Aunt Hannah and Celia had finished the last puzzling question, added up
the final row of figures, and were peacefully sleeping in their beds.
All the lights in the house were out, when there was heard a loud noise
at the street door, as if some one was thrown, or threw himself, several
times heavily against it. This was followed by voices talking loud and
excitedly, and then in more muffled tones. The door knob was turned and
rattled, and a latchkey clicked and half turned in the lock as if
handled by clumsy or unacquainted fingers.
The minister heard the noise first, as his room was over the front of
the house, and rising he opened his window and tried to speak and quiet
the disturbance, but he received only curses for his interference, and
he thought he recognized in one of the midnight revelers the form of one
of the boarders. Closing his window, he dressed as rapidly as possible,
that he might go down if his assistance was needed. By the time he was
half-way down the stairs, however, and was just striking a match, the
fumbling latchkey at last turned, and the door burst open, literally
tumbling into the hall three young men just at Horace Stafford’s feet.
Miss Grant and Celia, though they slept on the third floor, were near
the stair landing and had at last heard the noise. They had slipped on
wrappers and slippers and stood at the head of the stairs just above Mr.
Stafford, as he struck the light.
“What does this mean?” said aunt Hannah, in as stern a voice as she
could muster, with Celia, bewildered and trembling, clinging to her arm
and begging her to come back.
But there was too much disturbance below for her to be heard, and she
and Celia could but stand and watch.
The new boarder seemed to know what to do in the present emergency. He
promptly lighted the gas, turning it up to its full strength, and then
extricated the three young men, who seemed to be in a helplessly tangled
condition on the floor at his feet. Two of them were promptly withdrawn
from the hall by their comrades outside, and the one left stood
miserably against the wall and looked about him.
It was hard to recognize in this dirty, rough fellow with bloodshot eyes
and white face, the gay, bright young man who always looked so neat, and
whom everybody liked and called “Harry.”
“Oh, auntie, that is Harry Knowles,” said Celia, in horrified tones, and
then the young man looked up.
“Hulloa, Celia,” he called, in a pitifully gay voice, “is that you? Yes,
I’m here all right, only I’ve been out on a lark and the lark’s gone to
my head. Come down, and talk to a fellow a while, just fer a change, you
know.”
Celia shrank back in dismay, as she saw the poor fellow stagger toward
the stairs and heard him say, “Can’t you get down? Well, I’ll come up
and get you. Awful shaky stairs, I know, but I’ll manage ’em yet, don’t
you be afraid.”
And then a strong hand grasped his arm and a clear, commanding voice
said,
“Stand right where you are! Don’t stir a step, and don’t speak another
word to those ladies.” Then the minister turned to the frightened women
and said in low tones,
“Don’t be afraid, go to your rooms and I will take care of him.”
Harry had sat stupidly down on the stairs saying meekly,
“All right, cap’n, jes’s you say. You’re boss, an’ I’m sleepy.”
Miss Hannah took assurance from the calm face and powerful frame of her
new boarder and led Celia away, while the minister carefully and even
tenderly helped the young man to his room and took care of him as if he
had been his own brother.
Miss Hannah had her hands full with Celia. The young girl had thrown
herself on the bed in a violent fit of weeping, and it required all her
aunt’s persuasive powers to quiet her and try to soothe her to sleep.
Celia had not been accustomed to young men who drank. Her cousins had
been steady, whatever else they might not have been. She had never seen
a man come home at night drunk, and she had never been spoken to by one.
The familiar tone and the vacant, silly stare with which the young man
had looked up at her had given her a shock she could not forget.
Whenever she tried to be quiet and sit up and listen to aunt Hannah, she
would shudder again at the thought of the scene she had just witnessed.
By and by, when she was calmer she wailed out,
“Now we shall have to give up the whole thing, auntie. We can’t have
people getting drunk,” and she shuddered again.
“Now, child! Don’t get into your cellar of despair again. It’s like some
people’s cyclone cellars out West, always there ready for you, and you
fly down the stairs at sign of the first little cloud that appears in
your sky. Can’t you remember we have a heavenly Father who is looking
out for us? Get a little more trust, dear. No, of course we shall not
have to give up, just for one boarder who has gone wrong. We are not
obliged to keep him, you know, if he makes a disturbance. But I’d not be
the first one to turn him out without another trial. What are we here
for but to try to help such as he? Maybe he never was really drunk
before. He is young and doesn’t look to be bad. He’ll be sorry enough
for it all to-morrow, I’m sure, or I’ve mistaken the face of that
picture of his mother on his bureau. A boy who has had a mother like
that can’t go wrong all at once. We’ll do what we can for him. You have
some work to do for him, dear, and you must try and forget to-night for
Christ’s sake!”
“Oh, aunt Hannah!” groaned Celia, “how can I ever speak to him again,
after his talking that way to me, and calling me by my name, too, as if
I was a little girl? The idea of his taking the liberty of speaking that
way. Oh, I feel as if I never could try to help anybody again.”
“Now, Celia!” said aunt Hannah, speaking rather sharply for her, “you
must _not_ talk that way. That wasn’t Harry Knowles that spoke to you
to-night. It was a demon that he had swallowed that had taken entire
possession, and put out for a time the light of reason in him. You told
me yourself that he has always been respectful, and he’s nothing but a
boy in years, much younger than you. And Celia, he is very dear to your
Saviour.”
Aunt Hannah’s heart had gone out to the poor motherless boy, and she
longed to save him from the awful destruction that she saw yawning in
front of the path he was treading. Celia knew her aunt was right, and by
degrees she regained her composure, and began to mount up into the first
story at least of her faith, and believe that everything was not gone to
destruction yet. However, she went to the store the next morning with a
heavy heart. She had so great a horror of drunkards and drunkenness, and
so strong a belief in the power of appetite, that she felt little or no
hope of trying to save any one from the awful end of a drunkard, who had
once commenced to tread that downward path. She went about all day,
feeling as deep sadness as if she had witnessed the terrible death of
some friend.
Miss Hannah had spent a long time in prayer that night, after she heard
once more the regular breathing of Celia, and knew she was asleep. She
asked God’s grace to help her do what was best for this poor homeless
boy, and if it might be that he would honor her with bearing the message
of salvation to his soul, she would give God all the glory. Her soul
longed for the soul of the boy whose feet were astray, and she was
filled with a kind of divine compassion for him, such as Jesus would
have us feel, such as he felt, for those for whom he died.
The minister, meantime, had put the poor boy to bed. He was docile
enough, and almost grateful in a maudlin sort of way, for the help given
him, and he sank at once into a deep sleep. Horace Stafford turned the
gas low, and established himself by the bedside for some time, until he
felt certain that there was nothing else the matter with the slumberer.
Then he knelt beside the boy, and asked God’s mercy for him and went to
his own room.
It was not until far into the afternoon that the sleeper roused. Horace
Stafford had found out by judicious questioning, and without revealing
his condition to the other boarders (who fortunately had none of them
heard the disturbance in the night), where the young man worked. He had
then gone himself to the store, and asked for the head of the firm,
giving his own card and explaining that the young salesman was ill, and
unable to come to work that day. The head of the firm had been very
kind. He had recognized the name of the minister as well as that of the
mission chapel which he mentioned in introducing himself, thinking the
word of a minister might go further toward excusing the absence of the
young man, and asked kindly how the work was getting on. He said he had
meant to send in a contribution to that work, but had let it slip by
without attention, and he handed the minister a crisp ten dollar bill.
Then he promised to see that young Knowles’ place for the day was
supplied, and asked to be notified if the illness should prove serious,
and there was anything he could do for him. He said he liked the young
man, though of course he knew but little of him, but he feared he had
not good health, as he looked frail. When Horace Stafford left the
store, he had a better opinion of employers than he had been led to hold
from some reading he had been doing lately.
When Harry Knowles awoke that afternoon, he was conscious first of his
physical condition. His head ached miserably, and he could not bear to
stir. His throat burned as with fire, and all things seemed full of a
ghastly horror. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was his
mother’s picture. It stood on the bureau opposite his bed. Miss Hannah
had been softly going about the room that morning, putting things to
rights, and putting a touch of home here and there where she could do it
in a few minutes. She had wiped the dust from the velvet and polished
the glass of the frame with a damp cloth, and the clear sweet eyes of
Harry’s mother looked straight into his, so full of love and compassion
and motherly tenderness, that Harry felt it all and suddenly realized
his present condition and what had caused it. He could not bear his
mother’s tender love. She seemed to be looking through into his very
soul. He closed his eyes to shut hers out. As he did so, all his
experiences of last night came swiftly and stood before him one by one,
and passed before his mother’s eyes too. He seemed to know at every
instant what she would be feeling about it all. He recalled his resolve
to stay in, and how the boys called for him before he had settled down
to doing anything, and asked him to just come out for a while; how they
had coaxed him away from his resolves, and interested him in their plans
for the evening. They had planned an evening at the theatre and a supper
afterward, and they made him feel that he was being considered mean not
to join in and help with the expenses, since they had taken his coming
as a matter of course, and ordered a seat and a plate for him. They
joked him unmercifully, and said they believed he had been going to
Sunday-school again, and had promised his nice little teacher that he
would be good. They called him a “dear little fellow,” and said they
wouldn’t bother him any more, he should have a stick of pink and white
candy so he should, and one of them actually bought it and presented it
to him. He had knocked it into the street, and declared he had no
intention of not joining them and bearing his share of the expense, and
then they all seemed glad and turned his mind to enjoyment. “We didn’t
really believe you were getting to be a sissy boy,” they said. His
conscience had had no time to reproach him. They had not mentioned going
in to any of their favorite haunts for a game—that game which he had
begun to fear on account of the way it reduced his always scanty funds.
They only seemed bent on having an innocent good time. Oh, they had
known well how to get him into the thing. They knew they could touch
something that he called his sense of honor, when they said he had left
them in a tight place, as they had ordered supper for him, and if he
didn’t pay for it they would have to do it. And they took him to a play
that was _very_ funny. He enjoyed fun. There were one or two things
toward the end that had brought a warm flush to his cheeks at the time,
because he couldn’t help thinking how ashamed his mother would be to
know he was listening to and laughing at such things. But he wouldn’t
have had the fellows know that for anything. He had gone to that supper
and been as jolly as any of them after it. But he had resolved, when he
gave it to them, that he would not drink. That had been the great reason
why he had tried to decline. When people offered him drink, he could
always hear his mother’s voice saying, “Harry dear, mother hopes you
will always have courage to say no, if you are ever asked to drink wine
or any strong drink.” He tried to make it right with his conscience when
he turned to go with the boys, by saying that he would not drink a drop.
He knew they would ask him, and it would be uncomfortable to refuse, but
he had done it heretofore, and he would do it to-night. After to-night,
he would try to gradually drift away from that set. It would not do to
break off all of a sudden, but he would try to do it gradually. Of
course he could. Had he not stayed at home that evening when Miss Murray
fixed the lamp, and then again last night? Both of these times he had
promised to go with the boys. He felt strong with the sense of having
conquered once before. He did not remember a Bible verse then that his
mother used often to quote to him, “Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall,” he only told himself that he had proved to
himself that he was fully able to break off going with those boys
whenever he chose, and therefore he had a right to go with them for a
little innocent fun just once more.
Ah, but he did not know even now, as he lay here in his bed with shame
in his heart, and the tears of repentance overflowing his eyes and
trickling between the tightly closed lashes, that Satan had leagued
against him last night, and that those boys had vowed to conquer his
foolish protests once and for all, and get him gloriously drunk. Once
let him break down that silly shame, they said, and he would be a jolly
good fellow, for Harry was bright and quick-witted. Why they wanted to
do it is not quite certain. Perhaps some of them were fiendish enough to
want to drag him down as low as themselves, just for very love of
deviltry. Others, perhaps, felt rebuked by his shrinking back at daring
things which were proposed, and still others, older in their sin, liked
him for his gay words and witty sayings, and were resolved to make of
him a thoroughly good bad-fellow whom they could enjoy. Their experience
had taught them that when one such once goes astray, he will dare more
than some who never had any scruples.
Harry only knew that they had passed some cider first. They declared
they had ordered it for his sake as they knew his temperance principles,
and they laughed and nudged one another as it was passed and winked, and
Harry felt goaded to do almost anything to prove that he was just as
good, or as bad, as they were.
Now Harry was not fond of sweet cider. The few times he had tasted it,
it had seemed insipid to him. He knew, indeed, that there were some
people who went so far as to object to cider drinking. In a general way,
he knew that there was a difference between sweet and hard cider, and it
would have been well for him that night, if he had been possessed of a
few decided opinions on the subject himself. He hesitated and then took
some, but his hesitation was noticed and the boys had asked him if he
were afraid of that too. He had flushed crimson and declared that he was
not, and they had unmercifully passed his glass for more, and watched to
see if he drank that. Then something else had been brought on, Harry did
not just know what, whether wine or beer or something else. The cider
had been by no means sweet and must have gone to his head. When they
passed by his chair with the wine glasses, he had caught the whispered
words and laughs of his companions over him, and turning quick without a
thought for anything than to prove his—what?—cowardice? he ordered the
waiter to give him some. A tremendous cheer had arisen from the boys, so
loud it almost brought him to his senses. He drank that glass and
another, and then he felt a feverish desire to swallow more, and they
filled his glass again and again, he not asking or caring what it
contained. That was the story. He did not know now, or stop to ask
himself how he got here, to what he called home. He supposed it was in
the same shameful way that some of the others were taken sometimes, the
way that had hitherto been a strong barrier in the way of his joining in
their drinking festivities. Whether any one saw or knew, he did not dare
to ask. He only knew that he lay here, and that his mother’s eyes were
over there, and that God always seemed to be near his mother, and that
he did not dare to open his eyes again. He heard the soft movement of a
woman’s dress, and a light step. It seemed like his mother’s. He could
almost think as he lay here that this was his home once more, and his
mother was nursing him from some dreadful illness. Only this bed was so
hard. Oh, the shame and horror if this had happened at his dear old home
with his mother in it. It would have killed her. He groaned aloud, and
then he heard that soft step again and wondered. Was he dead? Was this
the—where? the judgment seat—perhaps? For his mother surely was there
and God! Oh!——