Chapter 58
A THANKSGIVING STORY.
A MAN, who at first sight, a casual observer would have thought at least forty or fifty years of age, came creeping out of an old, miserable-looking tenement in the lower part of Cincinnati, a little while after night-fall, and, with bent body and shuffling gait, crossed the street an angle; and, after pausing for a few moments before a mean frame building, in the windows of which decanters of liquor were temptingly displayed, pushed open the door and entered.
It was early in November. Already the leaves had fallen, and there was, in the aspect of nature, a desolateness that mirrored itself in the feelings. Night had come, hiding all this, yet by no means obliterating the impression which had been made, but measurably increasing it; for, with the darkness had begun to fall a misty rain, and the rising wind moaned sadly among the eaves.
A short time after sundown the man, to whom we have just referred, came home to the comfortless-looking house we have seen him leaving.
All day he had turned a wheel in a small manufactory; and when his work was done, he left, what to him was a prison-house, and retired to the cheap but wretched boarding-place he had chosen, where were congregated about a dozen men of the lowest cla.s.s. He did not feel happy. That was impossible. No one who debases himself by intemperance can be happy; and this man had gone down, step by step, until he attained a depth of degradation most sad to contemplate.
And yet he was not thirty years old! After supper he went out, as usual, to spend the evening in drinking.
The man, fallen as he was, and lost to all the higher and n.o.bler sentiments of the heart, had experienced during the day a pressure upon his feelings heavier than usual, that had its origin in some reviving memories of earlier times.
The sound of his mother's voice had been in his ears frequently through the day; and images of persons, places, and scenes, the remembrance of which brought no joy to his heart, had many times come up before him. At the supper-table, amid his coa.r.s.e, vulgar-minded companions, his laugh was not heard as usual; and, when spoken to, he answered briefly and in monosyllables.
The tippling-house to which the man went to spend his day's earnings and debase himself with drink, was one of the lowest haunts of vice in the city. Gambling with cards, dominoes, and dice, occupied the time of the greater number who made it a place of resort, and little was heard there except language the most obscene and profane. For his daily task at the wheel, the man was paid seventy-five cents a day. His boarding and lodging cost him thirty-one and a quarter cents,--and this had to be paid every night under penalty of being expelled from the house. He was a degraded drunkard, and not therefore worthy of confidence nor credit beyond a single day, and he received none. What remained of the pittance earned, was invariably spent in drink, or gambled away before he retired from the grogshop for the night; when, staggering home, he groped his way to his room, too helpless to remove his clothes, and threw himself upon a straw pallet, that could scarcely be dignified with the name of bed. This in outline, was the daily history of the man's life; and daily the shadows of vice fell more and more darkly upon
The drinking-house had two rooms on the first floor. In front was a narrow counter, six or eight feet in length, and behind this stood a short, bloated, vice-disfigured image of humanity, ready to supply the wants of customers. Two or three roughly-made pine tables, and some chairs, stood around the room. The back apartment contained simply chairs and tables, and was generally occupied by parties engaged in games of chance, for small sums. Tobacco-smoke, the fumes of liquor, and the polluted breaths of the inmates, made the atmosphere of these rooms so offensive, that none but those who had become accustomed to inhale it, could have endured to remain there for a minute.
The man, on entering this den of vice, went to the counter and called for whisky. A decanter was set before him, and from this he poured into a gla.s.s nearly a gill of the vilest kind of stuff and drank it off, undiluted. About half the quant.i.ty of water was sent down after the burning fluid, to partially subdue its ardent qualities; and then the man turned slowly from the bar. As he did so, an individual who had seen him enter, and who had kept his eyes upon him from the moment he pa.s.sed through the door, came towards him with a smile of pleasure upon his countenance, and reaching out his hand, said, in an animated voice--
"How are you, Martin, my good fellow! How are you?"
And he grasped the poor wretch's hand with a hearty grip and shook it warmly. Something like a smile lighted up the marred and almost expressionless face of the miserable creature, as he gave to the hand that had taken his a responsive pressure, and replied,
"Oh! very well, very well, considering all things."
"Bad night out," said the man, as he sat down near a stove, that was sending forth a genial heat.
"Yes, bad enough," returned Martin. A thought of the damp and chilly air without caused him to s.h.i.+ver suddenly, and draw a little nearer to the stove.
"Which makes us prize a comfortable place like this, where we can spend a pleasant evening among pleasant friends, so much the more."
"Yes. It's very pleasant," said Martin, spreading himself out before the stove, with a hand upon each knee, and looking with an absent-minded air, through the opening in the door, which had once been closed by a thin plate of mica, and seeing strange forms in the glowing coals.
"Pleasant after a hard day's work," remarked the man, with an insinuating air.
"I don't know what life would be worth, if seasons of recreation and social intercourse did not come, nightly, to relieve both body and mind from their wearisomeness and exhaustion."
"Yes--yes. It's tiresome enough to have to sit and turn a wheel all day," said Martin.
"And a relief to get into a place like this at night," returned the man, rubbing his hands with animation.
"It's a great deal better than sitting at the wheel," sighed Martin.
"I should think it was! Come! won't you liquor."
"Thank you! I've just taken something."
"No matter. Come along, my good fellow, and try something more." And he arose, as he spoke, and moved towards the bar.
Martin was not the man to refuse a drink at any time, so he followed to the counter.
"What'll you take? Whisky, rum, gin, brandy, or spirits? Any thing, so it's strong enough to drink to old acquaintances.h.i.+p. Ha! my boy?"
And he leered in Martin's face with a sinister expression, and slapped him familiarly on the shoulder.
"Brandy," said Martin. "Brandy let it be! Nothing like brandy! Set out your pure old Cogniac! Toby. A drink for the G.o.ds!"
"Prime stuff! that. It warms you to the very soles of your feet!"
added the, man after he had turned off his gla.s.s. "Don't you say so, Martin?"
"Yes! and through your stockings, to your very shoes!"
"Hat ha! ha! He! he!" laughed the man with a forced effort. "Why, Bill Martin, you're a wit!"
"It ain't Bill, it's the brandy," said the bar-keeper, with more truth than jest.
"That brandy would put life into a grindstone!"
"It's put life into our friend here, without doubt." And as the very disinterested companion of Martin said this, he slapped him again upon the shoulder.
The two men turned from the bar and sat down again by the stove, both getting more and more familiar and chatty.
"Suppose we try a game of dominoes or chequers?" at length suggested the friend.
"No objection," replied Martin. "Any thing to make the time pa.s.s agreeably. Suppose we say chequers?"
"Very well. Here's a board. We'll go into the backroom where it's more quiet."
The two men retired into the little den in the rear of the bar-room, where were several parties engaged at cards or dice.
"Here's a cozy little corner," said the pleasant friend of Martin.
"We can be as quiet as kittens."
"What's the stake?" he next inquired, as soon as the board was opened and the pieces distributed. "Shall we say a bit?"
Martin received, at the close of each day, his earnings. Of his seventy-five cents, he had already paid out for board thirty-one and a quarter cents; and for a gla.s.s of liquor and some tobacco, six cents more. So he had but thirty-seven and a half cents. This sum he drew from his pocket, and counted over with scrupulous accuracy, so as to be sure of the amount. While he was doing so, his companion's eyes were fixed eagerly upon the small coins in his hands, in order, likewise, to ascertain their sum.
"A bit let it be." And the man laid down a twelve-and-a-half-cent piece.
"No! We'll start with a picayune," said Martin, selecting the smaller coin and placing it on the table.
"That's too trifling. Say a bit," returned the man, but half concealing the eager impatience he felt to get hold of the poor wretch's money.
"Well, I don't care! Call it a bit, then," said Martin. And the coin was staked.