The McAllisters

Front matter

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MEPDE

PZ 7 . R412 Mac

Chapter I. The Home Of The Drunkard

’M mad enough to fight.

Wouldn’t I just like to knock him, though !” The little red fists were doubled up defiantly, and the dirty, tear-stained face was purple with passion.

‘“Why, Jemmy,” said Maggie sorrowfully, “ it was only last Sunday mother learned us that verse, ‘ Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and ha,ve you forgotten it so soon?”

“ But he struck her, Maggie — struck our

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good mother, and he mustn’t do it ag’in, that’s all! What d yer s’pose Charley and Kate’ll say to that? They won’t preach any more about my bein’ patient, I’ll bet!”

“He didn’t strike her, Jemmy?”

“ But he did, though ! And what for ? Why, ’cos she went to prayer-meetin’, last night, and prayed. Hain’t she a right to pray if she wants to, I should like to know ? Oh ! but he mustn’t strike my mother ag’in.”

“ No, Jemmy, I guess not, if we can help it ; but he’s awful to-night. Where’d he get his whiskey, I wonder ?”

“He hain’t had no whiskey. He’s drunk on cider. He’s been to work over to Square Brown’s, and he alius gives his men cider. I’d like to tell him just what I think of him ! There, now, hear him.”

The fragment of a drunken song, interspersed with oaths and crashing earthenware, was heard, and then the door opened, and two little children crept out, and ran crying to sister Maggie, and hid their faces in the folds of her faded calico dress.

“ Don’t cry, Nelly. Come, Johnny, be a man. Jemmy, take care of these children, will you? I must go in to mother.”

John McAllister was swaggering around the room in a drunken fashion, now and then kicking aside the fragments of broken dishes which he had dashed upon the floor. Mrs. McAllister sat cr}dng in the corner, a purple ridge, where he had struck her, seaming her fair white forehead. The hurt on her heart was deeper still ; for, amid all his brutality, this was the first time he had fallen so low as to strike her. She rose, and turned

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her head as if trying to hide the ugly mark, when brave little Maggie came in.

Maggie was very pale, but a resolute light shone from her clear gray eyes as she confronted the drunken brute she blushed to call father. She was a pleasant-faced young girl, short and thick-set, with a profusion of short reddish-brown curls, and a ruddy complexion, which was pale enough now.

“ What does this all mean?” she said, looking at the broken fragments lying about. “ What has happened ?”

“ I've happened to smash a few dishes, and I’ll break some more, ef she don’t travel around and git me a cup o’ tea when I tell her. Come, old ’ooman, step lively, or Fll sling some more o’ yer best chany up the chimbly !”

“ No you won’t, father,” said the girl, planting herself resoluteiy in his way as he staggered toward the table.

“ Who’s a better right, I sh’d like ter know, gal ? Guess I’ll smash my own dishes, ef I’m a mind ter.”

He slid into a chair as he said this, and looked up with bleared eyes into the bright, resolute young face before him.

“ They are not your dishes, father. Mother bought them with her own hard earnings. You will not break another one . And what ails mother, can you tell me?”

. “Wal, I struck her, I s’pose, the mean, snivellin’ Methodist ! She up and prayed, last night, in the prayer-meetin’, when I’d told her a’gin and ag’in I wouldn’t have none o’ her pesky religion nowhere round. I’ve bin bilin’ over all day about it. She’ll never stop to argy with me when I preach,

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‘ Wives, submit yerselves to yer husbands/ only she goes on and does jest as she’s a mind ter, and she’s got to stop” And he stamped his old boot down on the clean sanded floor, as if that was the end of the matter.

“ Look here, father McAllister,” said Maggie, pointing her finger steadily at him, and speaking slowly and distinctly, “you a man, and stoop to strike a woman, and that woman my own blessed mother — for shame /”

She was a picture standing there, every feature quivering with indignation, and her clear eyes flashing. And the half-sobered man must have thought so, for he gazed silently at her a moment, and then, calling back the old bravado, he yelled out, “ Hoitytoity, gal ! yer a purty one, now — mother’s gal, ain’t ye? Ain’t yer ashamed o’ yerself, now, sarcing yer own father up in that way ?”

“ I am ashamed of my father ,” said Maggie ; “ but remember, now : don’t you never strike mother again, never.”

There are some natures to whom gentle, yielding obedience is only the signal or provocative of fresh abuse and insult, and they are not rare, especially among drunkards.

We are dealing with facts, not fancies. If we were drawing a picture from imagination, our young heroine, Maggie McAllister, might be portrayed as a model of gentleness, and docility, and reverence ; but she is a living woman to-day, and we picture her as she is, and simply record the fact, that all through her girlish years, instead of enjoying the innocent pleasures of youth and

The Me A l listers revelling in the light of a happy home, as most young girls may do, she felt always, down in her heart, the shame and stigma, “ I am a drunkard’s child.” She alone could control her father in his drunken frenzy. She alone could protect her gentle mother and the little ones from his abuse, and all through the neighborhood she was known and honored as a brave, heroic girl.

She left her father, now sitting moodily in his chair, and went to her mother’s side. She pulled away the handkerchief which she was holding over the wounded forehead, and kissed it tenderly. Then she bathed it in cold water for a little while, and, spreading a cloth carefully over it, she said, “ Sit quite still, dear mother. I will do up the work, and take care of the children, and you must rest. You have worked very hard all da)% and you must mind me now.”

Mrs. McAllister kissed the rosy face which was shining up into hers, and resigned herself to the loving care of her little daughter thankfully. Mr. McAllister had fallen asleep in his chair. The little children had crept in silently, and were huddling in a corner of the wide fireplace. Maggie moved around the room noiselessly. She picked up the broken dishes, and carried them out; then, placing the remainder in a pan, she washed and dried them, and ranged them, bright and shining, on the cupboard shelves, and set the table back against the wall, spreading a white cover over it, the mother watching her with a pleasant half-smile. Then she glanced around the room to see that all was tidy. The room

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glowed in the ruddy firelight, for the eve ning shadows had fallen. It was the one large room of a log-house to which the whiskey demon had brought the McAllisters, but there were no signs of the abject poverty usually seen in the drunkard's home. The secret was solved by the loom standing in one corner of the large room, with the spinning-wheel snugly tucked in behind it. It was the mother’s busy hands which kept the wolf from the door. The survey seemed to satisfy bright little Maggie ; and, going up to the little ones, she said : “ Come, children, it is time now for you to go to bed. I will go with you, and hear you say your prayers.”

“ I sha’n’t say no prayers, to-night,” said Jemmy sullenly.

“ Why not, Jemmy ?”

“ ’Cos I don’t feel like it. Guess you wouldn’t want to pray if you was as mad as I be !”

“ Come here, Jemmy,” said his mother gently.

He obeyed.

“ What is the matter with my boy ?”

“ He struck you, mother.” And the child grated his teeth as he looked round at the sleeping form of his father. He sat there, his face bloated and discolored, his head falling on one side, snoring heavily. Then he looked at his mother, with her gentle eyes and mouth, and high forehead, with the white cloth spread over it.

“ See here, my darling, do you love your mother?”

A look of the honest brown eyes was a sufficient answer.

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“ Jemmy, in all my troubles I have had one dearly loved Friend, who has always stood by me and helped me. I love him so well that I look to him every day for all I want, and I would rather trust him than anybody in the world. I gave all my * children to him years ago, when he was good and kind. You are not your own Jemmy; you are bought with a price. Will you turn your back against mother’s best Friend, and my children’s best Friend ?”

“No, I don’t want to do that; but I was so mad at him” pointing to the sleeping father.

“ ‘ Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.’ Pity him, Jemmy; do not be angry. It is not father, but the drink that makes him so.

Will you say your prayers, and forgive hint r

“ I’ll try, mother/' And the little ones disappeared with sister Maggie up the narrow stairway.

* If God is such a true friend to mother, why does he let us be so poor? Aunt Arabella ain’t half so good as mother, and she lives in a big house, and has everything she wants,” asked Jemmy, as Maggie took up the little tallow candle to go downstairs.

“ Why don’t you ask her, Jemmy ?”

“ ’Cos she feels so bad, and I don’t want to worry her. And one thing more : she said I was bought with a price. How can that be, I wonder? Who would give anything for a little stub of a fellow like me? I wouldn't.”

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Maggie set down the candle, laughing, in spite of herself, at the droll boy. Then she remembered the price that was paid, and was sobered instantly.

“Dear little Jemmy, it was Jesus that bought us all, and the price he paid was his own blood. Mother says we’ve no right to be wicked, for when we were little bits of children she gave us to God ; so we are his. And the price he paid for us was the blood of Jesus. He gave his life that all little children might save theirs. His life for ours, you know ; so we are bought with blood.”

“We are bought with a price; we are bought with blood.” These words kept chasing each other through Jemmy’s mind till they were mingled together, and he was fast asleep.

Chapter II. A Little Light In A Dark Place

HE young- McAllisters were up betimes the following morning. They saw the first golden beams of the sun as they came shimmering down through the tree-tops, and kissed the morning-glories over the window, and bathed the humble log-house in sunshine as warm and rich as flooded the white house on the hill. Johnny and Nell made their own toilets, and washed their chubby faces and hands in the spring that was hollowed out beside the brook which danced merrily by, only a little way from the house. Then Nelly combed out her long, glossy curls and Johnny’s short, crisp

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ones, looking into the brook for a mirror, and the little ones were ready for breakfast, which Maggie was preparing. Mother was already at the loom, and Jemmy was milking the cow ; so, while they were waiting for their bowls of milk, the children came and stood beside their mother, and watched her sending the shuttles backward and forward, forming the bright stripes of the gay rag-carpet she was weaving.

“ How pretty it is !” said Nelly. “ When .1 get big enough to work, I’m going to make pretty things, and let the dirty, homely things go.

“ Come, breakfast is ready,” called the cheery voice of sister Maggie. And the little family gathered around the frugal board.

The children took their bowls of mush and milk contentedly, and Mrs. McAllister and Maggie broke open the nice baked potatoes, and spread them with the sweet, fresh butter, and this, with brown bread, constituted the entire meal.

“ Why didn’t you cook some meat, Mag?” asked the father, pushing his plate from him.

“ We haven’t had any meat in a week, father ; but you’ve been away, and may be you didn’t know it.”

“ When I get this piece out of the loom, I shall get some tea ; I’m sorry we have none, this morning, John,” said Mrs. Mc- Allister, passing the bread to her moody husband.

He was entirely sober, this morning, though feeling the effects of his yesterday’s excesses. He swallowed a few

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mouthfuls in silence, and then, swinging his scythe over his shoulder, took his way across the field. A general sense of relief seemed to manifest itself as soon as he was gone.

“ Fm going out to get you some nice berries, mother,” said Jemmy. “ There’ll be plenty time afore school. I wish’t I could get you some tea, or somethin’ nice.”

“ Berries will be something nice, I am sure, Jemmy; and mother had rather see her boy pleasant and happy than to have a whole chest of tea.”

“ Come, little Nell,” called Maggie. “ Here’s something for you to do. Make these dishes just as bright and pretty as you can, and then put them up nice in the cupboard ; I will sweep and wash the milk things, and then I must spin ever so much.”

“ O dear ! that isn’t pretty work at all,” muttered Nell, pouting her red lips, and looking anything but happy.

“ But it must be done, Nelly. We can’t have any drones in our hive, you know, little one,” called out the mother from the loom. “ See how nice and quick you will be, now.” And the child went about her task, thinking, though she did not dare say it :

“ I wish there was no such thing as washing dishes or doing dirty work.”

Meanwhile John McAllister was plodding over the fields, and his reflections were anything but pleasant. “ I am a scamp, and that’s a fact,” he soliloquized. “ I never’d a believed that my Fanny ’d a

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come to this when she promised to many me. And I struck her; I’m a brute, anyway. In her father’s house she had everything she wanted, and now she don’t have nothin’. And she never twits me, but jist works and works. If they’ll only keep the liquor away, I can help them at home a little; but the pesky stuff makes a fool of me. I wish I never’ d see another drop.”

That night John McAllister went home sober, and astonished his family by throwing a sack of flour and a quarter of veal upon the table.

“ O father! how glad I am! Now we can have some berry-pie and some biscuits. See if I don’t get you a nice breakfast, to-morrow morning !”

“ I sha’n’t be here, Mag. I’m goin’ over to Barnes’s as soon as I get up, and I’m a-goin’ to work there the rest of the season. They want Jem, too. They’ll give him half a dollar a day, and they want him a couple o’ weeks or so. Is’t best to let him go, mother?”

“ O mother ! say yes, do ; and I can get me some good shoes, and some clothes to wear to meetin’. Please say yes, mother.”

The father’s heart smote him at the eagerness the child manifested, and he secretly resolved that his children should no longer want for food or clothes.

But what are the resolves of a man bound by the slavish chains of that deadly habit, intemperance? It waits like a tiger, ready to spring upon him at every corner. Men licensed by law to sell him the deadly poison which is destroying him soul and body, which is making beggars of his wife

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and little ones; professedly Christian men offering him wine, beer, and cider — such innocent beverages, but sure to waken the demon within him. What hope is there for him ? He, too, has been a professing Christian. His name still stands on the

record of the old church at , for his i

brethren fervently believe that, when one has once tasted of the joys of redeeming love, they will never finally fall away, j So they bear with the poor wanderer, j and wait for his return to liis Father’s l house.

He can remember well when his babes .] were given, one after another, to God. He | had covenanted with his true, faithful wife 1 and with the Holy One, “ to bring them up j in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”] He had broken that vow, as well as the j one he had made for himself ; but she had not. Her life-work was before her. Oh ! how often her weak woman’s heart had fainted within her as she looked forward to the desolate, thorny path of life as it stretched away before her ! Then she had put her hand in -his who had said, “ Thy Maker is thy husband ; the Holy One of Israel is thy refuge,” and the darkest places had been made light by his presence. To-night, the father was sober, and the children looked as if they hardly knew what to make of it. Little Nell even ventured to creep to his side, and take his hard, brown hand into her little, soft palms. He did not repel her. He even lifted her upon his knee, and passed his hand caressingly over the long, silken curls.

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“ What has Nelly been doing, to-day ? ’ he asked kindly.

“ Oh ! been helping mother, and been to school, and ever so many things. I wish I had a prettier frock to wear, though, father. Should you like to wear such a faded, old, patched frock as this, father?”

“No, I don’t believe I should. Is that the best you’ve got, Nelly?”

“Yes, father; ’ceptin’ the one I wear to Sunday-school, and I mustn’t spoil that. The children do make fun of me sometimes.”

John McAllister looked down at the beautiful child upon his knee — his child, and thought, “ She, too, suffers for my sin. Where will the curse end?”

“ And if you had a nice dress, Nelly, and a pretty hat, what then? Would you be satisfied ?”

“ Some ; but I should like a pretty dress for mother, too, and a nice house like Aunt Arabella’s, and a piano like Cousin Annette’s. Oh ! if I could learn to play and sing as she does, father!”

All these pleasant fancies, which seemed like visions of fairy-land to the little girl, might have been real the father thought, but for the insatiable love of strong drink, which had swallowed up all. Honor, and religion, and property, and self-respect — all, all gone — for what ? To satiate the fiery demon, which was ever crying, “ Give, give,” and yet was never satisfied. And this fair child, more beautiful than many of the pampered children of wealth, with her refined tastes, and her love for all fair and

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beautiful things, how proud and happy he might have been as her father; but now she was only a drunkard' s child, too young, happily, to fully realize all the misery embodied in that dreadful word.

Some such thoughts as these crept through the poor man’s brain, not yet entirely degraded by his ruling passion, as he sat there. The child’s fair head had drooped /against his bosom, and she was fast asleep. Zvlaggie and her mother were sewing busily fby the light of the one tallow candle, while Jemmy, tired with his day’s work, had crept away to bed with his little brother.

“ All right but me,” he thought, as he 'looked at the busy fingers flying in and out of the coarse cloth they were sewing. “ I’m a good mind to say I’ll never drink another drop of liquor as long as I live,” he said at last. “ If it wasn’t for that confounded stuff, I might a been well off, and little Nell here might a had her piany and fixings as well as her Cousin Annette. She’s a nuff sight purtier child any day, ef she is mine.” And he looked with a father’s pride upon the beautiful child asleep in his arms.

“ If you only will try, John, we shall all be so happy, and we will try hard to help you.”

“ I hain’t had nothin’ to complain on yit. If I’d a done my duty half so well as you, we never ’d a been here.”

Mrs. McAllister bustled away around the room to hide the tears that would come, as these unusual words of kindness fell from her husband’s lips. She had long ago learned lessons of patient endurance. She could listen to cruel reproaches and

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threats without apparent emotion, though none but the All-seeing Eye marked the heart-aches that she suffered. The human heart never becomes insensible to suffering, and many a smiling lip and placid brow hides an aching heart. Here was a new lesson — kind words where she only expected reproaches !

“ Who knows but he may yet be saved ?” And the tears fell thicker and faster, and she could not hide them now.

“ Why, what’s the matter, Fanny ? What are ye cryin’ for? I’ve tried to make you cry ever so many times when I couldn’t, but I didn’t this time.”

“ I guess it must be for joy, John. How happy we shall be if you will do only as you used to ! I know it isn’t you, John, for )^ou were never unkind till you began to drink,

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and we’ve gone down ever since. Now, if you will stop entirely beer, cider, and all that, the old, happy days will come back, or brighter ones.”

“ Oh ! I can stop, Fanny, ef I only say so, but I won’t sign no pledges. I can do well enough without that.”

The week rolled by, and yet another, and the poor man kept his promise, and they Avere the happiest days the family had knoAvn for years. But he had not been placed in circumstances of temptation. He trusted in his Own strength, and he believed he could do so safely, because it was not tried. Mr. Barnes, his employer, believed that his work-people had immortal souls as well as himself, and that the part of man which must live for ever needed the morning and evening refreshment of prayer and

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praise as well as the body its morning and evening meal. So, whatever was the press of business, God was never forgotten, nor worldly business permitted to usurp the hour devoted to morning and evening worship.

Listening to the once familiar words of inspiration, something of the old train of thoughts and feelings came over the man’s heart, deadened and embruted, as it had long been, by the stupor of drink. One night, Jemmy whispered softly to his mother that “ father knelt at players ” — this same man who, so short time ago, had struck her for praying. Every day, and many times in the day, she asked God to have mercy upon him ; to restore him to himself, to his family, and to the church once more.

We read in the divine Word this promise,

“ Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name shall be done for you by my Father which is in heaven,” and this promise she plead unceasingly. How can it be, with this promise upon record, that those who have been the subjects of believing prayer for years, reject the last offers of mercy and destroy themselves at last? We can only understand it in this light — that God gives to every free moral agent the privilege of choosing his own destiny , and the dearest friend he has on earth cannot deprive him of that privilege. Witness our Lord’s cry over Jerusalem: “ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! how often would I have gathered you, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye would not.” ' Oh ! that fearful power of choice — with what awful responsibility it endows the soul,

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which must live for ever in the home of its choice, under the loving watch-care of God and the holy angels, or under the dominion of the prince of darkness, where “ the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever.”

Chapter III. The White House On The Hill

NNETTE, Annette, why are you not about your practising ? Such a lazy child I never saw. Your teacher is coming, to-morrow, and what excuse will you have, for your lesson is not half-ready?”

“O dear! I’m so tired, ma; and it’s so warm, and I do hate practising.”

“ Your Cousin Nelly would be glad enough of your piano. If you hate practising so much, and make me so much trouble, I guess I had better give it to her.”

“ I wish you wouldn’t be for ever bringing up the McAllisters, ma. It’s bad

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enough to have such cousins without being twitted about them.”

“The McAllisters are just as good as you be, Miss Annette Golden,” spoke up little John, whose indignation was roused by any slight put upon his favorite cousins. “ You needn’t feel so stuck up, for Nelly is a great deal handsomer and better than you any day, if she does wear a patched frock.”

“ Stop, John ; don’t you see you’ve got your sister to crying, now ? Such children I never did see.” And Mrs. Golden swept angrily down the room. In doing so, her dress caught under a jar in which a favorite white rose was growing. It was full of buds just bursting into bloom ; but alas ! for the beautiful plant, it was overturned by her sudden angry motion, and all the tender young buds crushed beneath the dirt. Mrs. Golden did not see the other buds, more precious than those of her fa*- vorite rose, which she was crushing by her petulance and anger. She had enough to think of now, and John took himself out of the room in a hurry to avoid the impending storm, while Annette went to the piano and commenced practising the hated lesson. Mrs. Golden was a professedly Christian woman, and really believed herself one of the pillars of the church in which Mrs. McAllister was an humble member. When she drove to church in her handsome carriage, and stopped, as she did, now and then, at the log-house to offer a seat to her less favored sister, she regarded herself with profound complacency, and almost wondered that fortune should make so

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little difference in her feelings toward the humble inmates of the log-house. Many a lecture did she volunteer for their benefit, and many a chapter on the training of children, for “ your children will be pretty apt to take after their father,” she said.

Fanny McAllister listened in silence. She had been so long accustomed to “ suffer ’ that the thought of resenting these well-meant intrusions never occurred to her. Still, when she looked around upon her little flock, and wondered which one of the loved circle would verify her sister’s prediction — which one of those bright, happy faces should wear the mark of the beast and wring her heart with sorrow, a glad hope would spring up within her that at the last she should be enabled to say to her divine Lord, her ever-present Friend, “ Here am I, and the children thou hast given me.” This should be her life-work, to save her children from their father’s fate, to fit them for usefulness here, and for happiness hereafter ; to this she would devote every energy of her being. And the devoted love and affection with which they all regarded her was reward enough for her life of self-denying labor and love.

“ Kate and Charles are coming home, to-morrow. Oh ! won’t it be jolly ?” said Jemmy, throwing up his cap in high glee. “ I’m done at Barnes’s, Maggie, and I’ve got money enough to get me a suit of clothes, boots and all! Now mother won’t have to get any more clothes for me.”

“ Flow nice ! but the best of ail is, father

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hain’t drunk a bit in four weeks. Has he, Jemmy? How glad Kate and Charley will be!”

“ No, Mag, nary a drop ; and I don’t feel a bit like strikin’ him now, for he is jist the best kind of a father.”