"Not a bit of it. Some of the preliminaries, such as the prayers and hymns, will be over, but you"ll be in time fer the fun; they"ll be in no hurry."
"Good. I"ll go. Take care of my gear, will you, till I come back."
With this Pritchen left the saloon and made his way over to the Indian village.
CHAPTER XIV
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
The debate was well advanced when Pritchen entered the building. The rough benches were all filled, so he stood with his back to the door among several who were in a similar situation. The chairman of the meeting, Caribou Sol, was sitting at the farther end of the room before a small table. At his left sat Keith, by the side of the mission harmonium, which had been brought over from the church for this special occasion. A portion of the room behind the chairman was hidden by a bright coloured curtain. This was a source of wonder to the audience, and aroused in their minds various conjectures.
"That"s where they keep the goat," said one talkative fellow. "Don"t you see his horns?"
"No, but I hear him blat outside," replied another, at which a general laugh ensued.
"But really," continued the other, undisturbed by the merriment at his expense, "there _is_ something behind that curtain. Joe, the kid, knows all about it, but he"s as tight as a clam. He said the parson put it up at the last moment like greased lightning."
"Maybe he keeps his thunder there," laughed another. "I understand he"s dead set against whiskey, and has some hot bolts to hand out to-night. But say, here he comes, looking mighty pleased about something."
At first the debate was conducted in a formal and orderly manner. The leaders in carefully prepared speeches opened up the subject, and received hearty applause. Gradually the men thawed out, the speaking became general, and in some cases regular harangues ensued, punctured by witty remarks from the listeners.
One of these had the floor when Pritchen arrived. He had been talking for some time about the evils of whiskey and the misery it caused to so many people.
"Think of the homes it has ruined," he was saying; "the young lives it has blighted; the prisons it is filling; the----"
"What about the snakes, Mickie?" came a voice from the audience.
"Sure, you"re right there. I don"t intind to leave the snakes out.
And say, Dave Groggan, did yer grandfather ever tell ye where the sarpents wint to whin Saint Patrick drove thim out of ould Ireland?"
"Into the sea, of course."
"Ay, ay; into the sea, sure enough, the sea of Irish and all ither kinds of whiskey."
"Did ye ever see them, Mickey?"
"See thim? Haven"t I seen thim, and if you drink enough of the stuff ye"ll see thim too."
The laugh which followed this remark was silenced by the chairman rising to his feet. He rose slowly, and stood for a time with his hands upon the table. He was a man to be noticed in any company, with his tall, gigantic figure, thin gray hair, and long white beard. His faded eyes looked calmly over the heads of the men before him while waiting for the noise to subside.
"B"ys," he began, "I ain"t used to makin" speeches, but I must say a few words to-night. Ye"ve talked about the miseries of war an"
whiskey. Ye"ve brought forth facts an" figures a-plenty, but ye don"t seem to be in earnest."
"What are ye giving us, Sol?" spoke up one.
"Ye may think what ye like, but if you"d been through the furnace as I have ye"d not make so many jokes about whiskey. Ye"d speak from yer hearts, an" then ye"d be in earnest, never fear. Look at me, b"ys, the oldest man here, an" when I heered one young chap boast that to drink moderately was no harm, I trembled fer "im. I thought so too once, an"
I said so to Annie, my wife, G.o.d bless her. I can"t make a long speech in eloquent words, but I jist want to show yez a page from an old man"s life."
"What, a sermon?" asked one of Pritchen"s gang, who was getting restless and anxious for something exciting to happen.
"Mebbe a few sarmons wouldn"t hurt ye," and Sol fixed his eye sternly upon the young man.
"As I was a-sayin"," he continued, "I want to tell yez somethin". When I was fust married me an" Annie were as happy as any couple in--oh, well, ye"d better not know whar. We had a fine farm, snug house, and good-sized barns, with kind neighbours a-plenty. By the time our two little uns were born we had laid by a neat sum of money.
""It"s fer Danny an" Chrissie, to eddicate "em," says Annie. An" oh, b"ys, I remember the last time she laid any away. I had come back from town, whar I had sold my load of produce, an" I handed her what money I had. She looked at it an" then at me kinder scared like.
""Sol," says she, "is this all? An" what"s the matter with ye? Ye"ve been drinkin"!"
""Only a few drops with the b"ys, Annie," says I, but I didn"t tell her it had been a-goin" on fer some time.
""Don"t ye do it any more, Sol," says she. "Remember the little uns, an""--then her voice kinder quavered, "the habit may grow upon ye."
"I laughed at her--yes, I laughed then, but oh, G.o.d, b"ys!" and the old man leaned over the table with a look of agony in his face, "I ain"t laughed since! Would any of yez laugh if ye"d left a wife like Annie, an" such sweet wee uns fer the devil whiskey? If it had lost ye yer farm, home, respect of all, and drove ye away a drunken sot?
"After a while a bit of my manhood returned. I swore I would make good agin, an" with that resolve I worked in a lumber camp. With feverish energy I swung the axe an" handled the peevie till my name was known fer miles around. My wages I did not spend, as did most of the men, in gamblin" an" drinkin", an" at last I went to town to send the money to my wife. Then, may G.o.d forgive me, I fell. But what could I do, with rum shops starin" at me from every corner, d.o.g.g.i.n" my very steps, allus allurin" me, an" the men coaxin" me on all sides?"
"I"ll take jist one gla.s.s," says I, "an" no more.
"But that was enough, an" when I sobered up my money was all gone."
"And brains too," jeered some one from the back of the room.
"Ah, yer wrong there," calmly replied Sol. "I didn"t have any to lose or I wouldn"t have acted the way I did.
"I fled from the place. I wandered, ever wandered, G.o.d knows whar. I struck minin" camps, worked like a slave, an" spent my wages to satisfy the devil within me. But once I let up. A young chap, the parson of Big Glen, reached out a hand an" gave me a lift. He stuck to me through thick an" thin. He made me feel I was a man, till down I went agin, an" I ain"t seen "im since.
"One day, after a drunken spree, an old paper from my own town somehow drifted into my hands. Here is a piece of it. Look," and Sol held up a small note book, with a clipping pasted on the inside. "See the headin":
"Died in the Poor House!"
"It was my Annie! the trimmest la.s.s an" best wife a man ever had. An"
what did it, b"ys? I ask yez that. What did it? Whiskey, that"s what did it, an" ye"ll joke about it, an" say it doesn"t hurt to take a drop now an" then."
"He"s a weak fool who can"t," spoke up Pritchen. He was not satisfied at the silence which followed when Sol finished, and the impression he had made upon the men.
"Weak fool! Weak fool, did ye say?" returned Sol. "But mebbe yer right when I come to think of it. An" I guess thar are many more of us who are weak fools, too, fer what do we do? Walk right into a saloon an" see writin" there plainer than on the walls of Bill Shazzar"s palace, which doesn"t need a Dann"l to tell its meanin", either."
"I never saw any writing on saloons," sneered Pritchen. "You"ve had the D. T."s, old man, that was the trouble with you. What you thought was writing was nothing but snakes."
"Ye see, b"ys," continued Sol, ignoring Pritchen"s thrust, "the words, "Homes Ruined Here," "Disease, Insanity, an" Murder Found Here," "This Way to the Poor House an" the Grave." That"s what we see, an" yit we walk right in an" buy with them words a-starin" us in the face."
"You"re a d-- fool and a liar," shouted Pritchen, at which his men set up a roar, delighted to know that something was about to happen.
Caribou Sol started; the colour fled from his face, and with one bound he leaped forward, scrambled over the seats, and confronted the man who had dared to use such insulting words.
"Take "em back!" he cried. "Take back them words, or by heavens I"ll pin ye to the wall!"