"BURR-OAK CIDER."
IT was a bright morning when Tom took stage from — Landing, on the
Mississippi, for the frontier prairies.
There was a full load aboard, albeit every public conveyance can
always accommodate "one more." A merry company they were, too. All
men—journeying from various quarters for various purposes—health,
pleasure, to "locate," or to visit immigrant friends in their
wilderness homes.
Well may you imagine that the "unruly member" enjoyed a gala day
in that crowded vehicle, for a stage-coach is a social institution
anywhere, but especially so where the freedom of western manners bears
sway.
A "light-weighted," wiry, ever-at-motion Hoosier, with twinkling black
eyes and a saucily upturned nose, started conversation by plying
each in turn with personal questions, put with the familiarity of
an intimate acquaintance, his interrogatories being always answered
cordially, sometimes wittily. They could the less resent the liberties
he took, since at the outset, in a few characteristic words, he
sketched his own history, announcing himself as "a shoolmaster from
Ingianny, going to Minnesoty to teach school, if he could get one; if
not, to hire out farmin'."
"What is 'your' name?" he began, directing his attention to a portly
gentleman of forty-five, occupying the right hand corner of the front
seat.
"Hammond, Dr. Hammond," was replied, with frank good humor.
"Where from?"
"The wooden nutmeg and pine wood pumpkin seed state, erroneously called
Connecticut in the geographies."
"Got a family?"
"Too young to marry."
"Calc'late to settle in these parts?"
"If 'twill pay."
"Going to invest in land?"
"May 'risk' a trifle where it's a 'sure' thing."
Passing thus in regular order among the passengers, with an assurance,
volubility, persistency, and ingenuity that kept the company in a
roar, sometimes putting a new question before the response to the
previous one was fairly out of the mouth, he reached the last person
but one—a young man in hunter's garb, and carrying a rifle. He was of
Scotch-American descent, hardy and opinionated; had been, he said, on
the frontier five years; was recently from a hunting expedition on the
Red River with friendly Indians. This experienced youth the "Ingianny"
man bored with numberless inquiries concerning the climate, soil,
productions, growth, and population of the country.
"The settlers are from most all parts, I reckons."
"Yes," answered the hunter, naming different nationalities represented,
ending with "Norwegians."
"Norwegians! What sort of folks are they?"
"Don't fancy them, nor their heathenish jabber," was the narrow reply.
"Are they peaceable?"
"O, they never make any trouble, are generally hard-working and honest.
But for one, I can't relish the idea of these 'foreigners' coming over
here and getting the best land. And of all the foreigners, I despise
the Norwegians most. They are different from anybody else. I can tell
one as far as I can see."
"And where are 'you' from?" asked our questioner of the remaining
passenger—a man of thirty, of fine physiognomy and gentlemanly bearing.
"From Norway," was the affable response.
"Then you are a Norwegian?" returned the astonished Hoosier.
"I am," he pleasantly replied.
An embarrassing silence fell on the party at this unexpected
"dénouement," from the effects of which even the versatile and
irrepressible "schoolmaster" could not rally, while the imprudent
youth, whose eyes were so keen for Norwegians, looked chagrined and
chopfallen enough at the sharp rebuke his prejudice and evil-speaking
had received; for the comparison which the incident led us to make,
between the young hunter and the well-bred stranger at his side, was
not over-favorable for the former.
"Big spring! Wud ayther iv the gintlemen like a taste uv the warther?"
shouted the wide-awake Irish driver, as he reined in the horses, and,
seizing a pail, hurried to a ravine a few rods off, followed by the
passengers.
The limpid water, cold and sweet, gushed from the earth in a powerful
stream.
"Magnificent!" ejaculated the doctor, swallowing great draughts.
"Wouldn't take a thousand dollars for this spring, if it was on my
place at home! Will you try some?" he added, rinsing his flask, and
passing it, refilled, to Tom.
Despite the slight flavor of whiskey that still clung to the
drinking-vessel, Tom could but join in his enthusiasm. And as they
resumed their ride, a number of accounts of remarkable springs were
given by several.
But Erin's dulcet tones again resounded, as he proclaimed,—
"Those gintlemin as wish can git something to ate here."
They were now in "the barrens." Stretching along a gentle ridge, in
a singularly orderly way, presenting a striking resemblance to a New
England orchard, were the "scrub" or "burr" oaks. Among the trees
nearest the road stood a log house, over the door of which, on a rough
oak board, was the inscription in red chalk, the letters staggering, as
if formed by a drunken hand,—
"'Burr-oak Cider.'"
"Cider!" repeated the Norwegian, as they dismounted. "I thought that
was manufactured from apples."
"An' sure," interrupted the driver, slyly winking at the doctor,
"they make it here without the fruit at all, at all, an' it's the
'gin-i-wine,' an' no mistake."
The plain meal of corn-cake, fried pork, eggs, and coffee innocent of
sugar or milk, was despatched, and Tom had quite forgotten about the
"cider." But on returning to the stage-coach, the smell of the doctor's
breath, and the unnatural excitability that prevailed, led him to
suspect that some "beverage" stronger than the poor coffee of the table
had been patronized while he was walking beneath the oaks.
A suspicion that became knowledge, when, an hour later, the doctor, in
the glow of his feelings—perhaps I should say, stomach—drew his flask,
filled with "burr-oak cider," "alias" whiskey, from his coat pocket,
and sent it the rounds, all partaking except the Norwegian and Tom.
When restored to its owner, he held it up to the light, shook it, and
looking at its contents with a professional air, said,—
"That is what I call one of God's good creatures!"
"And yet," boldly replied Tom, "how many accidents, losses, quarrels,
murders, deaths, what poverty, wretchedness, crime it causes! It is on
this account that so many of the great and good stigmatize it as the
'worst' of 'man's' creatures."
"O, I mean rightly used," answered the physician, with a touch of
condescension.
"Used as it has been here, for a common drink?" inquired the young
critic.
"Boy," he replied, with doctorial dignity, "I contend that there is a
principle, in whiskey, which, as a tonic, is invaluable."
"May I ask," politely interposed the Norwegian, "in which of the drugs
employed in manufacturing and flavoring the article you find that
principle?"
"Sir," returned the whiskey advocate, getting nettled, "need I state
that I refer to pure old Bourbon!"
"Pardon me, then, for reminding you," courteously responded the
Norwegian, "that one seldom sees 'old' Bourbon, much less old Bourbon
'pure.' And surely the liquor called 'burr-oak cider,' sold at that
wretched loggery, cannot be of the kind or quality you mention."
"Besides," broke in Tom, "when you prescribe a 'tonic,'—'cinchona,' for
example,—you are careful about the size and frequency of the dose—are
you not? Why, then, take the whiskey 'tonic' in such large quantities
and so often? A tonic is to strengthen the body when weak; but those
addicted to the 'Bourbon tonic' use it when weak or strong, and
continue it till it beggars or destroys them. It would be mal-practice
to administer a tonic to those already over-stimulated.
"But suppose, doctor, one should weigh two hundred, his face and eyes
were red, the blood too much in his brain. Would not an intelligent
practitioner recognize such a person as apoplectic? And would not
tonics be hurtful and dangerous to him, especially whiskey tonics?
Hence, is not, after all, your defence of alcoholic drinks, on medical
grounds, a pleasant little piece of professional strategy? Do you not
really hold to them because they are agreeable to the taste?"
"You are a little personal," rejoined the physician, heartily laughing;
"and I don't know but you are about right. But it is not best to be
social bigots. An occasional glass cheers, enlivens, disperses the
blues, leads a man to feel at peace with all the world, and forget
care, fatigue, and sorrow. It promotes good fellowship, arouses the
intellect, and enlarges the heart. How dry and insipid are public
dinners without wine! And on a journey what introduces strangers so
gracefully, and quickly makes them acquainted!"
"An eloquent eulogy!" observed the Norwegian. "But, doctor, I have
read of a custom in France, before the revolution, that adhered more
faithfully to fact.
"When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, duke, or peer,
passed through a city of Burgundy or Champagne, the corporation of
the city waited on him, delivered an address, and presented him with
four silver goblets, in which were four different wines. On the first
goblet he read this inscription, 'monkey wine;' on the second, 'lion
wine;' on the third, 'sheep wine;' on the fourth, 'swine wine.' These
inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness:
the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the
third, that which stupefies; the last, that which brutalizes."
The physician, like one of Victor Hugo's characters, combined, with
admirable art and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a guzzler
with the discretion of a judge, and had preserved his mental equipoise
notwithstanding the whiskey. But the nervous little Hoosier had by this
time become unduly "elevated," and posturing as if about to fiddle,
sawed away with one arm across the other, and struck into a dancing
tune.
"'Monkey' wine," Tom murmured, nudging the doctor's elbow. "The 'tonic'
is taking hold."
From imitating the violin, the "Ingianny schoolmaster" proceeded to
describe incidents in his history which showed that he had seen more of
life among rowdy Mississippi raftsmen than in the school-room.
"The 'tonic' is introducing to us the raftsman," whispered Tom. "What
can so 'quickly make strangers acquainted.'"
The Hoosiers ended his stories with a coarse song.
"'Swine' wine," exclaimed the Norwegian, in disgust.
Erin, on before, broke out also in rude strains, alternated with
swearing at, and furiously lashing, his better-behaved horses.
"The 'tonic' has mounted to the driver's head," said Tom.
"'Monkey,' 'lion,' and 'swine' wines," chimed in his ally from Norway.
But the deepening ravines made their way uncomfortably rough, the
wheels now sinking into heavy ruts, anon surmounting some jagged rise
of ground, while the driving was reckless in the extreme. Tom shouted
to the driver,—
"Be careful, or you'll turn us over!"
"O, be aisy, me by," he roared in return, whipping the horses anew.
"Dennis O'Brien's been acrass the prairies before to-day. Get ape, ye
bastes!"
A moment more, and the stage canted threateningly, righted, then came
down, Tom's side, with a crash, his face resting on a sharp object
protruding through the intervening leather. He was too closely pinioned
by the passengers over him to move, and lay helpless, expecting each
instant the horses to run and drag him thus. But the animals, becoming
disengaged from the whipple-trees as the coach went over, although
spurred on to the moment of the casualty by the drunken Jehu, waited
quietly by for orders, like good temperance beasts who had taken no
"tonic."
When the door of their prison-house was opened, the passengers emerged,
a sadly jolted and bruised set, happily, however, without serious
injury, only to the stage, which was pretty well "smashed," obliging
them to "foot it" to their destination, a distance of two miles. The
Norwegian and Tom, however, enlivened the walk by reminding the doctor
that it was "one of God's good creatures" that, turning the driver's
brain, upset the stage.
"Admirable 'tonic'! Powerful 'good creature'!" ejaculated the
Norwegian. "By all means, doctor, when again we travel together, bring
some burr-oak cider aboard; it helps on a journey!"
"How true the old proverb," suggested Tom, "'Wine is a mocker; strong
drink is raging; whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.'"
"Young man," said the doctor, as they entered the little frontier
village, "to what part of the east do you belong, did you say?"
"No part," frankly answered Tom, "I was brought up in a log cabin on
the prairies, but have been east studying."
"Medicine?"
"In part, but mainly for the ministry."
"So you were a boy-pioneer?"
"I was."
"And now you propose pioneering it in religion and reform? Let me tell
you that you will find it a mighty sight harder battling vice and sin
than fighting poverty and Indians. But you've the pluck for it. I wish
you success. Good-by."
As Tom left, the doctor muttered,—
"Well, if 'he's' a sample of what pioneering it does for body and mind,
pity that there were not fewer dwellings of luxury, and more cabins!
But how that youngster walked into my arguments! Fact is, I had a sorry
cause to defend. Drinking is poor business."
"Mr. Jones," said the Hoosier, drawing him mysteriously aside, "if I
should light on your neighborhood, and get a school there, perhaps
you'd help me out, if I got in a hard spot. Now, 'rithmetic isn't a
mite nat'ral to me. You see I've had no great chance for schoolin'.
You'd give an old acquaintance a lift on the diffikilt sums, I s'pose?"
But the Hibernian driver saved Tom the trouble of replying, by asking,
in a business-like way, "the gintlemin" to be sure and ride with him on
their return, or not in the opposition line.
"And get upset again?" suggested Tom.
"An' sure an' the accidint wud niver have occurred at all, at all, if
it hadn't been fur the—"
"Whiskey," added Tom.
"Faix, an' yer honor's right there," answered Erin.
Tom scanned the countenance of the young Irishman. He had a clear blue
eye, an interesting, intelligent face, and his brown hair curled in
beautiful, clustering ringlets over a fair, open brow.
"What a pity," observed Tom, "that a young man of your smartness should
permit his head to be turned by the vile stuff! You'll marry one of
these days, and be, perhaps, a drunken sot of a husband, and break your
wife's heart, if you get the appetite fastened on you. Yet you might be
a good and useful member of society."
"An', indade, sir," exclaimed the warm-hearted Celt, touched by the
frankness and sincerity of Tom's manner, "it's married I am now." And
he dashed off a tear. "An' wut wud me angil uv a wife say had she seen
me droonk to-day?"
"Where is she?" asked Tom, much interested.
"She's in the ould country, sir; an' I'm getting the dollars together
to bring her over—her an' the babe."
"Steer clear of the whiskey, then," said Tom, "if you wish to get them
here soon, and make them happy after they arrive."
"All the angils bless yez, sir! The reverend clargy couldn't spake
betther nor yez. An' Dennis O'Brien is no fool to kape ter the drink
that's harrmed many an' many a wiser an' a betther than he. An' sure
it's not to the credit of a docthor ter be a recommindin' it to the
likes o' me."