighteenth Commandment is going to make a hard-hearted country out of this here country. Nobody is never going to think as much of home and mother as they used to. And I guess them prohibitionists won't feel so smart when they see all them old ladies with gray hair flung out onto the streets in the rainy weather just because nobody would pay the mortgage off. Lots of times when I was a young feller after hearing them songs for awhile I would say to myself I will set right down and write a letter to my mother, I ain't wrote her for five or six months. And when I got older after she passed on I used to say to myself some of these days I will have to make a visit to the old home place and take a look around there. But all them softer feelings has been took away from me now and what I would like to know is how is the younger generation going to grow up. Hard hearted, that is how. Some of these here fine days I may be cast out into the street myself with the rain drops dripping down offen my hat brim into my eyebrows just because nobody won't pay a mortgage and it has got to be a hard-hearted country. I hope none of them there smart alick Prohis will be flung out onto the street thataway. Because they got no friends would pay off their mortgages and they would just naturally be destituted to death. I ain't hard hearted like they be and I hope that don't happen to none of them. But if it ever did they would find out a few things. In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and give a true description of them barrooms that has perished off the face of the earth. CHAPTER NINETEEN—A House Divided T HE Old Soak has been looking rather well for some time; he seems prosperous and happy, for the most part, and contented with the quantity and quality of the hootch he has been gettin'. But yesterday he dropped in to see us with just the slightest shade of gloom on his features. We asked him about it. “It's that there son of mine,” he says. “He's too young to know enough to let well enough alone, like the Good Book says to do. They's a lot of these young fellers you can't learn nothing to. “This yere son-in-lawr of mine I been tellin' you about, that is a revenooer, got my son made into a revenooer, too. And it ain't long before my son gits jest as good an automobile as the one my son-in-lawr's been drivin'. And joy out to our house has been unconcerned, with everyone exceptin' the Ol' Woman, and she's been prayin' agin the rest of the fambly. “But this yere son o' mine, he gets too much hootch under his belt one day, and he gets into this yere brand-new automobile of his'n and he starts onto one of these yere raids. Which would of been all right, bein' as it's what a revenooer is for, if he had only used a leetle bit o' jedgment. But the young has got a lot to learn, and babes and striplings, the Good Book says, jest naturally has their dam fool streaks. “This yere raid my son goes onto turns out all wrong. For whilst he is pinchin' who does he pinch in the gang of wicked sinners but that there son-in-lawr of mine, the revenooer as got him his job, said son-in-lawr bein' off duty and pickled hisself at the time. “So this here son-in-lawr of mine, he mighty nigh loses of his job as a revenooer, bein' took up in one of the raids he was legally supposed to be startin' himself, and they was quite a fuss about it, so I understand, and the thing was finally settled with a compromise—it wasn't my son-in-lawr lost his job, but they compromised it and fired my son out'n his job. “But now my son, he has went and got sore at my son-in-lawr, and he says unless he gits his job back as a revernooer he will tell all he knows. “So my house is a house that is sided against itself, like the Good Book says, and every member of the fambly has took sides one way or the other 'twixt my son and my son-in-lawr, and the Ol' Woman is agin both on 'em, and agin me, too—a-prayin' an' a-prayin' an' a-prayin'. “'You went and prayed for years an' years so as to get prohibish'n,' I tells her; 'an' now you got it—you got more on it than any woman I knows, for it's come right into your own home. An' now you got it you ain't satisfied with it—there you be onto your marrow bones prayin' agin the revenooers.' “I s'pose I was too hifalutin' an' ambitious, wantin' to keep two members of my fambly into the revenooer job. And as long as my son-in-lawr stays into office and continues to make his home with me I won't have no kick cornin', but will take my hootch in thankfulness and humility, like the Good Book says to do, eatin', drinkin' an' bein' merry. This yere leetle cloud of gloom what you notice is due to the Ol' Woman's prayers. I cain't help but feel she is goin' direct agin Scripter and her husband's best intrusts.” CHAPTER TWENTY—Continuing the History of the Rum Demon—the Barroom and Manners A NOTHER thing about those barrooms that has been vanished forever is the fact that most of them was right polite sort of places if a fellow edged up to the bar and knocked over your glass of whiskey or something like that he would say, O excuse me stranger and you would say sure, but look where in hell you are going to after this. Sure he would say no offence meant. No offence taken you would say to him. Have one with me he would say. No sooner said than done. But nowadays all you see and hear is bad manners and impoliteness with people hustling and bumping into each other on the subways and stepping on each other and women and children amongst them and nobody ever begging anybody's pardon and hard feelings everywhere. The trouble is everybody is sore and wanting a drink all the time and there is no place where the younger generation is going to learn good manners now that the barrooms is gone. What is the young fellows just growing up to manhood going to do for their manners now that the barrooms is closed, is what I want to know. It used to be you would get onto a subway train and there would be two or three women standing up and you would be setting down and there would be three or four drinks under your belt and you would be feeling good and you would say to yourself am I a gentleman or ain't I a gentleman. You're damned right I am a gentleman, you would say to yourself, here, lady, you set down, and don't let any of these here bums roust you out of that seat. If any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put a tin ear onto them. That's the kind of a gentleman I am, lady, they would have a hell of a time, lady, getting your seat away from you with me here. And she seen you was a gentleman and she smiled at you and you hung onto a strap and felt good. But nowadays there ain't no manners, with no place to get a drink or anything. You are setting in the subway and a lady comes in and has nowheres to set, and you say to yourself let some of these other guys get up and give her a seat. And you think a while and you say to yourself I'll bet she is a Prohibitionist anyhow. Let her stand up. She has got to learn you can't have any manners with the barrooms all closed and everything. Well, that's another thing closing the barroom has done. It has took away all the manners this town ever had. In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and tell just what those barrooms was like for the benefit of future posterity that has never seen one. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—Sympathy Wanted Y ES,” said the Old Soak, “I get plenty of hootch nowadays. My son is back into the revenoo business, and my son-in-lawr is with it, too. I gets plenty of whiskey. I've got some into me, and I've got some onto my hip, and I know where I'm going to get some more when that's gone.” And he sighed. “Why so gloomy, then?” we asked. “You should be radiating a Falstaffian joviality. You should be as merry as the merry, merry villagers in an opera on the Duke's birthday. But on the contrary, you shake from out your condor wings unutterable wo, as E. A. Poe has it. Wherefore?” “I miss,” he said, “the next mornin' sympathy... the next mornin' ministration. Any one can get drunk under the auspices of Prohibition, but it takes the right kind of barkeep fur to get you sober agin and make you like it. “Where is the next morning barkeep? He ain't. He was wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove like the Good Book says. He knowed right off what ailed you, at 11 o'clock on a cloudy morning, and what was good for it. A little of this, out of the long green bottle, and a little of that, and some ice tinklin' in it, and the white of an egg mebby, and... oh, you know! One of them, and there was salve onto the sore spot of your soul. Two of them and you began to forgive yourself. Three of them, and you could hear about breakfast; you could look an egg into the eye. “And he never asked no question about your past, that barkeep didn't. He didn't need to. He knowed. He seen last night's history in this morning's footnote. He was kind. 'Feel a little better now, sir?' he'd ask. 'Two or three of them is enough, sir, if you ask me. Get your breakfast, now, sir, and you'll be quite O. K. Yes, sir, I learned to mix them in New Orleans...' You talked to him, and he let you. He was like a mother's knee to a three-year-old that's bumped his head, the old-fashioned barkeep was. “But now, he ain't. Now, when you get up, Gloom stands on one side of you and Conscience on the other, and Remorse is feeding lines of both of 'em. “'Well,' says Gloom, 'this is a fine, cheerful morning, this is! This is about as full of sunshine as the insides of the whale that drank Jonah.' “'It is,' says Remorse, 'and then some. Conscience and me feels so bad about it that we're gonna jump off the dock together.' “'I ain't, neither,' says Conscience. 'I'm gonna save myself for the worst. The worst is yet to come. And I want to be here when it comes.' “'I ain't gonna be here when it comes,' says Gloom. 'I'm going over to the Aquarium and rent myself out for a fish.' “Just then,” went on the Old Soak, “a strange party sticks his head in at the door and says, 'Never again!' “'Who be you?' says Gloom. 'I'm Repentance,' says the buttinski, 'and I calls on you guys to mend your ways!' “And Gloom, he looks at the hard liquor left in the bottom of the bottle, and at the sky, and at the door of the closed-up barroom across the street, and he says, 'It can't be done without some uplift. I need soothing words, and an educated hand.' “'We got what's coming to us,' says Remorse. 'And there's more of it coming,' says Conscience. 'Better quit!' says Repentance. 'I ain't gonna quit,' says Gloom, 'without the right kind of a drink to quit on. I ain't never yet quit without the right kind of a drink to quit on, and I'm not going to start any innovations on a rotten day like this.' “Well,” went on the Old Soak, “you sits on the edge of your bed and you listen to these yere guys talking, and you think how right all of them is, and you wonder whether it's any use getting up, and you think of all the barkeeps you used to know, and after a while you suck an orange and think of one of them long silver fizzes with frost on the glass and charity and loving-kindness in its heart, like Ed used to shake up,—you think of it so hard you well-nigh taste it, and then the meerage fades away and you ain't nothin' but a camel in the desert again with a humpbacked taste in your mouth. “Yes, sir,” said the Old Soak, “I can get all the booze I want, but I can't get sympathy. What a man needs in the morning is a kind heart for to comfort him, and a strong arm to lean on. Anybody can give me good advice, but it don't soothe me any; what I want is a quick friend in a white apron, wise as a bishop and gentle as a nurse. “What I want is the Al's and Ed's I used to know. But they've went. Forever. I won't meet 'em in Hell, because they're too kind hearted to go there, and I won't meet 'em in Heaven, because I won't go there myself. “I reckon,” concluded the Old Soak, “I'll have to go to England.” CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—The History of the Rum Demon Concluded—Prohibition Is Making a Free Thinker of the Old Soak A NOTHER thing that going without barrooms is doing for this country is it is destroying Home Life. It is pretty hard to get along with your wife after you have been married to her for twenty or thirty years and kind of settle down and realize you are going to be married to her as long as she lives for better or for worse unless something happens which it seldom does. Not that you don't kind of like her and you know she kind of likes you but the thing is that her and you is apt to treat each other mean now and then because you get to thinking what a good time you could have if you didn't have to turn in so much of your money to making a home run smooth and you know even if you do row with each other you will make up again and you get to kind of looking forward to the rows because anyhow that is a change. But sometimes you carry them rows too far and then you don't know how to get your Home Life running right again because she is always too stubborn to give in and you won't be the first one to give in because you know she is wrong. But when there was liquor to be had in plenty it was easier to make up after one of them rows and Home Life went along smoother. You would get up in the morning and she would say to you, would you have a boiled egg for breakfast or a fried, and you would say hades what an idea. Can't you never think of anything but eggs for breakfast. And she would say yesterday I didn't have eggs and you was sore because you wanted eggs. You would say just because I wanted eggs yesterday is that any sign I want them every day of my life till death do us part. I was only asking what you wanted she would say. I will go where I can get what I want, you would say. I will eat my breakfast at a restaurant this morning and maybe I can keep them from shoving eggs in front of me when I don't ask for eggs. The trouble with your stomach is not what you put into it in the morning, she would say, but what you put into it the night before. The trouble with my stomach, you would say, is that I am worried to death and worked to death all the time trying to keep this house running and it gives me the dis-pepsy. It is the liquor gives you dispepsy she would say. If it wasn't for a little stimulant in my stomach, like the Good Book says, you tell her, my dispepsy wouldn't let me digest anything at all and I would starve to death and the mortgage on the house would be foreclosed and you would go to the old woman's home. Whose money pays the interest on that mortgage she would say. Whose? you would say. Mine, she would say. You wouldn't have any money you tell her, if you paid me back what your relations has borrowed of me. Well, one word leads to another, and you go off without any breakfast, for you see her taking the Bible down to set and read it, and when she sets and reads the Bible you know she is reading it against you and it gets you madder and madder. And in the old days when there was barrooms you would go into one still feeling mad and say Ed, mix me one of the old-fashioned whiskey cocktails and don't put too much orange and that kind of damned garbage into it, I want the kick. No sooner said than done. And after a couple of them you would say, well after all, the Old Woman means well, I wonder if I didn't treat her a little mean this morning I orter call her up on the telephone and give her a jolly. And then you would think of her relations that you hate and get mad at her again on account of always sticking up for them, and say, Ed, that don't set so well, let's try a whiskey sour. And you would meet a friend and have another with him, and pretty soon eat some breakfast and think how, after all, it was eggs you was eating for breakfast and they wasn't cooked no ways as good as the old woman would of poached them for you on toast if you hadn't been so darned mean to her. And your friend would say his old woman blowed him up for coming home pickled. And you would have another drink and say that was one thing your old woman never done to you. My old woman has got some sense, you would say to him, she knows how a man feels about taking a drink, and she never blows me up. And you would set and brag about your old woman and you had never had a cross word between you in thirty years. And then he would begin to brag about his old woman, too. And pretty soon you would say to yourself you better go to the phone and call her up. She has her mean streaks all right, but who knows, she may have been right this morning after all, and you take another drink and get her on the telephone, and give her a chance to say how sorry she was about the way she treated you that morning and maybe you go and pay an installment on a new carpet sweeper for her. Well, it was that way in the old days. Liquor kept your Home Life running along o. k. You would get mad with your wife and then you would get sorry for her and give her an excuse to make up with you again. But now, with no chance to get a drink when I am away from home if I treat the Old Woman mean in the morning I don't give her a chance to get on my good side again. And I can see sometimes that it is breaking her heart. That's what prohibition is doing to this country. It is breaking the women's hearts and it is breaking up the Home Life on every hand. What is going to become of a country where all the Home Life is broke up? And what is going to become of the children if there ain't any Home Life running along smooth any more? These Prohibitionists that is so darned smart never thought of that I guess when they put that Eighteenth Commandment across onto us. Whenever I think of all them women's hearts that is breaking and all that Home Life that is going plumb to the dogs all on account of the barrooms being closed up it well-nigh makes a free thinker out of me. I don't claim to be a church man, but I never was a free thinker before, neither. But all the sorrow that is going on in the world on account of them barrooms being closed is making a free thinker of me.

Related documents

• English Verse: Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History#46102
• "Clear the Track!" A Story of To-day#47643
• Under the Holly: Christmas-Tide in Song and Story#54992
• The Long Journey#54402
• Ventures Into Verse Being various ballads, ballades, rondeaux, triolets, songs, quatrains, odes and roundels, all rescued from the potters' field of old files and here given decent burial#55510