AN ESTIMABLE ORGANIZATION CRITICISED.
The funeral services of George Doughty were as largely attended
as the great temperance meeting had been, and the attendants
admitted--although the admission was not, logically, of particular
force--that they received the worth of their money. The pall-bearers,
twelve in number, were all young men who had been in the habit of
drinking, but who had signed the pledge, some of them having appended
signatures to special pledges privately prepared on the evening before
the service. The funeral anthem was as doleful as the most sincere
mourner could have wished, the music having been composed especially
for the occasion by the chorister of Mr. Wedgewell’s church. As for the
sermon, it was universally voted the most powerful effort that Parson
Wedgewell had ever made. Day and night had the good man striven with
Doughty’s parting injunction, determined to transmit the exact spirit
of it, but horrified at its verbal form. At last he honestly made
George’s own words the basis of his whole sermon; his method being,
first, to show what would have been naturally the last words of a young
man of good birth and Christian breeding, and then presenting George’s
moral legacy by way of contrast. To point the moral without offending
Squire Tomple’s pride, and without inflicting useless pain upon the
Squire’s sufficiently wounded heart, was no easy task; but the parson
was not lacking in tact and tenderness, so he succeeded in making of
his sermon an appeal so powerful and all-applicable that none of the
hearers found themselves at liberty to search out those to whom the
sermon might seem personally addressed.
Among the hearers was Mr. Crupp, and no one seemed more deeply
interested and affected. He followed the funeral cortege to the
cemetery; but, arrived there, he halted at the gate, instead of
following the example of the multitude by crowding as closely as
possible to the grave. The final services were no sooner concluded,
however, than the object of Mr. Crupp’s unusual conduct became apparent
to one person after another, the disclosure being made to people in the
order of their earthly possessions. The parson was shocked at learning
that Mr. Crupp was importuning every man of means to take stock in a
woolen mill, to be established at Barton; but a whispered word or two
from Crupp caused the parson to abate his displeasure, and finally to
stand near Crupp’s side and express his own hearty approbation of the
enterprise proposed. Then Mr. Crupp whispered a few words to Squire
Tomple, and the Squire subscribed a hundred shares at ten dollars
each, information of which act was disseminated among business men and
well-to-do farmers by Parson Wedgewell with an alacrity which, had
modern business ideas prevailed at Barton, would have laid the parson
open to a suspicion of having accepted a few shares, to be paid for
by his own influence. Then Deacon Jones subscribed twenty shares, and
Judge Macdonald, Fred’s father, promised to take fifty; Crupp’s name
already stood at the head of the list for a hundred. No stock-company
had ever been organized at Barton before, and the citizens had always
manifested a laudable reluctance to allow other people to handle their
money; but this case seemed an exception to all others; confidence in
the enterprise was so powerfully expressed, alike by the mercantile
community, the bar, the church, and the unregenerate (the last-named
class being represented by the ex-vender of liquors), that people who
had any money made haste to participate in what seemed to them a race
for wealth with the odds in everybody’s favor. Crupp neglected no one;
he scorned no subscription on account of its smallness; before he left
the cemetery gate nearly half the requisite capital had been pledged,
and before he slept that night he found it necessary to accept rather
more than the twenty thousand dollars which, it had been decided two
days before, would be needed. Several days later a board of directors
was elected; two or three of the directors informally offered the
superintendency of the mill to Fred Macdonald, on condition that he
would pledge himself to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverage
while he held the position, and then Fred was elected superintendent in
regular form and by unanimous vote of the board of directors.
Great was the excitement in Barton and the tributary country when
it was announced that the mill needed no more money, and that,
consequently, no more stock would be issued. In that mysterious way in
which such things always happen, the secret escaped, and encountered
every one, that his new position would prevent Fred Macdonald from
drinking; non-stockholders had then the additional grievance that they
had been deprived of taking any part in an enterprise for the good of
a fellow-man, and all because the rich men of the village saw money in
it. None of these injured ones dared to express their minds on this
subject to Squire Tomple, to whom so many of them owed money, or to
Judge Macdonald, who, in his family pride, would have laid himself
liable to action by the grand jury, had any one suggested that his
oldest son had ever been in any danger of becoming a drunkard. But
to Mr. Crupp they did not hesitate to speak freely; Crupp owned no
mortgages, no total abstainers owed him money; besides, he not only
was not a church member, but he had been in that most infernal of all
callings, rum-selling. So it came to pass that when one day Crupp
went into Deacon Jones’s store for a dollar’s worth of sugar, and was
awaiting his turn among a large crowd of customers, Father Baguss
constituted himself spokesman for the aggrieved faction, and said,
“It ’pears to me, Mr. Crupp, as if reformin’ was a payin’ business.”
Crupp being human, was not saintly, so he flushed angrily, and replied,
“It _ought_ to be, if the religion you’re so fond of is worth a row of
pins; but I don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Oh! of course you don’t know,” said Father Baguss; “but everybody else
does. You don’t expect to make any money out of that woolen mill, do
you?”
“Yes I do, too,” answered Crupp quickly. “I’ll make every cent I can
out of it.”
“Just so,” said Father Baguss, consoling himself with a bite of
tobacco; “an’ them that’s borne the burden and heat of the day can plod
along and not make a cent ’xcept by the hardest knocks. I’ve been one
of the Sons of Temperance ever since I was converted, an’ that’s nigh
onto forty year; I don’t see why I don’t get _my_ sheer of the good
things of this world.”
“If you mean,” said Crupp, with incomparable deliberation, “that my
taking stock in the mill is a reward to me for dropping the liquor
business, you’re mightily mistaken. I’d have taken it all the same if
anybody had put me up to it when I was in the liquor business.”
“Yes,” sighed Father Baguss, “like enough you would; as the Bible says,
‘The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the
children of light.’ I can’t help a-gettin’ mad, though, to think it has
to be so.”
Two or three unsuccessful farmers lounging about the stove sighed
sympathetically, but Crupp indulged in a sarcastic smile, and remarked,
“_I_ always supposed it was because the children of light had got their
treasure laid up in heaven, and were above such worldly notions.”
The late sympathizers of Father Baguss saw the joke, and laughed with
unkind energy, upon which the good old man straightened himself and
exclaimed,
“The children of the kingdom have to earn their daily bread, I reckon;
manna don’t fall nowadays like it used to do for the chosen people.”
“Exactly,” said Crupp, “and them that ain’t chosen people don’t pick
up their dinners without working for them either, without getting into
jail for it. But, say! I didn’t come in here to make fun of you, Father
Baguss. If you want some of that mill stock so bad, I’ll sell you some
of mine--that is, if you’ll go into temperance with all your might.”
The old man seemed struck dumb for a moment but when he found his
tongue, he made that useful member make up for lost time. “Go into
temperance!” he shouted. “Did anybody ever hear the like of that?
I that’s been a “Son” more’n half my life; that’s spent a hundred
dollars--yes, more--in yearly dues; that’s been to every temperance
meetin’ that’s ever been held in town, even when I’ve had rheumatiz so
bad I could hardly crawl; that kept the pledge even when I was out in
the Black Hawk War, where the doctors themselves said that I _ort_ to
have drank; that’s plead with drinkers, and been scoffed an’ reviled
like my blessed Master for my pains; that’s voted for the Maine Liquor
Law; that’s been dead agin lettin’ Miles Dalling into the church
because he brews beer for his own family drinkin’, though he’s a good
enough man every other way, as fur as I can see; I that went to see
every member of our church, an’ begged an’ implored ’em not to sell our
old meetin’-house to the feller that’s since turned it into a groggery;
I to be told by a feller like you, that’s got the guilt of uncounted
drunkards on your soul----”
Crupp, with a very white face, advanced a step or two toward the
old man; but the participator in the Black Hawk War was not to be
frightened, especially when he was so excited as he was now; so he
roared,
“Come on! come on! perhaps you want _my_ blood on your soul, with all
the others; but just let me tell you, it isn’t easy to get!”
Crupp recovered himself and replied, “Father Baguss, all that you’ve
done is very well in its way, but it wasn’t going into temperance.
You’ve been a first-rate talker, I know, but talk isn’t cider. Why,
there’s been lots of men in my store after listenin’ to one of your
strong temperance speeches, and laughed about what they’ve heard. I’ve
told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves--don’t shake your
head--I _have_, and all they’d say would be, ‘Talk don’t cost anything,
Crupp.’ But if you’d followed up your tongue with your brains, and most
of all your pocket, not one of them chaps would have opened his head
about you.”
“Money!” exclaimed the old man; “didn’t I tell you that division
dues alone had cost me more’n a hundred dollars; not to speak of
subscriptions to public meetin’s?”
“And every cent that didn’t go to pay ‘division’ expenses, that is--for
keeping a lodge-room in shape for you to meet in, and such things--went
to pay for more talk. Did you Sons of Temperance ever _buy_ a man away
from his whisky? It _might_ have been done--done cheap too--in almost
any week since I’ve been in Barton, by helping down-hearted men along.
Did you ever do it yourself?”
Father Baguss was nonplussed for a moment, noting which a bystander,
also a Son of Temperance, came valiantly to the rescue of his order, by
exclaiming,
“Tongues was made to use, and the better the cause, the more it needs
to be talked about.”
“There’s no getting away from that,” said Crupp. “Talk’s all right
in its place; but when anybody’s sick in your family, you don’t hire
somebody to come in and talk him well, do you?”
The auxiliary replied by pressing perceptibly closer to the bale of
blankets against which he had been leaning, and Crupp was enabled to
concentrate his attention upon Father Baguss. But the old soldier had
in his military days unconsciously acquired a tactical idea or two
which were frequently applicable in real life. One of them was that of
flanking, and he straightway attempted it by exclaiming,
“I’d use money quick enough on drunkards, if I saw anybody fit to use
it on,” said he; “it would do my old soul good to find a drinking
man that I could be sure money would save. But they’re a shiftless,
worthless pack of shotes, all that I see of ’em. There _wuz_ a young
fellow--Lije Mason his name was--that I once thought seriously of doin’
somethin’ fur; but he went an’ signed the pledge, an’ got along all
right by himself.”
“But there’s your own neighbors, old Tappelmine and his family--they
all drink; what have you done for ’em?” asked Crupp.
“A lot of Kentucky poor white trash!” exclaimed Father Baguss. “What
_could_ anybody do for ’em? Besides, they do for ’emselves; they’ve
stole hams out of my smoke-house more’n once, an’ they know _I_ know
it, too.”
“Poor white trash is sometimes converted in church, isn’t it?” asked
Mr. Crupp; “and what’s to keep poor white trash from stopping drinking?
what but a good, honest, religious, rum-hating neighbor that looks at
’em so savagely and lets ’em alone so hard that they’d take pains to
get drunk, just to worry him? I know how you feel toward them; I _saw_
it once: one Sunday I passed you on the road just opposite their place;
you was in your wagon takin’ your folks to church, and I--well, I was
out trying to shoot a wild turkey, which I mightn’t have been on a
Sunday. They were all laughin’ and cuttin’ up in the house--it’s seldom
enough such folks get anything to laugh about--and I could just _see_
you groan, and your face was as black as a thunder cloud, and as savage
as an oak knot soaked in vinegar. The old man came out just then for
an armful of wood, and nodded at you pleasant enough; but that face of
yours was too much for him, and pretty soon he looked as if he’d have
liked to throw a chunk of wood at your head. I’d have _done_ it, if
I’d been him. The old man was awfully drunk when I came back that way,
two or three hours later. That was a pretty day’s work for a Son of
Temperance, wasn’t it--and Sunday, too?”
The casing to Father Baguss’s conscience was not as thick as that to
his brain, and he was silent; perhaps the prospect of getting some mill
stock aided the good work in his heart.
Crupp continued: “I’m a ‘Son’ myself, now, and I know what a man agrees
to when he joins a division. If you think you’ve lived up to it--you
and the other members of the Barton Division--I suppose you’ve a right
to your opinion; but if my ideas, picked up on both sides of the
fence, are worth anything to you, they amount to just this: the Sons
of Temperance in this town haven’t done anything but help each other
not to get back into bad ways again, and to give a welcomin’ hand to
anybody that’s strong enough in himself to come into the division with
you; and that isn’t the spirit of the order.”
Crupp got his sugar, and no one pressed him to stay longer; but, as he
slowly departed, as became a soldier who was not retreating but only
changing his base, Father Baguss followed him, touched his sleeve as
soon as he found himself outside the store door, and said,
“Say, Crupp, I’ll try to do something for Tappelmine, though I don’t
know yet what it’ll be, an’ I don’t care if you _do_ let me have about
five sheers of that mill stock; I s’pose you won’t want more than you
paid for it?”