Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) 📖

paid considerable attention to Dorothy, too, but Miss Meechim said that she didn’t worry about Dorothy at all since I would chaperone her, and Robert wuz going to protect her from any possible lover. Sez Miss Meechim:

“Robert knows that I would almost rather have that volcano burst forth its burning lava and wash her away on its bosom than to have her engulfed in that terrible state of matrimony from which I and mine have suffered so horribly.”

“Well,” sez I, “I can’t speak for you and yourn, but for me and ourn,” sez I, “no state under the heavens would be agreeable for me to live in if my beloved pardner wuzn’t in it too.”

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“Oh, well,” sez she, “exceptions prove the rule; your husband is congenial and good to you.”

“Oh, well,” sez I, “as to the daily acts and queer moves of pardners the least said the soonest mended, but Love is the great ruler; where he rules any state is blest, be it torrid or frigid.”

That evenin’ Arvilly and Elder Wessel had a argument about votin’ and other things. I knew I ort to be in my room packin’ my satchel bag, for we expected to be gone a week or ten days, but I did kinder want to hear how their talk come out. He said he didn’t vote; he said he thought it wuz a clergyman’s duty to set and judge of the right and wrong of actions, not take part in ’em.

And Arvilly says, “I always spozed the Almighty did that; I didn’t know as human men wuz obleeged to. I know he cursed them that dealt in strong drink, and blest them that gin even a cup of cold water to the little ones, which I spoze meant help to the poorest and lowest. And I guess that whatever your idees are about it, when you come to the judgment day you won’t set up there on the throne judgin’, but you’ll be down with the rest on us givin’ an account of how you’ve used your talents, your influence, and if you’ve wropped your mantilly of protection around thieves and murderers that you know the whiskey trade is made of; you’ll find that it will drop off there, and you will be judged accordin’ to your works. But mebby you’ll be made to see before you git there that you’re in the wrong on’t upholdin’ this evil.”

Arvilly’s axent wuz as sharp as any simeter, and it seemed to go right through Elder Wessel’s robe of complacency and self-esteem and rend it. He looked dretful bad, and I spoke up, meanin’ to pour a little ile on his woonds, and sayin’ what I thought, too. Sez I:

“Folks hain’t so guilty often as they are thoughtless; ministers and church people who don’t use their influence aginst this evil don’t realize what they’re doin’––they don’t think.”

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“They’re guilty if they don’t think,” sez Arvilly, “if they are blest with common sense. If I wuz walkin’ by a deep pond in broad daylight, and see a dozen little children sinking that I might save by a little effort, I wonder how many would believe me when I said that I see ’em drowndin’ but didn’t try to save ’em because I didn’t think. If I had ears and eyes and common sense, and could save ’em and didn’t, I wuz guilty of murder, and so the Lord would look at it and everybody else that knew anything.” And she looked at me some as if I didn’t know anything, jest because I intimated that ministers and church members didn’t want to do such wickedness, but didn’t think––Arvilly is hash. But I had to admit that she had some common sense on her side. Sez she agin:

“The Church of Christ could do anything it wanted to if it jined its forces, took holt as if it meant to do sunthin’, but as it is indifference folds its hands, self interest murders humanity, greed upholds intemperance, and all about us in Church and State are drink makers and drink takers, and heaven knows which of ’em will git to hell first!” Arvilly is dretful hash; when she gits rousted up her indignation is like lightnin’, and she don’t care where it strikes or who. It struck Elder Wessel hard.

“I should be afraid!” sez he, and his voice fairly trembled with indignation, “I should be afraid to talk of the Church of Christ as you do!”

“Let it behave itself then!” sez Arvilly, “be converted and come out on the Lord’s side to the help of the weak aginst the mighty!”

“The saloon,” sez Elder Wessel dogmatically, “is the Poor Man’s Club.” He wuz all rousted up by her hash talk and come out plainer than he had come. “The rich man has his club, and the saloon is the Poor Man’s Club. He has a right to go there for a little recreation.”

“Re-creation!” sez Arvilly. “If you think drinkin’ pizen whiskey is re-creatin’ a man, you’re different from me.”

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“And me, too,” sez I. “If you call it re-creatin’ to go to the Poor Man’s Club sober and sane,” sez Arvilly, “and stagger home at midnight crazy drunk, I say he hain’t no right to re-create himself that way; he re-creates himself from a good man and worthy member of society into a fiend, a burden and terror to his family and community. Now Elder White’s idee of re-creatin’ men is different; he believes in takin’ bad men and re-creatin’ ’em into good ones, and I wish that every minister on earth would go and do likewise.”

“I know nothin’ about Elder White,” sez Elder Wessel hautily.

“He’s our minister in Loontown,” sez Arvilly. “He has his church open every night in the week for re-creatin’ in the right way.”

“I don’t approve of that,” sez Elder Wessel. “The church of the Most High is too sacred to use for such purposes.”

“A minister said that once to Elder White,” sez Arvilly, “and he answered ’em with that warm meller smile of hisen, ‘Where are my boys and girls more welcome and safe than at home, and this is their Father’s house,’” sez he.

“Using that holy place for recreation is very wrong,” sez Elder Wessel.

Sez Arvilly, “I told you that he used it to re-create anew to goodness and strength. He has music, good books, innocent games of all kinds, bright light, warmth, cheerful society, good lectures, and an atmosphere of good helpful influences surroundin’ ’em, and he has sandwiches and coffee served in what wuz the pastor’s study, and which he uses now, Heaven knows, to study the big problem how a minister of the Most High can do the most good to his people.”

“Coffee,” sez Elder Wessel, “is all right in its place, but the common workman hankers after something stronger; he wants his beer or toddy, the glass that makes him forget his trouble for a time, and lifts him into another world.”

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“Well, I spoze the opium eater and cocaine fiend hanker after the fool paradise these drugs take ’em into, but that’s no sign that they ort to destroy themselves with ’em.”

“Coffee, too, is deleterious,” sez Elder Wessel. “Some say that it is worse than whiskey.”

I spoke up then; I am a good coffee maker, everybody admits, and I couldn’t bear to hear Ernest White talked aginst, and I sez: “I never hearn of a workman drinkin’ so much coffee that he wuz a danger to his family and the community, or so carried away with it that he spent his hull wages on it. Such talk is foolish and only meant to blind the eyes of justice and common sense. Elder White’s Mutual Help Club, as he calls it, for he makes these folks think they help him, and mebby they do, is doin’ sights of good, sights of it. Young folks who wuz well started towards the drunkard’s path have been turned right round by it, and they save their wages and look like different men since they have left the Poor Man’s Club, as you call it, and patronize hisen.”

“And Elder White has showed,” sez Arvilly, “by his example just what the Church of Christ could do if it wanted to, to save men from the evil of this present time and git ’em headed towards the Celestial City.”

“Oh!” sez Elder Wessel, “I would no more use the church dedicated to the Most High in the way you speak of than I would use the communion cup to pass water in.”

“If a man wuz dyin’ of thirst, and that cup could be used to save him, don’t you spoze the Lord would want it used for that, Elder Wessel?” sez Arvilly.

“Oh, no! oh, no!” sez he: “give not that which is holy unto dogs; cast not your pearls before swine.”

“That is jest what I have been preachin’ to you,” sez Arvilly. “Give not that which is holy, the best nater, and goodness of boys and men to the dogs, the brutes that lay in wait for ’em in whiskey laws. The God in man is murdered 120 every ’lection day by professors of religion and ministers.”

“Why––whyee,” sez Elder Wessel, sinkin’ back in his chair.

“Yes,” sez the dantless Arvilly, “I mean jest what I say; them that refuse to vote and help in the matter are jest as guilty as license voters; they are consentin’ to the crucifixion of Christ in man. And the poor drunkards are not the only ones they help nail to the cross. The innocent life and happiness of wimmen and children these wicked laws lift up on the cross of agony, and their hearts’ blood cries to heaven for judgment on them that might have helped ’em and would not. The Church of Christ is responsible for this crime,” sez Arvilly, “for there is not an evil on earth that could stand before the combined strength of a united church.”

Sez Elder Wessel, gittin’ back considerable dignity (her hash talk madded him awfully), sez he, “I simply see things in another light from what you do.”

“He that is not for me is against me,” sez Arvilly.

Sez the Elder in a dogmatic axent, real doggy it wuz, “I say again, the saloon is the Poor Man’s Club.”

And I sez dreamily, “Talkin’ of a club as a club, a club in the hands of a drunken man, strikin’ at and destroyin’ all the safety and happiness of a home, yes,” sez I, “it is such a club.”

“Yes,” sez Arvilly, “if poundin’ his wife to jelly, and his children to deformity and death, is a Poor Man’s Club, the saloon is one.”

Sez he agin, “Rich men have their clubs to which they may go, and drink all they choose––carouse, do as they please, and why not poor men, too?” he added.

And I sez, “Grantin’ that rich men do drink and carouse at their clubs, as I don’t know whether they do or not, two wrongs never made one right, and the liquor couldn’t hurt ’em so much, for they can buy it pure, and the poor man’s 121 drink is pizen by adulteration, makin’ a more dangerous drunk, ruinin’ their health and makin’ ’em spilin’ for fights and bloodshed. The rich man can stay all night at his club, or if he goes home the decorous butler or vally can tend to him and protect his family if need be; he won’t stagger in at midnight to a comfortless room, where his wife and little ones are herded in cold and starvation and are alone and at his mercy, and the rich man’s carouse at his club won’t keep his wife and children hungry for a week.”

Bein’ driv out of that position Elder Wessel tried a new tact: “The poor man has just as much right to the social enjoyment they git out of their saloon as you have, madam, to your afternoon teas and church socials.”

“What hinders the poor man from ’tendin’ socials?” sez Arvilly, spiritedly. “They are always bein’ teased to, and anyway I never knew tea to make anybody crazy drunk.”

“The poor man,” sez Elder Wessel in his most dictorial way, all of Arvilly’s talk havin’ slipped offen him like rain water offen a brass horn, “the poor man, after he has worked hard all day, and has nothing to go home to but a room full of cryin’ children, discomfort, squalor and a complaining wife, is justified in my opinion to go to the only bright, happy place he knows of, the saloon.”

But I sez, bein’ such a case for justice, “How is it with the wife who has worked hard all day in the home of discomfort and squalor, her work being rendered ten times harder and more nerve destroying than her husband’s by the care of the cryin’ children, how would it be for them, who are equally responsible for the marriage and the children, to take holt