"Good," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the judge.
"Good?" echoed Jean. "Wait, I have not finished yet. I went there several times. I liked to go. It made me happy to see the look that was coming into the woman"s eyes. She took two half-dollar pieces from under the pillow one morning, and proudly displayed them, telling me it was the first time in a year her husband had given her so much. She said she had hoped in vain, so many times, for him to reform that she had given up hope, but that now she really believed poor Maggie"s misfortune would prove their blessing. They have not always been poor. Once, when they were younger, they owned a nice home and the husband occupied a good position. But he chose for his a.s.sociates men who spent a good part of their time in a certain fashionable downtown saloon, and to be social he drank with them. He was not a man who could drink a great deal and not become intoxicated, so, when he began to lie around drunk, they pushed him out.
"Mrs. Crowley says the starting point of all their poverty and sorrow and shame was on the threshold of the respectable gilt and gla.s.s palace that bears over its doors the names of Allison, Russell & Joy. She knows the place well. I think those gentlemen would not be pleased to hear the things she says of them; for certain it is her husband would never have been a drunkard if it had been necessary for him to have learned the habit in a low grog shop."
Jean paused a second and looked at her father, but he seemed unaware of her gaze, and she continued:
"Then I went in to-day to tell them that Maggie would be home in a few days, and I found a change. The girl Cora was on the bed with her mother. The blankets and sheets had disappeared. The few pieces of furniture that the room contained were scattered in disorder. I will try to tell the rest of the story as Mrs. Crowley told it to me. I will never forget, father, the helpless despair that sounded in her voice and manner as she talked.
""Ah, Miss Thorn!" she said, wearily, "It"s all over--all gone. I should have known better than to have hoped again; but hope is so sweet!
Yesterday morning my husband seemed more like himself than he has for years. He kissed us when he went away and promised to be home early. We were all very happy. He is such a kind, good man when he is himself. Oh!
if only he had never crossed the threshold of that gilded trap of h.e.l.l.
Those men"s names burn in my mind. I wonder if such men as Allison, Russell and Joy have hearts.
""Cora fixed supper, and then we waited. He did not come; but I felt so sure some way that he would that I was not uneasy. The children finally had to eat alone. About 9 o"clock he came. Dear Miss Thorn, if you have never seen a raving, frenzied man, pray G.o.d you never may. This was the way he came home. He had had just enough of liquor to fire up a gnawing, burning pain and not enough to satisfy him. He came directly to the bed and demanded the money he had given me in the morning. I told him it was gone. He swore an oath, and asked me where. I told him Johnnie had spent it for food. He swore another awful oath, and took up a stick of wood, with which he began to beat the boy.
""When you are a mother you can better imagine than I can describe how I felt, lying helpless in bed, and seeing a man, my own husband, so cruelly beating my innocent child. Cora, poor Cora, went bravely to her brother"s rescue, and her father, G.o.d forgive him, beat her until the blood came from his blows, and she fell to the floor, and then he kicked her.
""I could stand this no longer. I sprang from the bed, but I was weak. I could do nothing, and he, the man who promised before G.o.d to protect me, kicked me, too. It seemed to me then that his boot-toe pierced my heart.
Johnnie ran out to call some one in, but before he returned my husband had taken the blankets and other things that he could p.a.w.n and had gone.
""Perhaps you think it strange for me to tell these things to you, but my heart is bursting and my brain is on fire with such misery that I must talk. Come and see what a man can do when crazed with rum--a good father when he is himself--and in a Christian country! Where are the preachers and the people who call themselves G.o.d"s people, that they do not drive away forever the cause of all this?"
"I looked at the girl Cora; and I wish, father, that she might be put on exhibition in some public show window downtown, conspicuously labeled, "A specimen of the work done by a father when under the effects of Christian America"s legal poison."
"She was literally covered with wounds and her legs were so swollen she could not walk.
"Now, father, get out your list of political parties, examine the candidates, and put me where I belong. This is a question that must come into politics, as all reforms come through the ballot-box, and I must give my influence to that political party or power making this a clear-cut issue. I am an Abolitionist."
"A what?"
"An Abolitionist."
"How is that?"
"Simply enough: I stand for the everlasting abolition of the liquor traffic. It is quite the proper thing for the daughter of a Republican to be an Abolitionist."
Judge Thorn laughed.
"You put your case plain enough," he said. "There is small room to doubt how you stand, but I think that you will see that abolition in this case would be impracticable. You know, my girl, in these days a half-loaf is better than no bread. Political parties, like the gra.s.s of the field, sprout up and die away. There are but two real parties. The fight on leading issues is between them. All that is necessary for you to do is to read the platforms of these two parties and make your choice.
Listen!"
He took down a political almanac from one of the library shelves.
"We are opposed," he read "to all sumptuary laws as an interference with the individual rights of the citizen."
Jean sat rocking slowly, with her hands clasped behind her head. As her father read her forehead wrinkled. After he had finished, she waited as if expecting something more, then said:
"Is that all?"
"That is all."
"Then it occurs to me, if I can understand plain English, that this party proposes to do nothing to stop the terrible drink curse. Bring on another. That is not my party."
Judge Thorn read again, and this time with an air of profound satisfaction:
"The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people and the purity of the home."
Jean"s face lit up, and she looked eagerly toward her father.
"We cordially sympathize," read on the judge, "with all wise and well-directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality."
Jean sat looking into the fire. Her father waited a few seconds, then she turned her face to him.
"And what do they propose to do?"
"Do?"
"Yes, DO! The cordial sympathy of the whole Republican party does not make Mrs. Crowley any happier nor take any of the soreness out of Cora"s body, nor do anything toward curing poor Maggie; and I cannot see how "cordial sympathy" is going to shut up any saloons or keep Mr.
Crowley from getting drunk again. So far, so good, but read on. I am anxious to learn what this party proposes to DO to promote "temperance and morality.""
"That is all the platform contains on the subject," said Judge Thorn.
"Individuals are left to their own judgment as to the best methods to be used in the restriction of the evil, although the policy of the party is well known."
"It is?"
"High license."
"Does high license promote temperance and morality?"
"Certainly: high license closes a great many saloons entirely, and puts the business in the hands of men who run respectable places."
"Respectable places!" quoted Jean, thoughtfully.
The judge looked at the fire in silence.
"And, father," persisted the earnest girl, "do statistics prove that fewer licenses are issued in cities where high license laws are in effect and that there is a decrease in crime and poverty?"
"To be sure. It must be so, for Republicans, as a rule, are the temperance people and, as a rule, they indorse high license. But you have heard the reading, "All wise and well-directed _efforts_," one is at liberty to subst.i.tute no license by local option, or any other restrictive measure he deems wise."
"Is there room on this broad platform for any liquor dealers?"
"Quite a number; and here again may be seen the higher moral tone of the party, for nine times out of ten it is the better cla.s.s of dealers who are allied with it."
Jean leaned back in her chair and rocked. As she mused she rocked more and more slowly, and when she stopped abruptly her father knew the verdict was ready.
"Well, father, this much is settled: I do not believe in high license.
In the first place, I think it dishonest to let the rich man, who can afford to do so, pay for the privilege of making more money and shut out the poor man, who is trying to earn a living, because he is not already rich. In the second place, it occurs to my mind, more so after knowing Mrs. Crowley, that if license laws could be so arranged as to wipe out the "respectable" places, the low ones would soon follow. Public sentiment would not tolerate them, and if it did, the coming generation would not be lured to destruction by glitter and music.