As has already been said, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, the parents of Mrs.
Holcombe, were people of excellent moral character and were so careful
of their children that as long as they could prevent it, they did not
allow them to associate freely with the Shippingsport children. But of
Steve Holcombe, the worst of them all, they had a special dread. Mr.
Evans could not endure to see him or to hear his name called. And yet,
this same Steve Holcombe was in love with their own precious child, and
had now come home to ask her to marry him. Of course, he did not visit
her at her own home but he managed to see her elsewhere. He found that
she had not wavered during his absence, but that the bond of their
childhood had grown with her womanhood. And yet she knew full well his
past career and his present character. She went into it "with her eyes
open," to quote her own words. Against the will of her parents and
against the advice of her friends she adhered to her purpose to marry
Steve Holcombe when the time should come. Even his own mother, moved
with pity at the thought of the sufferings and wretchedness which this
marriage would bring the poor girl, tried to dissuade her from it and
warned her that she was going to marry "the very devil." She replied
that she knew all about it, and when asked why she then did it, her
simple answer was "because I love him."
He promised her that he would try to be a better man and _she_, as well
as _he, believed it_, though not because she expected he would some time
become a Christian and not because she had the Christian's faith and
hope. Her simple belief was that the outcome of her love would be his
reformation and return to a better life. It was not thus definitely
stated to herself by herself. It was an unconscious process of reasoning
or rather it was the deep instinct of her strong and deeply-rooted love.
Mrs. Holcombe was recently asked if, during all the years of her
husband's recklessness and disgraceful dissipation, his sins and crimes,
his cruel neglect and heartless mistreatment of herself, her love ever
faltered? She answered: "No; never. There never was a time, even when
Mr. Holcombe was at his worst, that I did not love him. It pained me, of
course, that some things should come _through_ him, but I never loved
_him_ any less." A rare and wonderful love it surely was. When she was
asked if during those dark and bitter years she ever gave up her belief
that her husband would change his life and become a good man, she
answered, "No; I never gave it up." A woman of deep Insight, of large
reading and wide observation, on hearing these replies of Mrs. Holcombe,
said: "It is the most wonderful case of love and patience and faith I
have ever known."
He had come home then to marry Mary Evans. He met her at the house of a
mutual friend and proposed an elopement. She was frightened and refused.
But he pleaded and besought her, and, wounded and vexed at what seemed a
disregard of his feelings and rights, he ended by saying, "It must be
to-night or never." Whereupon she consented, though with great
reluctance, and they went together to the house of his mother, in the
city of Louisville. But his own mother would not consent to their
marriage under such circumstances until she could first go and see if
she could get the consent of the girl's parents. Accordingly, she went
at once to Shippingsport, night as it was, and laid the case before
them. They did not consent, but saw it would do no good to undertake to
put a stop to it. So that, at the house of his mother in Louisville,
they were married, Steve Holcombe and Mary Evans, the hardened gambler
and the timid girl.
After his marriage he quit running on the river, settled down at
Shippingsport and went to fishing for a living. And it did seem for a
time that his hope was to be realized and that through the helpful
influences of his young wife he was to become a better man. He grew
steadily toward better purposes and toward a higher standard of
character, and within two or three months after their marriage they
joined the church together. Mrs. Holcombe says, however, that she does
not now believe that she was a Christian at the time. They thought in a
general way that it was right to join the church, and that it would do
them good and somehow help them to be good. If they had had some one,
wise and patient and faithful, to teach them and advise them and
sympathize with them at this time of awakening and of honest endeavor
after a spiritual life, they would probably have gone on happily and
helpfully together in it. But alas! as is true in so many, many cases
to-day, nobody understood or seemed to understand them, nobody tried or
cared to understand them; nobody cared for their souls. It was taken for
granted, then as now, that when people are gotten into the church,
nothing special is to be done for them any further, though, in fact, the
most difficult and delicate part of training a soul and developing
Christian character comes after conversion and after joining the church.
Mr. Holcombe attributes his present success in the helping and guidance
of inquiring and struggling souls to his lack on the one hand of careful
and sympathetic training in his earlier efforts to be a Christian and on
the other hand to the great benefit of such training in his later
efforts. In such a nature as his, especially, no mere form of religion
and no external bond of union with the church was sufficient. The
strength of his will, the tenacity of his old habits, the intensity of
his nature and the violence of his passions were such that only an
extraordinary power would suffice to bring him under control. It was not
long, therefore, before he was overcome by his evil nature, and he soon
gave over the ineffectual struggle and fell back into his old ways. His
poor wife soon found to her sorrow that reforming a bad man was a
greater undertaking than she had dreamed of, and was often reminded of
her mother-in-law's remark that she had married "the very devil." And
Mr. Holcombe found out, too, that his wife, good as she was, could not
make him good. Some men there are so hungry-hearted and so dependent,
that they can not endure life without the supreme and faithful and
submissive affection of a wife, but who know not how to appreciate or
treat a wife and soon lose that consideration and love for her which
are her due. Then marriage becomes tyranny on the one side and slavery
on the other.
Perhaps the reader will conclude later that this description applies all
too well to the married life of Steve Holcombe and his faithful and
brave-hearted young wife; for it was not long before he returned, in
spite of all his solemn vows and his earnest resolutions, to his old
habit of gambling and to all his evil ways. On a certain occasion not
long after he married, in company with a friend, who is at this moment
lying in the jail in Louisville for the violation of the law against
gambling, he went on a fishing excursion to Mound City, Illinois. Having
returned to the landing one night about midnight they found a
fierce-looking man sitting on the wharf-boat who said to them on
entering, "I understand there are some gamblers here and I have come to
play them, and I can whip any two men on the Ohio river," at the same
time exposing a large knife which he carried in his boot. He was
evidently a bully who thought he could intimidate these strangers and in
some underhanded way get from them their money. Mr. Holcombe did not
reply but waited till the next morning when he "sized up the man" and
determined to play against him. After they had been playing some time
Mr. Holcombe discovered that the man was "holding cards out of the pack"
on him. He said nothing, however, till the man had gotten out all the
cards he wanted, when Mr. Holcombe made a bet. The other man "raised
him," that is, offered to increase the amount. Mr. Holcombe raised him
back and so on till each one had put up all the money he had. Then the
man "showed down his hand" as the saying is, and he had the four aces.
Mr. Holcombe replied "That is a good hand, but here is a better one;"
and with that struck him a quick heavy blow that sent the man to the
floor, Mr. Holcombe took all the money and the other man began to cry
like a child and beg for it. Mr. Holcombe was instantly touched with
pity and wanted to give him back his money but his partner objected. He
did, however, give the man enough for his immediate wants and left him
some the wiser for his loss of the rest.
At the same place the owner of the storeboat left a young man in charge,
who, during the absence of his proprietor, offered to play against Mr.
Holcombe and lost all the money he had. Then he insisted on Mr.
Holcombe's playing for the clothing which he had in the store and Mr.
Holcombe won all that from him, leaving him a sadder, but it is to be
hoped a wiser, man.
Having thus once again felt the fascination of gambling and the
intoxication of success, Mr. Holcombe was impelled by these and by his
naturally restless disposition to give up altogether his legitimate
business and to return to the old life. So without returning to visit
his wife and child or even informing them of his whereabouts, he shipped
on a steamer for Memphis and thence to New Orleans.
On his return trip from New Orleans he played poker and won several
hundred dollars. On landing in Louisville, his half-brother, Mr. Wm.
Sowders, the largest fish and oyster dealer in Louisville, gave him a
partnership in his business, but they soon fell out and he quit the
firm.
He removed to Nashville, Tennessee, and opened a business of the same
kind there in connection with his brother's house in Louisville, Mr.
Holcombe shipping his vegetables and produce in return for fish and
oysters. This was early in 1860. It was a great trial for his young wife
to be taken from among her relatives and friends and put down among
people who were entire strangers, especially that she had found out in
four or five years of married life that her husband had grown away from
her, that his heart and life were in other people than his family, in
other places than his home and in others pleasures than his duty. She
knew that she could not now count on having his companionship day or
night, in sickness or in health, in poverty or in wealth. And to make
the outlook all the more gloomy for her, she had just passed through one
of the severest trials that had come into her life.
When an intense woman finds that she is deceived and disappointed in her
husband, and the hopes of married bliss are brought to naught, she finds
some compensation and relief in the love of her children. So it was with
Mrs. Holcombe. But just before the time came for them to remove to
Nashville, death came and took from her arms her second-born child. This
made it all the harder to leave her home to go among strangers. But
already, as a wife, she had learned that charity which suffereth long
and is kind, which seeketh not her own and which endureth all things.
Mr. Holcombe's business in Nashville was very profitable and he made
sometimes as much as fifty dollars a day, so that in a short time he had
accumulated a considerable amount of money. But his passion for
gambling remained. His wife had hoped that the sufferings and death of
their little child might soften his heart and lead him to a better life.
But it seemed to have no effect on him whatever. Though he did not
follow gambling as a profession, he engaged in it at night and in a
private way with business men.
When the active hostilities of the war came on, his communication with
Louisville was cut off and so his business was at an end. Leaving his
wife and only remaining child alone in Nashville he went to Clarksville
and engaged in the ice business. While he was there, the Kentucky
troops, who were encamped near that place, moved up to Bowling Green,
Kentucky. The sound of fife and drum and the sight of moving columns of
soldiers stirred either his patriotism or his enthusiasm so that he got
rid of his business and followed them on up to Green river in Kentucky,
and went into camp with them where he spent some time, without, however,
being sworn into service. But this short time sufficed for him and he
became satisfied that "lugging knap-sack, box and gun was harder work
than" gambling.
He quit the camp, settled down at Bowling Green, and opened a grocery
and restaurant, doing a very prosperous business. While there, he had a
severe spell of sickness and came near dying, but did not send for his
wife and child, who were still alone in Nashville. Just before the
Federal troops took possession of Bowling Green, he sold his grocery for
a large claim on the Confederate Government which a party held for some
guns sold to the Confederacy. He then rode horseback from Bowling Green
to Nashville, where he rejoined his wife and child. After another
severe spell of sickness through which his wife nursed him, he left his
family again in those trying and fearful times and went South to collect
his claim on the Confederate Government. Having succeeded in getting it
he returned to Nashville with a large sum of money.
As he had no legitimate business to occupy his time and his mind, he
returned to gambling and this is his own account of it: "Then I began
playing poker with business men in private rooms; and one of those
business men being familiar with faro banks, roped us around to a faro
room to play poker; and while we were playing, the faro dealer, who had
cappers around, opened up a brace game, and the game of poker broke up,
and I drifted over to the faro table, and did not look on long until I
began to bet, and soon lost two or three hundred dollars which I had in
my pockets, and lost a little on credit, which I paid the next morning.
I lost what I had the next day, and kept up that same racket until I was
broke. During this time I had been very liberal with the gamblers,
treated them to oyster stews and other good things; and when I got broke
I got to sitting around the gambling-house, and heard them say to each
other, 'We will have to make Steve one of the boys,' and thus it was I
became familiar with faro."