In the toils of slavery

Preface

That the following work is very defective from a literary view point the writer is well aware, but our only aim is to impress the reader with a few of the crimes and some of the suffering caused by the liquor trade, which we consider the most heinous of crimes ever tolerated by an enlightened, God-fearing people.

The incidents herein described have either come under our personal observation or been gleaned from sources supposed to be reliable.

With this brief explanation of our book, we commend it to your careful consideration.

Chapter I

A few years ago, just as a summer’s sun was sinking behind the stately Rockies, two men were standing in front of a saloon in a little town in one of our middle western states while a girl of perhaps twelve years of age was hurrying away as fast as she could walk. One of the men, Paul Rivers by name, was a noble specimen of manhood. Rather above the medium height with broad shoulders and symmetrical figure, his dark hair and beard, slightly streaked with gray, being the only indication of age. Goodness and benevolence were stamped all over his face, while the keen brown eyes were usually kind and sympathetic. Just now, however, they are flashing anger and stern rebuke as their owner addresses the man by his side, Ezekiel McGregor, one of the village saloon keepers, for Rosedale, though only a small place, can boast two saloons.

“I must request you, Mr. McGregor, not to use profanity when speaking to children. It frightens this one exceedingly.”

^‘Let ’em stay ’way then. Who wants ’em whinin’ ’round?” replied McGregor, sullenly, but his shifting, restless eyes refused to meet Mr. Rivers’ searching gaze and he turned and entered his saloon muttering:

“What’s he cornin’ nosin’ ’round here for, I’d like to know? They say the city chaps is afraid of him. Makes ’em shet up Sundays an’ the like. Queer doin’s for a preacher, I must say, an’ he needn’t think to come it over me. I’ve paid good money for license an’ I’m goin’ to sell

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liquor as I please, and’ I’ll have no meddlin’ preachers ’round neither, an’ if the kids don’t want a eussin’ they needn’t come blubberin’ ’round.”

McGregor’s soliloquy was plentifully adorned with forms of emphasis that we regret to say are not all together peculiar to gentlemen of his calling, but as the reader will doubtless find enough else in the perusal of these pages to shock his various senses we refrain from writing them here.

But what a contrast to his visitor is McGregor ; of medium height, but with a form bloated from the use of stimulants, bushy eyebrows that almost meet over greenish gray eyes, and a face that seems already to have received the mark of the beast upon it for thereon are written almost every form of vice. But as McGregor re-entered his saloon hate and fear chased each other over his repulsive visage, for there had been that in Paul Rivers’ manner as he made his carefully worded request that told McGregor he meant to have it respected and despite his bold words McGregor had his share of that fear and dread that always more or less haunts the evildoer.

‘‘Hello, Mack. Look as if you’d seen a ghost,” said a young man who was sitting in the back of McGregor’s saloon at a card table. As McGregor made no reply he continued in a jesting tone :

“I saw the parson pass just now. Didn’t he stop to pay his respects? Ah, yes; I see by your reverent looks he did. Well, why didn’t you ask him in for a social glass and game? I’ll declare. Mack, I’ll begin to believe these ill-natured tales I hear of you bein’ stingy if you don’t do better.” And the young man chuckled with satisfaction at the storm of rage to which he knew McGregor was longing to give way, yet dared not, because he, Jack Winters, was one of his best customers, and a general favorite because of his good humor and freeheartedness.

This last named virtue covered a multitude of sins in the eyes of that portion of McGregor’s customers, who had not always the wherewithal to pay for their indulgence.

“You’re welcome to your own opinion,” retorted Mc- Gregor.

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‘ ‘ Or perhaps he only called to read you a friendly lecture and give you a little advice about running your business now. Jest a few hints on the latest fads and so on. Ah me, this world’s growin’ too good for such as you and I, Mack.”

“You can speak fer yer self,” replied McGregor, resolved not to betray the cause of Paul Rivers’ visit and not relishing the ill-concealed mirth of the three or four men present, he went behind the bar, and preparing himself a liberal glass of liquor, drained it off and resolved to stay where he was until the conversation turned.

“I’ve heard tell that this same Paul Rivers makes it uncommon hot for a certain class of saloon men up town,” remarked one of the men as McGregor disappeared.

“How so?” asked another. “It’s a legal business.”

“Oh, the business is legal enough as for that, but there’s several laws, you know, such as shuttin’ up Sundays, not sellin’ to minors and the like. Nobody bothers much about enforcin’ ’em though, an’ liquor dealers ain’t goin’ to obey ’em unless they have to. But this Paul Rivers, it seems, has took a notion to enforce these laws and has got some o’ the folks up-town stirred up a lot about it. The saloon men. are gettin’ to hate him like pisin’. Make all kinds o’ threats behind his back but are always respectable enough when he’s around. I’ll bet he’s had a dozen of ’em jerked an’ fined this month.”

“An’ what good does it do?” asked Jack. “They don’t care for a fine once in a while, that is most of ’em don’t. Jist pay it and go on same as ever.”

“I know some of ’em don’t care, while others are slick enough or have influence enough with judge or jury to get off Scott free, but all the same they’re gettin’ not so bold. There you’ve won agin. Make it a hundred this time?”

“Just as well I reckon,” said Jack, “but don’t think fer a minit you’ve got the wool over my eyes. I’ve played with too many sharpies not to see into your little game.” For well he knew the professional gambler before him had only allowed him to win the smaller wagers in order to induce him to make larger ones. “So I jist give you fair

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warnin’ this is my last game an’ if you want to quit about even you’d better get down to biz.”

“Oh! You may beat; it’s all luck you know,” replied the gambler.

“No, I don’t know,” said Jack. “But who is this Paul Rivers, and why should he go about molestin’ honest men who only want to make an honest livin’?” This last was said for the benefit of McGregor, who had emerged from behind the bar.

“I don’t know much about him only he’s been to the city olf and on fifteen years preachin’ and doctorin’: they say he’s great at doctorin’, but don’t doctor any body much but poor folks and don’t charge nothin’. Kind of a queer duck I guess, but he ain ’t no special friend o ’ mine. ’ ’

Jack flashed his companion a keen glance.

“Why, I naterly supposed you was the best o’ friends. What’s to pay? Caught you at some o’ your tricks. I’ll bet. There you’ve won of course,” he continued, throwing down the cards. “Come on let’s have a drink, I’m one of Mack’s best friends and can drink money or no money. Here, Mack, two of your very best.”

“Here’s to your health and luck, Mr. Winters,” said the gambler.

“And now I must be gettin’ across to my own shebang. If you’re in town till supper time come around. I can beat the hotel women a cookin’.” And Jack sauntered out and crossed the street to a small house where hung the sign — Jack Winters’ Restaurant — in large letters. Here he had lived six years alone and as far as anyone in Rosedale knew he was entirely alone in the world.

Meanwhile Paul Rivers had overtaken the child and asked, as he kindly took her hand :

“How is your baby sister, Ada?”

“Oh, sir; we think she’s worse and I was trying to find papa, but I can’t.” And a world of grief and misery looked from the large, dark eyes.

“I think he is at home now,” said Mr. Rivers. “I saw him going that way a few moments ago.”

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And Ada hurried on. Poor child! He could not tell her how he had found her father on the street beastly drunk, and only with difficulty had succeeded in getting him to his home. For Paul Rivers better than any one else understood what her sensative nature suffered because of her father’s intemperance.

She was not a pretty child. Small for her age, with a figure slightly stooped ; a sallow complexion and thin, sharp features. That is Ada Everett, the drunkard’s daughter. The only redeeming thing about her was her large, dark eyes from which a troubled and anxious soul seemed always looking out as though amazed at the wickedness it was obliged to witness and wondering why it was so. One could almost read her thoughts in her eyes ere they were expressed in words and doubtless this was what so angered McGregor. He could read in her eyes the horror and disgust she felt for him and his business.

The Everetts had not always lived at Rosedale — for that is the name by which the village is known — nor had Mr. Everett always been a drunkard. Indeed Ada could remember the happy though humble home that had been their ’s less than five years ago. They had lived in a city then some fifty miles from Rosedale, and Mr. Everett had been a prosperous carpenter. To be sure he took an occasional drink with a friend; most men did; he had argued when his wife had remonstrated, and it was nothing. Did she think he would be a drunkard? He was not so weak as that.

Then an enterprising prospector, while searching for gold found, not gold, but coal of an extra fine quality near Rosedale, and that hitherto unpretentions little town straightway started on a “boom.” Carpenters were in great demand and Mr. Everett had persuaded his wife that they could do much better there than in the city, where all occupations were crowded, and Mrs. Everett had consented to the change, partly because her husband’s arguments sounded reasonable, but chiefly because he had recently formed the acquaintance of men whom she feared would prove his ruin unless he could be separated from them.

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They were not bad men from a worldly point of view. Oh, no! They were simply jolly good fellows, who loved a good joke and a good dinner washed down by a good glass of wine or anything else that suited their fancy at the time.

Their place of meeting was at a club, restaurant or some hotel, and occasionally at the home of one of the men. Mrs. Everett never knew how her husband became acquainted with his jolly, and as he insisted, harmless companions; she had never met but one or two of them herself and knew but little of them except that, since her husband’s acquaintance with them, he frequently came home the worse for drink — a think that had never occurred before.

When questioned he would reply that he did not drink any more than the others, but some way it would go to his head. She need not worry. He didn’t want to seem odd by refusing what all the rest took as a matter of course. He would get used to it soon, then it wouldn’t hurt him. Jim Browning said that was the way it served him at first and now he can drink as much as any one and never show it.

‘‘But why get used to it? Why not let it alone?” Mrs. Everett had persisted.

“Oh, because everybody drinks a little. It’s sociable and looks snobbish to refuse, especially one’s friends,” was the reply and Mr. Everett had persisted in his social glass while it with equal persistency kept going to his head.

So matters stood when Mr. Everett proposed moving to Rosedale for reasons given and as before stated Mrs. Everett readily consented, hoping that once her husband was separated from his gay companions he would loose his desire for the social glass.

Accordingly their small but comfortable home was sold and the removal took place at once.

They rented the only place to be had at the time, a small house at the edge of the town.

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There were many such, built by the coal company especially for the miners, but the Everetts were glad to get it until they could look about a bit, as Mr. Everett told his wife, when they would buy a new home with the money they had received for the old.

Mr. Everett at once received all the work he could do, for he was a good carpenter, and carpenters good and bad were in great demand at Rosedale.

But danger, the more dangerous because unsuspected, was lurking near, and one evening as Mr. Everett was going home from work he saw standing in the door of Rosedale’s new saloon, an old friend, and as he drew near he was greeted thus:

“Why Dan Everett, where did you spring from? Look like you’d been at work, too. Don’t live here, do you?”

“Yes; we moved about a month ago, but hanged if I expected to run onto you here,” was the reply, and Mr. Everetl; wiped the sweat from his face, for he had been working and the day was warm.

“Oh, I’ve been here nearly a year now,” said Mr. Bunn, for that was the man’s name. “I came away kind o’ sudden you know and didn’t tell anybody where I was goin’. Fact is I saw such a good opening here for another saloon, I made up my mind to try the business a spell. Yep, this place is mine and I’ll tell you I’m making money. That livery stable ’cross there ’s mine, too. But come in and rest an’ let me give you something to cool you off a mite.”

Daniel Everett entered his friend’s saloon in spite of a dim consciousness that he ought not to do so and accepted the glass of iced liquor offered him, remarking as he returned the empty glass:

“That is good, Bunn, and no mistake. Guess I’ll take another; it’s cooling and this has been the devil of a day.”

“Of course, all right,” said the loquacious Mr. Bunn, as he refilled his glass. “An’ now, Dan, as you’ve jist arrived you can’t know the ins and outs o’ the place as I do. Now there’s two saloons here an’ it’s a wonder there ain’t more, it’s sich a good place; but nobody that is anybody

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goes to McGregor’s. Sich a place as he does keep! Quarrels and fights to beat the devil, in short a good place for peaceable folks to stay away from, I can tell you, and as I keep as good stuff as he does an’ sell it as cheap I get most all the trade; at least the respectable trade. Of course ’tain ’t exactly the kind o ’ business I ’d like for a life time. I don’t aim to stay in it always, but I thought it too good a chance to get a good start to let slip. Good chances don’t fiy around every day.”

Mr. Everett agreed with his friend about “good chances” being scarce, congratulated him on his shrewdness in outwitting his competitor and promised to patronize him whenever he wanted anything in his line, which proved far too often for his own welfare or the happiness of his family. He not only drank but allowed himself to be persuaded into gambling and soon lost all the money received from the sale of his home.

This was a great blow to Mrs. Everett, who was in delicate health, but her husband seemed so penitent that she instantly buried her own disappointment and began to plan to reduce expenses. She might get plain sewing to do. Ada was large enough to help with the work, even Charles and James could do something and baby Dan was almost three years old and not much trouble.

It seemed to her now as she looked back over the last two years of her life that it was almost impossible to crowd so much pain and disappointment into two short years.

When Mr. Everett had work the most of his earnings went to his friend Bunn, but more often he was without work for no one cared to employ a man as unreliable as he had become.

They were obliged to leave the comfortable if small house where they first moved and go to a miserable little hut near the center of the town. It was in plain view of Mr. Bunn’s saloon, though some little distance from it, and here, after about a year’s residence at Rosedale, Mrs. Ever-

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ett ’s fifth child was born — a lovely blue-eyed girl baby, that was named Lilly.

About this time Mr. Everett gave up the carpenter trade entirely and went to work in the mines. There he worked when there was work and spent both his time and money at Mr. Bunn’s when there was not, so that before Mrs. Everett was able to be at work at all, she was obliged to depend almost entirely upon herself for the support of her children, and as the people of Rosedale were, for the most part in yery moderate circumstances, and therefore did most of their work themselves, it was not always easy to get work to do. Then her babe fell ill and she could not give up the work she had secured, the children must have bread, the rent must be paid, so Ada who had cared for it almost entirely so far must do so still while the mother sewed or washed by day, but it was she who watched its restless tossings at night and the work of the day and loss of rest at night was fast breaking her not too strong constitution.

But these troubles were not her worst. If God in His mercy saw fit to take her babe out of misery and want she felt that she could be resigned to His will and if she was obliged to live the life she was now living until death, it would not be long.

It was the welfare of her husband about which she was mostly concerned. If he persisted in leading a dissipated, drunken life where would it end?

Perhaps you have read harrowing tales of the separation of negro families in the days of slavery. Yet if the negro woman’s master sold her husband away where she might not hope to see him again in this life she could still have the hope of meeting him in the great beyond, where there are no slaves, masters or partings.

But the wife of the slave to strong drink can have no such hope. If she believes her Bible she knows if her husbands lives and dies a drunkard he is lost forever.

Then, too, Mrs. Everett’s children were a source of anxiety. Perhaps in spite of all she could do her boys would

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follow their father’s example. She had hoped to be able to teach them that what their father did was right and to point them to him for their example. She had kept from them as long as possible the knowledge of his weakness for liquor, and only when she could no longer do so, did she undertake the difficult and humiliating task of teaching them that they must in no wise follow in their father’s footsteps.

Ada, she felt, was safe; for during a series of meetings held by Mr. Rivers the winter before she had given her heart to Christ and became a member of the struggling little church, where he occasionally preached, and since then Paul Rivers had evinced a strong interest in her and called whenever he came to Rosedale, which was not often, for his time was almost all spent in the city as before mentioned.

He had on several occasions spoken to Mr. Everett of the dangerous life he was leading and tried to persuade him to give it up, but with no visible effect.

Mr. Everett would listen respectfully to what Mr. Rivers had to say, acknowledge he was not living right, perhaps stay away from Bunn’s a day or two, and then go on as before.

He really tried some times to quit drinking. He knew his family needed all his earnings and when he was sober his conscience was never at rest. His wife ’s careworn face ; Ada’s appealing eyes and his two sons who, in their childish innocence, thought their father perfection and strove to imitate him in all they did, and lately the wasted form of his baby daughter — all were silent but powerful accusers— and he often told himself he would quit, but was sure to meet with too great a temptation sometimes in the shape of a generous friend ( ?), but more often it was simply his own craving for drink that led him on.

He had been drinking as already stated when Mr. Rivers found him and persuaded him to go to his home. He was lying on a lounge in a heavy sleep when Ada entered.

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Mrs. Everett, who had been growing anxious about Ada since her husband had returned alone, was pacing the floor with the sick child in her arms, pausing occasionally to look down the fast darkening street and when she at last appeared she said almost impatiently:

“Well, child, you’re here at last. I was on the point of starting for you. You know I hate having you out by yourself so late. And you’ve been frightened, too. What was it?” Noticing for the first time her daughter’s pale face and dilating eyes.

“Not the dark, mamma,” was the reply. “But when I didn’t find papa at Mr. Bunn’s, I came past Mr. McGregor’s, and, oh, he is such a wicked man and talked so dreadful to me ”

“You didn’t go in there, Ada,” interrupted the mother.

“Oh, no! I wouldn’t, even at Mr. Bunn’s. It scares me just to stop at the door or even to pass by; I always want to run. I know they wouldn’t really hurt me, but I can’t help it.” And the still trembling child sank on a stool at her mother’s feet.

“You must never go to either place again, come what will,” said the mother, firmly. “I oughn’t ’ve allowed it at all, but I didn’t just see my way clear before and I think I know how you feel about saloons. I have the same feeling myself. It is something like the feeling one would experience if he stood at the mouth of the bottomless pit, Mr. Rivers preached of the other Sunday.”

Ada grew white again as her mother spoke.

“But what of papa, mamma? What will become of him?” she asked in an agonized whisper.

Mrs. Everett sighed. How could she teach her children the full horror of sin and still teach them to love and respect their father? and how teach them the certainty of its punishment without showing them his danger?

“Let us hope, Ada, that your papa will not always live as he does now, I have known men to repent and become good Christians after being drunkards for many years. We

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can only hope and trust and now if you are rested a little I will see to supper while you sit by Lilly. ’ ’

“Do you think she’s any better, mamma?” asked Ada, turning her attention to the little wasted form in the crib.

“I can’t tell yet. She isn’t suffering like she was, but it is the medicine, I think. We can tell better when she ’wakes. ’ ’

A week passed and there was still no change for the better in the sick child. And Daniel Everett had not touched liquor all week. Perhaps his love for his child had been stirred by the probability of losing her, or there had awakened within him a desire to throw off the chains of vice and be the man he once was. Anyway he had walked resolutely by Mr. Bunn’s saloon every morning and night, for a week, without stopping.

Be it known when Mr. Bunn went into business he went into it in a businesslike way as every one should who expects to succeed. He had built his saloon near the edge of the town next the mines, for if the miners had to pass by the saloon going to and from their work they would be more apt to stop and take a drink than if they did not. Shrewd man, Mr. Bunn. But why not? Is his business not lawful? Then has he not a right to use every means in his power to increase it and make money by it?

“Mamma, do you think little sister will die?” asked Ada one morning as her mother was beginning a washing that must be done that day for one of her employers. Ada herself was clearing away the dishes and occasionally tip toeing to the adjoining room where the sick child lay sleeping.

Mrs. Everett finished rubbing the garment she had in her hands and wrung it out before replying.

‘ ‘ God only knows, Ada, but surely we can trust him to do what is best and if he sees fit to take her home a little before us we must try not to grieve for her, but be thankful she will never know want, or poverty.”

“You think she’ll die. Oh, mamma — ” And throwing herself in a chair Ada sobbed bitterly. The tears stood in the mother’s eyes, too, but she forced them back. She had

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no time for grief. At least it must not interfere with her work. She paused a moment, however, beside her sobbing daughter and gently stroking her hair said :

“It’s only natural, Ada, for you to grieve so. You’ve been almost more her mother than I have, but let us not grieve so for her. God knows best. He only takes our dear ones that we may learn to care more for heavenly things and less for things of this earth.”

“I know, I know,” sobbed Ada. “But how can I live without her ? She ’s all the little sister I ’ve got. ’ ’

“God will give us strength to bear even greater burdens than this, if we trust him,” was the reply, and with a few more comforting words, the mother returned to her work.

She knew her child must die and she loved it just as much as you. Madam, loved that darling child that you sat by day and night or held close in your arms as though by your own strength and watchfulness you would hold back the grim monster.

And Mrs. Everett, too, would have loved to sit by her babe as it slept and held it in her arms when it waked. It could be with her such a short time. If she might only feast her eyes upon it while it was here. But such a luxury was not for such as she. She must think of her living children as well as the dying one. If she gave way to grief, where would her children look for bread !

Ada hushed her sobbing presently and finished her work. She, too, was early learning to grieve in silence. After calling her little brothers from their play, long enough to wash them and brush their hair, she seated herself beside her baby sister and watched the little wasted form as it occasionally moved or moaned in its sleep. The child waked before the mother’s work was done and began to fret. Ada took it tenderly in her arms and walked softly up and down the room, now humming a soothing tune and now pausing to look anxiously into the child’s pain drawn face, until at last the mother’s work was .finished and she could care for her child herself.

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Ada prepared their scanty dinner, but neither mother nor daughter could eat. The mother, almost exhausted by her morning’s work, took her baby, and seated herself in a low rocker by the window, but as the child continued to fret and moan, she would arise and pace wearily around the room, sinking again into her chair, only when she felt she could not take another step.

So the afternoon passed. The physician came and went but he could do nothing now, except leave powders to lessen the suffering, and in an hour or so the child grew quiet and seemed to sleep.