I WILL hereinunder set down nothing but what is the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Well, in the old days,
before everybody got so gosh-amighty good, barrooms was so frequent that
nobody thought of setting down their scenery and habits.
Usually you went into it by a pair of swinging doors that met in the
middle and didn't go full length up, so you could see over the top of
the door, and if any one was to come into one door you didn't want
to have talk with or anything you could see him and have a chance to
gravitate out the door at the other end of the barroom while he was
getting in. But you couldn't see into the windows of them as a habitual
custom, because who could tell whether a customer's family was going
to pass by and glance in. Well, in your heart you knew you was doing
nothing to be ashamed of, but all families even in the good old days
contained some prohibition relations. The Good Book says that flies in
the ointment send forth a smell to heaven. Well, you felt more private
like with the windows fixed thataway. They was painted, soaped, and some
stained glassed.
It had its good sides and it had its bad sides, but I will say I have
been completely out of touch, just as much as if I was a native of some
hot country, with all kinds of morality and religions of all sorts, ever
since the barrooms was shut up. From childhood's earliest hours religion
has been one of my favourite studies, and I never let a week pass
without I get down on my knees some time or another and pray about
something any more than I would let a week pass without I washed all
over. It was early recollections of a good woman that kept me religious,
and I hope I do not have to say anything further to this gang. Well,
in spite of my religion I never went to church none. Because it ain't
reasonable to suppose that a man could keep awake. He thinks, “What if
I should nod,” and he does. So that always throwed me back onto the
barrooms for my religion.
Well, then, the first thing you know when you are up by the free lunch
counter eating some of that delicatessen in comes a girl and says to
contribute to the cause. Well, “What cause are you?” you ask her. Well,
she says, Salvation Army or the Volunteers, or what not, and so forth,
as the case may be, or maybe she was boosting for some of these new
religions that gets out a paper and these girls go around and sell it
for ten cents, which they always set a date for the world coming to an
end. Well, then, you got a line on her religion, and you was ashamed
not to give her a quarter, for you had spent a dollar for drinks already
that morning. And then all through the day there was other religions
come in, one after another, or maybe the same religion over and over
again.
Well, then, you kept in touch with religions and it made a better man
out of you, and along about evening time when you figured on going home
you felt like it wouldn't be right to tell any pervarications to your
wife about how you come to be so late, so you just said over the phone:
“I am starting right away. I stopped into Ed's place to play a game of
pool after work and met a fellow I used to know. I couldn't get away
from him and I was too thoughtful of you to insist for him to come home
to dinner so he insisted I ought to have a drink with him for old
time's sake.” And if it hadn't been for being in contact with different
religions all day you would of lied outright to your wife and felt mean
as a dog about it when she found you out.
Well, then, it needs no further proof that the abolishment of the saloon
has taken away the common people's religions from them, but it is my
message to tell just what the barrooms was like and not to criticize the
laws of the land, even when they are dam-foolish as so many of them are.
So I will confine myself to describing the barroom and the rum demon.
Well, I never saw much rum drunk in the places where I hung out.
Sometimes some baccardy into a cocktail, but for my part cocktails
always struck me as wicked. The good book says that the Lord started the
people right but that men had made many adventures. Well, then, I took
mine straight for the most part, except when I needed some special kind
of a pick-up in the morning.
And the good book says not to tarry long over the wine cup, and I never
done that, neither, except a little Rhine wine in the summer time, but
mostly took mine straight.
Well, then, to come down to describing these phantom places over which
the raven says nevermore but the posterity of the future may wish to
have its own say so about. Well, there was a long counter always kept
wiped off, not like these here sticky soda-water counters which the boys
and girls back of them always look sticky, too, and their sleeves look
sticky and the glasses is sticky, but in a decent barroom the counter
was kept swiped off clean and selfrespectable.
And there was a brass rail with cuspidors near to it, if you wanted to
cuspidate it was handy right there, and there's no place to hawk and
cuspidate in these here soda-water dives. Not that I ever been in them
much. All that stuff rots the lining of your stomach. As far as I am
concerned, being the posterity of a lot of Scotch ancestors, I never
liked soft stuff in my insides.
I never drunk nothing but whiskey for comfort and pleasure, and I never
took no medicine in my life except calomel, and I always held to the
Presbyterian religion as my favourite religion because those three
things has got some kick when took inside of you.
Well, then, to get down to telling just what these places was like, it
would surprise this generation of posterity how genteel some of them
was. Which I will come down to in my next chapter. Well, I will close
this chapter.