OUR FIRST AND LAST CIGAR.
The time had come in our boyhood which we thought demanded of us a capacity
to smoke. The old people of the household could abide neither the sight nor
the smell of the Virginia weed. When ministers came there, not by positive
injunction but by a sort of instinct as to what would be safest, they
whiffed their pipe on the back steps. If the house could not stand
sanctified smoke, you may know how little chance there was for adolescent
cigar-puffing.
By some rare good fortune which put in our hands three cents, we found
access to a tobacco store. As the lid of the long, narrow, fragrant box
opened, and for the first time we own a cigar, our feelings of elation,
manliness, superiority and anticipation can scarcely be imagined, save by
those who have had the same sensation. Our first ride on horseback, though
we fell off before we got to the barn, and our first pair of new boots
(real squeakers) we had thought could never be surpassed in interest; but
when we put the cigar to our lips, and stuck the lucifer match to the end
of the weed, and commenced to pull with an energy that brought every facial
muscle to its utmost tension, our satisfaction with this world was so
great, our temptation was never to want to leave it.
The cigar did not burn well. It required an amount of suction that tasked
our determination to the utmost. You see that our worldly means had limited
us to a quality that cost only three cents. But we had been taught that
nothing great was accomplished without effort, and so we puffed away.
Indeed, we had heard our older brothers in their Latin lessons say, Omnia
vincet labor; which translated means, If you want to make anything go, you
must scratch for it.
With these sentiments we passed down the village street and out toward our
country home. Our head did not feel exactly right, and the street began to
rock from side to side, so that it was uncertain to us which side of the
street we were on. So we crossed over, but found ourself on the same side
that we were on before we crossed over. Indeed, we imagined that we were on
both sides at the same time, and several fast teams driving between. We met
another boy, who asked us why we looked so pale, and we told him we did not
look pale, but that he was pale himself.
We sat down under the bridge and began to reflect on the prospect of early
decease, and on the uncertainty of all earthly expectations. We had
determined to smoke the cigar all up and thus get the worth of our money,
but were obliged to throw three-fourths of it away, yet knew just where we
threw it, in case we felt better the next day.
Getting home, the old people were frightened, and demanded that we state
what kept us so late and what was the matter with us. Not feeling that we
were called to go into particulars, and not wishing to increase our
parents' apprehension that we were going to turn out badly, we summed up
the case with the statement that we felt miserable at the pit of the
stomach. We had mustard plasters administered, and careful watching for
some hours, when we fell asleep and forgot our disappointment and
humiliation in being obliged to throw away three-fourths of our first
cigar. Being naturally reticent, we have never mentioned it until this
time.
But how about our last cigar? It was three o'clock Sabbath morning in our
Western home. We had smoked three or four cigars since tea. At that time we
wrote our sermons and took another cigar with each new head of discourse.
We thought we were getting the inspiration from above, but were getting
much of it from beneath. Our hand trembled along the line; and strung up to
the last tension of nerves, we finished our work and started from the room.
A book standing on the table fell over; and although it was not a large
book, its fall sounded to our excited system like the crack of a pistol. As
we went down the stairs their creaking made our hair stand on end. As we
flung ourselves on a sleepless pillow we resolved, God helping, that we had
smoked our last cigar, and committed our last sin of night-study.
We kept our promise. With the same resolution went overboard coffee and
tea. That night we were born into a new physical, mental and moral life.
Perhaps it may be better for some to smoke, and study nights, and take
exciting temperance beverages; but we are persuaded that if thousands of
people who now go moping, and nervous, and half exhausted through life,
down with "sick headaches" and rasped by irritabilities, would try a good
large dose of abstinence, they would thank God for this paragraph of
personal experience, and make the world the same bright place we find it--a
place so attractive that nothing short of heaven would be good enough to
exchange for it.
The first cigar made us desperately sick; the throwing away of our last
made us gloriously well. For us the croaking of the midnight owl hath
ceased, and the time of the singing of birds has come.