"Well, Jim, I suppose you begin to feel a little like it was
grog-time?"'
"No, sir," Jim replied. "I'm done with grog."
"Done with grog!" ejaculated Mr. Jones, in pleased surprise.
"Why, you didn't seem at all afraid of it, yesterday?"
"I did drink pretty hard, yesterday; but that was all your fault."
"My fault! How do you make that out?"
"Clear enough. Yesterday morning, seeing what a poor miserable
wretch I had got to be, and how much my wife and children were
suffering, I swore of from ever touching another drop. I wouldn't
sign a pledge, though, because that, I thought, would be giving up
my freedom. In coming here, I got past Harry Arnold's grog-shop
pretty well, but when you came out so pleasantly at eleven o'clock,
and asked me to go over to the house and take a drink, I couldn't
refuse for the life of me--especially as I felt as dry as a bone. So
I drank pretty freely, as you' know, and went home, in consequence,
drunk at night, notwithstanding I had promised Sally, solemnly, in
the morning, never to touch another drop again as long as I lived.
Poor soul! Bad enough, and discouraged enough, she felt last night,
I know.
"So you see--when I got up this morning, I felt half-determined to
sign the pledge, at all hazards. Still I didn't want to give up my
liberty, and was arguing the points over again, when Sally took me
right aback so strongly that I gave up, wrote a pledge, signed it,
and nailed it up over the mantelpiece, where it has got to stay."
"I am most heartily glad to hear of your good resolution," Mr. Jones
said, grasping warmly the hand of Braddock--"and heartily ashamed of
myself for having tempted you, yesterday. Hereafter, I am resolved
not to offer liquor to any man who works for me. If my money is not
enough for him, he must go somewhere else. Well," he continued--"you
have signed away your liberty, as you called it. Do you feel any
more a slave than you did yesterday?"
"A slave? No, indeed! I'm a free man now! Yesterday I was such a
slave to a debased appetite, that all my good resolutions were like
cobwebs. Now I can act like an honest, rational man. I am in a state
of freedom. You ask me to drink. I say 'no'--yesterday I could not
say no, because I was not a free man. But now I am free to choose
what is right, and to reject what is wrong. I don't care for all the
grog-shops and whiskey-bottles from here to sun-down! I'm not afraid
to go past Harry Arnold's--nor even to go in there and make a
temperance speech, if necessary. Hurrah for freedom!"
It cannot be supposed that Jim's wife, after her many sad
disappointments, could feel altogether assured that he would stand
by his pledge, although she had more confidence in its power over
him than in anything else, and believed that it was the only thing
that would save him, if he could be saved at all. She was far more
cheerful, however, for her hope was stronger than it had ever been;
and went about her house with a far lighter step than usual.
Towards evening, as the time began to approach for his return, she
proceeded, as she had done on the day before, to make arrangements
for his comfortable reception. The little scene of preparation for
supper, and dressing up the children, was all acted over again, and
with a feeling of stronger confidence. Still, her heart would beat
at times oppressively, as a doubt would steal over her mind.
At last, the sun was just sinking behind a distant hill. It was the
hour to expect him. The children were gathered around her in the
door, and her eyes were afar off, eagerly watching to descry his
well-known form in the distance. As minute after minute passed away,
and the sun at length went down below the horizon, her heart began
to tremble. Still, though she strained her eyes, she could see
nothing of him,--and now the twilight began to fall, dimly around,
throwing upon her oppressed heart a deeper shadow than that which
mantled, like a thin veil, the distant hills and valleys. With a
heavy sigh, she was about returning into the house, when a slight
noise within caused her to turn quickly, and with a start.
"Back again, safe and sound, old girl!" greeted her glad ear, as the
form of her husband caught her eye, coming in at the back door.
"O, Jim!" she exclaimed, her heart bounding with a wild, happy
pulsation. "How glad I am to see you!"
And she flung herself into his arms, giving way, as she did so, to a
gush of joyful tears.
"And I'm glad enough to see you, too, Sally! I've thought about you
and the children all day, and of how much I have wronged you. But
it's all over now. That pledge has done it!" pointing up as he spoke
to his pledge nailed over the mantelpiece. "Since I signed that,
I've not had the first wish to touch the accursed thing that has
ruined me. I'm free, now, Sally! Free to do as I please. And that's
what I havn't been for a long time. As I told Mr. Jones, I don't
care now for all the grog-shops, whiskey-bottles, and Harry Arnolds,
from here to sun-down."
"I told you it was all nonsense, Jim, about signing away your
liberty!" Sally said, smiling through her tears of joy.
"Of course it was. I never was free before. But now I feel as free
as air. I can go in and come out and care no more for the sight of a
grog-shop, than for a hay-stack. I can take care of my wife and
children, and be just as kind to them as I please. And that's what I
couldn't do before. Huzza for the pledge, say I!
"Blister my feathers if ever I drink another drop of Alcohol, or
anything that will make drunk come, sick or well, dead or alive!"
That evening Jim Braddock sat down to a good supper with a smiling
wife, and three children, all cleanly dressed, and looking as happy
as they could be. The husband and father had not felt so light a
heart bounding in his bosom for years. He was free,--and felt that
he was free to act as reason dictated,--to work for and care for his
household treasures.
Nearly a year has passed, and Mr. James Braddock has built himself a
neat little frame house, which is comfortably furnished, and has
attached to it a well-cultivated garden. In his parlour, there
hangs, over the mantelpiece, his original pledge, handsomely framed.
Recently in writing to a friend, he says--
"You will ask, where did I get them?" (his new house, furniture,
&c.) "I'll tell you, boy. These are part payment for my _liberty_,
that I signed away. Didn't I sell it at a bargain? But this is not
all. I've got my shop back again, with a good run of custom--am ten
years younger than I was a year ago--have got the happiest wife and
the smartest boy in all creation--and don't care a snap for anybody!
So now, S. come down here; bring your wife, and all the
_responsibilities_, and I'll tell you the whole story--but I can't
write. _Hurrah for slavery!_ Good bye!