"You're late, Anna," says the mother, kindly.
"Yes, ma'am. We had to stay later for our money. Mr. Davis was away from the store, and I was afraid I would have to come home without it. Here it is."
Mrs. Warren took the money.
"Only a dollar!" There was disappointment in her tones as she said this.
"Yes, ma'am, that is all," replied Anna, in a troubled voice. "I spoiled some work, and Mr. Davis said I should pay for it, and so he took half a dollar from my wages."
"Spoiled your work!" spoke up the father, who had been listening.
"That's more of your abominable carelessness!"
"Indeed, father; I couldn't help it," said Anna, "one of the girls"
"Hush up, will you! I want none of your lying excuses. I know you!
It was done on purpose, I have not the least doubt."
Anna caught her breath, like one suddenly deprived of air. Tears rushed to her eyes and commenced falling over her cheeks, while her bosom rose and fell convulsively.
"Come, now! None of that!" said the cruel father sternly. "Stop your crying instantly, or I will give you something to cry for! A pretty state of things, indeed, when every word must be answered by a fit of crying!"
The poor child choked down her feelings as best she could, turning as she did so from her father; that he might not see the still remaining traces of her grief which it was impossible at once to hide.
Not a single dollar had the idle, drunken father earned during the week, that he had not expended in self-indulgence; and yet, in his brutality, he could roughly chide this little girl, yet too young for the taskmaster, because she had lost half a dollar of her week's earnings through an accident, the very nature of which he would not hear explained. So grieved was the poor child at this unkindness, that when supper was on the table she shrunk away from the room.
"Come, Anna, to your supper," called the mother.
"I don't wish any thing to eat," replied the child, in a faint voice.
"Oh, yes; come and get something."
"Let her alone!" growls the father. "I never humor sulky children.
She doesn't deserve any supper."
The mother sighs. While the husband eats greedily, consuming, himself, more than half that is on the table, she takes but a few mouthfuls, and swallows them with difficulty.
After supper, Willy, who is just thirteen, and who has already been bound out as an apprentice to a trade, comes home. He has a tale of suffering to tell. For some fault his master has beaten him until the large purple welts lie in meshes across his back from his shoulders to his hips.
"How comes all this?" asks Mr. Warren. There is not the smallest sign of sympathy in his voice.
Willy relates the cause, and tells it truly. He was something to blame, but his fault needed not the correction of stripes even lightly applied.
"Served you right!" said the father, when the story was ended. "No business to have acted so. Do as you are told, and mind your work, and you'll escape flogging. Otherwise, I don't care how often you get it. You've been spoiled at home, and it'll do you good to toe the mark. Did your master know you were coming home to-night?"
"No, sir," replied the boy, with trembling lips, and a choking voice.
"Then what did you come for? To get pitied? Do right and you'll need no pity."
"Oh, James, don't speak so to the child!" said Mrs. Warren, unable to keep silence.
This was answered by an angry look.
"You must go back to your master, boy," said the father, after a pause. "When you wish to come home, ask his consent."
"He doesn't object to my coming home," said Willy, his voice still quivering.
"Go back, I tell you! Take your hat, there, and go back. Don't come here any more with your tales!"
The boy glanced towards his mother, and read pity and sympathy in her countenance, but she did not countermand the order; for she knew that if she did so, a scene of violence would follow.
"Ask to come home in the morning," said she to her boy, as she held his hand tightly in hers at the door. He gave her a look of tender thankfulness, and then went forth into the darkness, feeling so sad and wretched that he could not repress his tears.
Seven years. And was only this time required to effect such a change! Ah! rum is a demon! How quickly does it transform the tender husband and parent into a cruel beast! Look upon these two pictures, ye who tarry long at the wine! Look at them, but do not say they are overdrawn! They have in them only the sober hues and subdued colors of truth.
BRANDY AS A PREVENTIVE
THE cholera had made its appearance in New York, and many deaths were occurring daily. Among those who weakly permitted themselves to feel an alarm amounting almost to terror, was a Mr. Hobart, who, from the moment the disease manifested itself, became infested with the idea that he would be one of its victims.
"Doctor," said he to his family physician, meeting him one day in the street, "is there nothing which a man can take that will act as a preventive to cholera?"
"I'll tell you what I do," replied the doctor.
"Well, what is it?"
"I take a glass of good brandy twice a day. One in the morning and the other after dinner."
"Indeed! And do you think brandy useful in preventing the disease?"
"I think it a protection," said the doctor. "It keeps the system slightly stimulated; and is, besides, a good astringent."
"A very simple agent," remarked Mr. Hobart.
"Yes, the most simple that we can adopt. And what is better, the use of it leaves no after bad consequences, as is too often the case with medicines, which act upon the system as poisons."
"Sometimes very bad consequences arise from the use of brandy," remarked Mr. Hobart. "I have seen them in my time."
"Drunkenness, you mean."
"Yes."
"People who are likely to make beasts of themselves had better let it alone," said the doctor, contemptuously. "If they should take the cholera and die, it will be no great loss to the world."
"And you really think a little good brandy, taken daily, fortifies the system against the cholera?"
"Seriously I do," replied the doctor. "I have adopted this course from the first, and have not been troubled with a symptom of the disease."
"I feel very nervous on the subject. From the first I have been impressed with the idea that I would get the disease and die."
"That is a weakness, Mr. Hobart."
"I know it is, still I cannot help it. And you would advise me to take a little good brandy?"
"Yes, every day."
"I am a Son of Temperance."
"No matter; you can take it as medicine under my prescription. I know a dozen Sons of Temperance who have used brandy every day since the disease appeared in New York. It will be no violation of your contract. Life is of too much value to be put in jeopardy on a mere idea."
"I agree with you there. I'd drink any thing if I thought it would give me an immunity against this dreadful disease."
"You'll be safer with the brandy than without it."
"Very well. If you think so, I will use it."
On parting with the doctor, Mr. Hobart went to a liquor store and ordered half a gallon of brandy sent home. He did not feel altogether right in doing so, for it must be understood, that, in years gone by, Mr. Hobart had fallen into the evil habit of intemperance, which clung to him until he run through a handsome estate and beggared his family. In this low condition he was found by the Sons of Temperance, who induced him to abandon a course whose end was death and destruction, and to come into their Order. From that time all was changed. Sobriety and industry were returned to him in many of the good things of this world which he had lost, and he was still in the upward movement at the time when the fatal pestilence appeared.
On going home at dinner time, Hobart's wife said to him, with a serious face
"A demijohn, with some kind of liquor in it, was sent here to-day."
"Oh, yes," he replied, it is brandy that Doctor Lordered me to take as a cholera preventive."
"Brandy!" ejaculated Mrs. Hobart, with an expression of painful surprise in her voice and on her countenance, that rather annoyed her husband.
"Yes. He says that he takes it every day as a preventive, and directed me to do the same."
"I wouldn't touch it if I were you. Indeed I wouldn't," said Mrs.
Hobart, earnestly.
"Why wouldn't you?"
"You will violate your contract with the Sons of Temperance."
"Not at all. Brandy may be used as a medicine under the prescription of a physician. I wouldn't have thought of touching it had not Doctor Lordered me to do so."
"You are not sick, Edward."
"But there is death in the very air I breathe. At any moment I am liable to be struck down by an arrow sent from an unseen bow, unless a shield be interposed. Such a shield has been placed in my hands. Shall I not use it?"
Mrs. Hobart knew her husband well enough to be satisfied that remonstrance and argument would be of no avail, now that his mind was m de up to use the brandy; and yet so distressed did she feel, that she couldn't help saying, with tears in her eyes
"Eaward,(sic) let me beg of you not to touch it."
"Would you rather see me in my coffin?" replied Mr. Hobart, with some bitterness. "Death may seem a light thing to you, but it is not so to me."
"You are not sick," still urged the wife.
"But I am liable, as I said just now, to take the disease every moment."
"You will be more liable, with your system stimulated and disturbed by brandy. Let well enough alone. Be thankful for the health you have, and do not invite disease."
"The doctor ought to know. He understands the matter better than you or I. He recommends brandy as a preventive. He takes it himself."
"Because he likes it, no doubt."
"It is silly for you to talk in that way," replied the husband, with much impatience. "He isn't rendered more liable to the disease by taking a little pure brandy, for he says that it keeps him perfectly well."
"A glass of brandy every day may have been his usual custom," urged Mrs. Hobart. "In that case, in its continuance, no change was produced. But your system has been untouched by the fiery liquid for nearly five years, and its sudden introduction must create disturbance. It is reasonable."
"The doctor ought to know best," was replied to this. "He has prescribed it, and I must take it. Life is too serious a matter to be trifled with. 'An ounce of preventive is worth a pound of cure,' you know."
"I am in equal danger with yourself," said Mrs. Hobart; "and so are the children."
"Undoubtedly. And I wish you all to use a little brandy."
"Not a drop of the poison shall pass either my lips or those of the children," replied Mrs. Hobart, with emphasis.
"As you please," said the husband, coldly, and turned away.
"Edward!" Mrs. Hobart laid her hand upon his arm. "Edward! Let me beg of you not to follow this advice."
"Why will you act so foolishly? Has not the doctor ordered the brandy? I look to him as the earthly agent for the preservation of my health and the saving of my life. If I do not regard his advice, in what am I to trust?"
"Remember the past, Edward," said the wife, solemnly.
"I do remember it. But I fear no danger."
Mrs. Hobart turned away sadly, and went up to her chamber to give vent to her feelings alone in tears. Firm to his purpose of using the preventive recommended by the doctor, Mr. Hobart, after dinner, took a draught of brandy and water. Nearly five years, as his wife remarked, had elapsed since a drop of the burning fluid had passed his lips. The taste was not particularly agreeable. Indeed, his stomach rather revolted as the flavor reached his palate.
"It's vile stuff at best," he remarked to himself, making a wry face. "Fit only for medicine. Not much danger of my ever loving it again. I wish Anna was not so foolish. A flattering opinion she has of her husband!"
The sober countenance of his wife troubled Mr. Hobart, as he left home for his place of business earlier by half an hour than usual. Neither in mind nor body were his sensations as pleasant as on the day before. The brandy did something more than produce an agreeable warmth in his stomach. A burning sensation soon followed its introduction, accompanied by a feeling of uneasiness that he did not like. In the course of half an hour, this unnatural heat was felt in every part of his body, but more particularly about his head and face; and it was accompanied by a certain confusion of mind that prevented his usual close application to business during the afternoon.
Towards evening, these disagreeable consequences of the glass of cholera-preventive he had taken in a great measure subsided; but there followed a dryness of the palate, and a desire for some drink more pleasant to the taste than water. In his store was a large pitcher of ice-water; but, though thirsty, he felt no inclination to taste the pure beverage; but, instead, went out and obtained a glass of soda water. This only made the matter worse. The half gill of syrup with which the water was sweetened, created, in a little while, a more uneasy feeling. Still, there was no inclination for the water that stood just at hand, and which he had daily found so refreshing during the hot weather. In fact, when he thought of it, it was with a sense of repulsion.
In this state, the idea of a cool glass of brandy punch, or a mint julep, came up in his mind, and he felt the draught, in imagination, at his lips.
"A little brandy twice a day; so the doctor said." This was uttered half aloud.
Just at the moment a slight pain crossed his stomach. It was the first sensation of the kind he had experienced since the epidemic he so much dreaded had appeared in the city; and it caused a slight shudder to go through his frame, for he was nervous in his fear of cholera.
"A little mint with the brandy would make it better still. I don't like this feeling. I'll try a glass of brandy and mint." Thus spoke Mr. Hobart to himself.
Putting on his hat, he went forth for the purpose of getting some brandy and mint. As he stepped into the street the pain was felt again, and more distinctly. The effect was to cause a slight perspiration to manifest itself on the face and forehead of Mr. Hobart, and to make, in his mind, the necessity for the brandy and mint more imperative. He did not just like to be seen going boldly in at the door of a refectory or drinking-house in a public place, for he was a Son of Temperance, and any one who knew this and happened to see him going in, could not, at the same time, know that he was acting under his physician's advice. So he went off several blocks from the neighborhood in which his store was located, and after winding his way along a narrow, unfrequented street, came to the back entrance of a tavern, where he went in, as he desired, unobserved.
Years before, Hobart had often stood at the bar where he now found himself. Old, familiar objects and associations brought back old feelings, and he was affected by an inward glow of pleasure.
"What! you here?" said a man who stood at the bar, with a glass in his hand. He was also a member of the Order.
"And you here!" replied Mr. Hobart.
"It isn't for the love of it, I can assure you," remarked the man, as he looked meaningly at his glass. "These are not ordinary times."
"You are right there," said Hobart. "A little brandy sustains and fortifies the system. That all admit."
"My physician has ordered it for me. He takes a glass or two every day himself, and tells me that, so far, he has not been troubled with the first symptom."