_ON WHICH SIDE VICTORY?_
"Well, how goes the temperance fight, Dave?" asked Dick one day.
"We are pushing it. We have organized our society, and are going to
hold meetings."
"The fight," as Dick called it, was conducted on the principles of
peace; but if peaceable it was not sleepy. A series of meetings of
various kinds had been carefully planned, and of these one was a young
people's meeting. All the exercises, like speaking and singing, were to
be conducted by Shipton's youth. Bart expected to have a humble part in
this meeting, and say a few Scripture verses bearing on the sin of
liquor-drinking. His father was at home, and Bart did wish that in some
way he could be persuaded to go to this meeting. There did not seem to
be much prospect of his attendance. One day he received a mortifying
check to his course. Having drunk up all his money at the public-house,
he was roughly turned out of doors. This time he realized the disgrace
of his situation; and the next morning, to granny's astonishment, he did
not visit the saloon. To her still greater surprise, he did not leave
the house all day. He even sawed and cut some wood for the fire. This
was deservedly ranked as a wonder in the history of the man. When Bart
returned at night his father was upstairs, "lying down," granny
reported.
"Ain't that queer, granny?" whispered Bart.
"I haven't known anything like it, Bartie. He's been cuttin' more wood
this afternoon. P'raps he is sick."
Not sick, but mortified and penniless. To such people publicity is not
attractive.
"I don't know what it is," said granny, "but Miss Perkins says she hearn
there has been trouble down in the saloon."
Miss Perkins was a gossip with a news-bag that seemed to have the depth
and roominess of the Atlantic.
"Awful place, ain't it, granny, where they sell rum?"
Granny turned on him--turned quickly, fiercely.
"Bartholomew!"
She rarely addressed him that way. When she did she meant something
serious. Bart's timorous face shrank before her sharp, fierce gaze.
"Bartholomew, I want you to promise never to sell rum. Put your hand on
this Bible!"
"Oh, I--I never will sell."
"And you won't drink it? Promise!"
"Never!"
It was like Hamilcar of Carthage taking his son Hannibal to the altar,
and there making him swear eternal hatred to Rome. Then Bart went
softly out of the room.
Into some refuge he desired to steal, tell God that he, Little Mew, was
weak; that he wanted to be taken care of; that he did wish to get help
somehow for his father--help to be better--and he wanted to remember
granny. Up over the steep, narrow, worn stairway he stole into his
little bedroom, that, small and humble, had yet been a precious refuge
to him, and his bed had been a boat bearing him away across waters of
forgetfulness of poverty and hunger to the restful isle of dreams. If
he could only forget now! He could pray, and if prayer does not make
forgetful it makes restful. He leaned against his bed and told all his
trouble to God--told him of his desire for his father, how much he
wished God would make his father a new heart; how he wanted help for
himself, that he might be kind and patient. It was touching to hear his
boyish outcries, as kneeling he pleaded for one so weak, so lost, as his
father. Then he went downstairs again. The moment his feet were heard
on the stairs, Bart's father, who had been lying in the dark on the side
of the bed nearest to the wall, arose, sighed, and went down also. Bart
was standing in the little entry leading to the kitchen.
"Bart--I--want to be--" The father stopped.
It was not so much anything he said, for he said nothing definite, but
it was his tone that encouraged Bart, and he listened eagerly.
"I want to be a good father to you, Bart; God knows I do."
What? Bart had never heard such language before from this parent with
agitated voice and frame. Bart caught instantly at a hope that had just
begun to take shape. Would his father go to the temperance meeting with
him?
"Father, your ship, they say, won't sail to-morrow; and if it don't,
will you go to the temperance meeting with me to-morrow night?"
"Bartholomew, if my ship don't sail, then I will go with you."
He turned and went upstairs again.
"O Bart," exclaimed granny, "let us pray that God will keep the winds
off shore and not let Thomas's ship get to sea!"
The next day the winds still were unfavourable, and Bart and granny
looked at one another with happier faces than they had been carrying
ever since Thomas Trafton's return.
"Granny, the wind is not fair yet," Bart would exclaim, after eying the
vane on the nearest church steeple. Granny would then take her turn,
and go out, her apron thrown over her head, and watch the vane. At last
they could say, "The ship won't go to-night."
When ever before had that vane been watched to see if it indicated a
wind that would keep Thomas Trafton at home?
"Hear me say my verses once more," Bart whispered to his grandmother;
and assured that his contribution to the evening's exercises was in
readiness, he went with his father to the temperance meeting. Bart's
place was among the speakers, and they filled several pews, their
bright, hopeful faces lifted above the railings of the pews like flowers
above the garden-bed. Bart's father was in the rear of the church. Bart
was afraid to leave him at that distant, unguarded point; but he had
promised Bart faithfully to stay, and not go out. Was ever any
attendant at a meeting in a more discouraged, helpless mood than Thomas
Trafton? He had been thinking, somewhat as he was accustomed to think
when off at sea and away from temptation, that never again would he
touch liquor; but could he keep his resolution if he made one? He felt
burdened with a weighty desire, burdened with a sense of shame, burdened
with a conviction of weakness, burdened every way and always.
The meeting began. Mr. James Tolman conducted it, but only to call the
names of those participating in it. The recitations were varied.
Several had quite pretentious speeches, and others gave only a modest
extract from some appeal in poetry or prose. There were those who
simply had Bible verses, and in this section Bart Trafton had a place.
His verses were on the sin of intemperance. When his turn was reached
he came to the platform quite readily, and then turned toward the
audience. He looked once, saw great, bewildering rows of faces, and all
his courage left him. He could not look again at those hundreds of
staring eyes. He dropped his head, blushed, and every idea he had taken
with him to the platform seemed hopelessly to have left him. Like
birds, those verses had flown away, and how could he possibly call them
back from that sudden flight? However, he did catch one bird. He could
think of one word--"Wine!" He resolved to begin with that. A decoy
bird will sometimes bring a flock about it, and if he said that one word
he might think of the others. "Wine--" he screamed. Then he waited for
the rest of the flock. He shrieked again, "Wine!" Once more,
"W-w-wine!"
People were now smiling to see that timorous, blushing, stammering lad
on the platform, and some of the children broke out into an embarrassing
titter. Bart, turned in helpless confusion to Mr. Tolman.
"Forgot it," he whispered,
"Say something," said Mr. Tolman, in an encouraging tone.
Something? What would it, could it be? Bart gave one timid glance at
the tittering, gaping rows before him, and feeling that he must say
something, gave the first words that came into his mind. Annie Fletcher
had taught them to him. Bart's voice was sharp and high, and it pierced
all the space between Thomas Trafton and the platform, and the father
plainly heard the boy.
"'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light.'"
Some of the people wondered what that had to do with intemperance.
Thomas Trafton did not wonder. He heard nothing else. He did not notice
whether Bart stayed on the platform or left it; he did not notice who
followed Bart; he heard only those verses. The pew was an old one, and
when improvements had been made in the church, this pew was not touched,
but, being so far away from notice, was left undisturbed in all its odd
and antique furnishings. Thomas Trafton never forgot the exact place
where he sat and heard through his son's voice this short gospel that
came down from God's lofty throne of love. He would in later days come
to this old pew and gladly occupy it and recall this night of the
temperance meeting. He would hear again the invitation given in his
boy's piercing voice, and again would be repeated, though not as
vividly, his experience that night; for he had an experience. It seemed
to him as if while sitting there burdened and weary, yet willing,
longing to find relief, One came to him,--One who had in his brow the
print of thorns, and in his side the mark of a spear, and in his feet
the scar of driven nails. Thomas Trafton met his Saviour there, and
into peace and strength came the soul of the once drunkard.
Not long after this the west wind blew, its strong wings beating fast
and sweeping Thomas Trafton's vessel far away to sea. Very few knew of
his surrender to God, which brought a victory over his appetite. The
minister of the church, Mr. Potter, knew, and Dave Fletcher knew.