CHAPTER V.

FARM VERSUS RUM.

LET me introduce you, dear reader, to a tall, stalwart man just opening the gate leading through a potato-patch to an humble cottage. This is his home, and through the open windows he hears the hum of merry voices. There is a smile on his face, and yet not a glad smile. It might have said,—

"They seem happy notwithstanding our misfortunes."

It is a most kind provision of Providence that the young are blessed with buoyant spirits. Troubles come, and are keenly felt, but the cloud soon passes away, and all is bright again.

It was particularly fortunate for Mr. Allen that his children, who were neither few nor far between, were possessed of cheerful, happy dispositions; else on this bright morning, instead of hearing half-suppressed bursts of laughter and joyous exclamations, he might have listened to the notes of sorrow. He entered the open door, and looked within. Even he was surprised at the busy scene.

The room was the largest in the house, used in winter both for a kitchen and sitting-room. At this moment it was littered with split-cane, bundles of which lay in one corner, and from which Lizzie, the oldest girl, had just taken a quantity, which she was slowly weaving into a chair for the benefit of the eager lookers-on. John, Mary, Bell, Carrie, and ever so many more, of all ages, from fifteen downward, were pressing as near as possible to the frame, while the baby, springing in its mother's arms, was trying to catch the end of one of the canes as it was alternately woven over and under the others.

But I cannot expect my reader to understand why the heart of Mr. Allen was filled with remorse and sorrow, instead of pleasure, as he silently gazed on the noisy group, or why the pale, careworn face of his wife smote him with a sharp pang of regret.

Mary Walbridge, own cousin to Lawrence Everett, was the fairest of all the maidens in the village of N—. She had scores of admirers; indeed, there was scarcely a young man, either in her own or the neighboring towns, but would have thought the gift of Mary's hand the richest boon he could ask. But, though the young girl was kind to all, her smiles were given alone to Joseph Allen, son of their nearest neighbor; and her parents approved her choice.

Joseph was an only son, the heir to his father's broad acres, extending full two miles on the banks of the beautiful C— River. He was a merry youth, always welcomed by young and old, prepossessing in appearance, moral and upright in character. Beside all this, he loved Mary with all the strength of his manly heart. He could not remember the time when he did not love her; and so they stood together before the white-haired clergyman who had married their parents, and had known them from their infancy, and gladly took the solemn vows which made them one.

Only two years did the young wife minister to the parents of her husband,—for she went at once to live at the farm. At the end of that period, Mr. Allen died; and as his wife soon followed him to his quiet resting-place beneath the willows, Joseph became possessor of the whole property.

Mary's prospects of happiness were now very fair. Her little daughter Lizzie, named for her husband's mother, was the picture of childish beauty, and she had but to name a wish in order to have it gratified.

Joseph, or Mr. Allen, as he was now called, had always attended school in the winter until two years before his marriage. He had quite a gift at speaking, which he was very fond of improving, and often astonished the old settlers by an earnest appeal at the town-meeting for money to be granted for a new and improved school-house.

When Mary had been married five years, she had four children. She had grown quite matronly in form; there was a richer bloom on her cheeks, and a deeper, holier light in her eye than on her wedding-day.

Mr. Allen was considered one of the most rising men of the town. He already had been chosen a member of the school committee, and had the pleasure of giving the land for the new and commodious building where his little Lizzie commenced her education. But, alas, all these bright prospects were to pass away! The glorious morning was to be shaded with clouds, and would rise to a tempest long before the sun reached the zenith.

Having abundant means, Mr. Allen did not feel it incumbent on him to labor,—at least, not as his father had done. He hired men, and bought patented machines with which to work his farm. His own time, he thought, could be more profitably spent for the good of the town. Committee meetings, caucuses, and State conventions, roused his abilities, and kept his mind at work. He was thoroughly alive at such times, and liked the excitement. As his family rapidly increased, instead of sharing the care and responsibility with his wife, he grew more and more ambitious of town offices,—more and more fond of meeting his neighbors at public dinners.

It was a long, long time before poor Mary would own to herself that her beloved husband had begun to crave the drink which intoxicates, but at last, the evidence became too conclusive. Once, in the depths of winter, he came home at midnight too much lost to reason to know that he was not sleeping in his bed. His wife, who for hours had been listening to every sound, heard the sleigh-bells as the horse turned into the barnyard.

After waiting nearly an hour for him to come in, she aroused her oldest boy, and they went together to the barn, their hearts throbbing with an unknown dread.

The faithful horse had returned to his home, and gone directly into the open door, where he was patiently awaiting attention, while his master lay in the bottom of the sleigh in the deep slumber of the drunkard.

The united efforts of mother and son could not rouse him, or drag him farther than the floor of the barn, where they made a bed of hay for him, and having led the more sensible beast to his stall, retired to weep over this new and dreadful affliction.

From this hour, Mr. Allen's path was downward, till, when Lizzie was fifteen years old, they were turned out of their loved home by the man whose rum had been exchanged for it, and removed to the small cottage in which we find them with barely furniture enough to render it habitable.

Mrs. Lovell witnessed the gradual downfall of the husband of her niece with deep solicitude. Many and many a time, the pecuniary assistance she gave was all that kept them from actual suffering. A little time before their removal, the poor inebriate had a short return of consciousness. He really desired to reform, and, with many sighs, promised Mary, if Aunt Mercy could be induced to buy the mortgages held by the rumseller, and give him a chance to earn them back, he would sign the pledge of total abstinence.

But the old lady had no faith in his perseverance. She encouraged him to show his penitence for the past by giving up, at once and forever, that which led to his ruin. She reminded him that his intemperate habits more than his years had made an old man of him; that he had a large family dependent on him for support,—children that might grow up an honor to society, but whom his evil example might corrupt; and she urged him to stop the leak in his fortune by vigorous efforts to reform.

At this time, too, Lizzie, his favorite child, persuaded him to accompany her to a lecture on temperance. He listened to accounts of those who had been sunk in degradation far below him, but who had broken the bonds of their evil habits, and come forth from the gutter restored to their manhood. He resolved to add one to their number. His daughter watched him, while tears unconsciously stole down her cheeks. At the close of the lecture, he arose in response to the speaker's invitation, and walked slowly up the aisle, while Lizzie bowed her head on her hands and wept tears of joy.

When Mr. Allen left his home, therefore, he did it with the full consciousness of all he had lost,—that he had sinfully wasted the patrimony bequeathed him by his parents; had deprived his wife of the comforts he had taught her to expect, and his children of the means to acquire an education.

When Aunt Mercy saw that the reformation was lasting,—that her nephew acted like a sober, penitent man, she offered to assist them to stop the leak he had made in their fortune. It was by her advice they moved to the town of G—, where work for himself and the children could be obtained. She herself placed Lizzie where she could learn the art of seating chairs, and then supplied money to purchase a quantity of the material. This would furnish employment for the girls and the second boy. For John, the eldest, named for her husband, she had other plans. She wished, however, to ascertain more of his capabilities for business, and it was for that purpose, on her return from the city, that she rode twenty miles out of her way to visit her niece in her new home.

The change from the princely mansion of Lawrence to the lowly cottage of his cousin was as great as could well be imagined, but Aunt Mercy enjoyed herself quite as well in the hut as in the palace. To be sure, it sounded strangely, while sitting in that uncarpeted room, the filthy walls of which the new inmates had felt most happy to be able to cover with sixpenny paper, to talk of the style and splendor of Lawrence's appointments, of Lily's luxurious chamber and costly dress, and feel that the near relation of cousins united them.

The children's fingers flew rapidly over their allotted tasks as, hour after hour, the old lady described the sweet Lady-bird her nephew had won for his own, or told of the terrible leak in their housekeeping.

"I'm just as sure how it will end," she exclaimed one day, laying aside the garment she was patching for her niece, "as I was when Joseph began to stay out late to those public meetings and caucuses, etc.! 'Twouldn't take a prophet to see it either. The difference between his case and yours is, the money's running out of his leak, while you've all undertaken to stop yours."

Mr. Allen had been so fortunate as to obtain regular employment in a nursery near his home. But still, with all their economy, Mrs. Allen could see it would be difficult to provide food and clothing for so many little ones. She had been so accustomed to have milk, butter, eggs, and cheese from the farm, besides vegetables, grain, and pork, that she scarcely knew how to cook, when every one of these must be bought with scanty means at the grocer's. There were five girls and four boys, beside herself and her husband, to provide with clothing. The house, poor as it was, with the little strip of land by the side of it, rented for eighty dollars; and then fuel and lights were to be bought for the approaching winter.

Mrs. Lovell was scarcely surprised that Mr. Allen should often be plunged in despondence. He went regularly to work, struggling day after day against the craving of appetite for drink, but seldom smiled. The sad contrast between the present and the past rose continually before his mind, while conscience, with a voice like thunder, seemed ever echoing in his ears,—

"This is your work!"