[Illustration: 0050]
CHRISTMAS,” said the Old Soak, “will soon be here. But me, I ain't
going to look at it. I ain't got the heart to face it. I'm going to
crawl off and make arrangements to go to sleep on the twenty-third of
December and not wake up until the second of January.
“Them that is in favour of a denaturized Christmas won't be interfered
with by me. I got no grudge against them. But I won't intrude any on
them, either. They can pass through the holidays in an orgy of sobriety,
and I'll be all alone in my own little room, with my memories and a case
of Bourbon to bear me up.
“I never could look on Christmas with the naked eye. It makes me so
darned sad, Christmas does. There's the kids... I used to give 'em
presents, and my tendency was to weep as I give them. 'Poor little
rascals,' I said to myself, 'they think life is going to be just one
Christmas tree after another, but it ain't.' And then I'd think of all
the Christmases past I had spent with good friends, and how they was all
gone, or on their way. And I'd think of all the poor folks on Christmas,
and how the efforts made for them at that season was only a drop in the
bucket to what they'd need the year around. And along about December
twenty-third I always got so downhearted and sentimental and discouraged
about the whole darned universe I nearly died with melancholy.
“In years past, the remedy was at hand. A few drinks and I could look
even Christmas in the face. A few more and I'd stand under the mistletoe
and sing, 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen.' And by the night of Christmas
day I had kidded myself into thinking I liked it, and wanted to keep it
up for a week.
“But this Christmas there ain't going to be any general iniquity used to
season the grand religious festival with, except among a few of us Old
Soaks that has it laid away. I ain't got the heart to look on all the
melancholy critters that will be remembering the drinks they had last
year. And I ain't going to trot my own feelings out and make 'em public,
neither. No, sir. Me, I'm going to hibernate like a bear that goes to
sleep with his thumb in his mouth. Only it won't be a thumb I have in
my mouth. My house will be full of children and grandchildren, and there
will be a passel of my wife's relations that has always boosted for
Prohibition, but any of 'em ain't going to see the old man. I won't
mingle in any of them debilitated festivities. I ain't any Old Scrooge,
but I respect the memory of the old-time Christmas, and I'm going to
have mine all by myself, the melancholy part of it that comes first, and
the cure for the melancholy. This country ain't worthy to share in my
kind of a Christmas, and I ain't so much as going to stick my head out
of the window and let it smell my breath till after the holidays is
over. I got presents for all of 'em, but none of 'em is to be allowed
to open the old man's door and poke any presents into his room for him.
They ain't worthy to give me presents, the people in general in this
country ain't, and I won't take none from them. They might 'a' got
together and stopped this Prohibition thing before it got such a start,
but they didn't have the gumption. I've seceded, I have. And if any of
my wife's Prohibition relations comes sniffin' and smellin' around my
door, where I've locked myself in, I'll put a bullet through the
door. You hear me! And I'll know who's sniffin', too, for I can tell a
Prohibitionist sniff as fur as I can hear it.
“I got a bar of my own all fixed up in my bedroom and there's going to
be a hot water kettle near by it and a bowl of this here Tom and Jerry
setting onto it as big as life.
“And every time I wake up I'll crawl out of bed and say to myself:
'Better have just one more.'
“'Well, now,' myself will say to me, 'just _one!_ I really hadn't orter
have that one; I've had so many--but just one goes.'
“And then we'll mix it right solemn and pour in the hot water, standing
there in front of the bar, with our foot onto the railing, me and myself
together, and myself will say to me:
“'Well, old scout, you better have another afore you go. It's gettin'
right like holiday weather outside.'
“'I hadn't really orter,' I will say to myself again, 'but it's a
long time to next holidays, ain't it, old scout? And here's all the
appurtenances of the season to you, and may it sing through your
digestive ornaments like a Christmas carol. Another one, Ed.'
“And then I'll skip around behind the bar and play I was Ed, the
bartender, and say, 'Are they too sweet for you, sir?'
“And then I'll play I was myself again and say, 'No, they ain't, Ed.
They're just right. Ask that feller down by the end of the bar, Ed, to
join us. I know him, but I forget his name.'
“And then I'll play I was the feller and say I hadn't orter have another
but I will, for it's always fair weather when good fellows gets
together.
“And then me and myself and that other feller will have three more,
because each one of us wants to buy one, and then Ed the bartender
will say to have one on the house. And then I'll go to sleep again and
hibernate some more. And don't you call me out of that there room till
along about noon on the second day of January. I'll be alone in there
with my joy and my grief and all them memories.”
CHAPTER TEN--Continuing the History--the Old Soak Fears for the Growing
Children
ANOTHER thing wrong with Prohibition that will one day make them sorry
they passed that commandment onto the constitution is the way it will
bring liquor in front of the growing children and if the children learns
to drink it too young what will become of this country I would like to
know when the next war comes along.
I guess they didn't think of that, all these here wise Johnnies when
they passed that law.
When you used to get all you wanted in a barroom you went there for it
and the children didn't see you and they couldn't go into them places
and it wasn't sticking around under the children's noses at home all the
time making them ask Pa what do you need with so much of that medicine
and can I have some Pa.
But now you have it at home and it is sticking under their noses all the
time and the chances are millions and millions of children will learn
to drink too soon just because it is sticking under their noses all the
time and that is what Prohibition is doing for this country for everyone
knows if they drink it too soon it will stunt their growths.
It is a great responsibility to bring up children right and Godfearing
and be sure they say their lay me down to sleep every night like
the Good Book says they should, and what I want to know is why
this government don't help the parents and fathers with all them
responsibilities instead of being a stumbling block in their way and
putting liquor in the home where the growing children will smell it all
the time and if they smell it they will want some of it.
Of course a young feller has got to learn to drink some time but there
is such a thing as learning too young and it stunts their growth and the
good book says keep it out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Maybe a little beer is all right if a baby is puny to fatten him up but
I never give my children any hard liquor till they had their growth and
I got no use for a government that turns in and puts liquor in the home
to make drunkards out of the little innocent children.
Maybe if a child has got a cold a little whiskey is good for him and
what is left in the bottom of the glass when their dad is done with it
if they put some sugar and water in it and play they are like Pa won't
hurt none of them any and will help make them so they can hold their
share when they get growed up, but that is different from forcing it
down their poor little innocent throats all the time and every day,
which is what that Prohibition commandment amounts to.
I knowed a child once in a fambly where they thought it was smart to
let him have some hard liquor and he growed up with goggle eyes and all
rickety from it and took to smoking these here cheap cigarettes and it
was a shame as any person with any heart a tall would have said and does
this government want the whole future generation of posterity to grow
up goggle eyed and rickety like that by forcing liquor into the home and
where will they get their strong soldiers from in the next war.
I will say they got no conscience to do a thing like that to the whole
passel of children waiting to grow up and go to be soldiers.
It is enough to make any honest man stop and think and his heart bleed
when he thinks of all them millions and millions of innocent children
and the way they are being ruined with liquor in the home and maybe
helping their daddies make it with yeast and raisins and things and
cornmeal in the cellar.
I teached my boys to drink in the barroom just as fast as they growed
up and teached them to tell good liquor from bad liquor and not to mix
their drinks and not to go in for fancy drinks and to drink along with
me for a comfort for my old age and a father had ought to make chums of
his boys like that and give them the right example and they stay close
to him and he knows what they are thinking about and can give them good
advice and my boys has been a comfort to me.
My boys is all growed up, but what worries me is the millions and
millions of little children that is going to learn to drink too young.
Well, in my next chapter I promise to get down to brass tacks and tell
just exactly what those barrooms was like that has been vanished.