Arriving at our store, he marched up to the proprietor with the air of a wealthy patron, and exclaimed:
“Mr. Weed, my wife has disobeyed me this morning, and I forbid you to trust her on my account.”
Mr. Weed, seeing by the rolling eye and pallid face of his customer, that the “keg” was broken, replied with considerable sharpness:
“Oh, Mr.—, you need not have taken the trouble to forbid me trusting your wife, for I would not trust you!”
This repulse, so sudden and unexpected, at once overwhelmed and saved him. He was astonished to find himself brought so low, and indignantly drawing the empty bottle from his pocket and dashing it into a thousand pieces upon the floor, he exclaimed:
“There! thou cursed leveller of humanity, and destroyer of man’s respect! I pledge myself before God, I will never again taste a drop of any thing that can intoxicate;” and he kept his word. He is now a wealthy man, has frequently represented his town in the State Legislature, and his family, including several grand-children, is one of the first in the country in point of respectability and moral worth.
There is something to be learned even in a country store. We are apt to believe that sharp trades, especially dishonest tricks and unprincipled deceptions, are confined entirely to the city, and that the unsophisticated men and women of the country do every thing “on the square.” I believe this to be measurably true, but know that there are many exceptions to this rule. Many is the time I cut open bundles of rags, brought to the store by country women in exchange for goods, and declared to be all linen and cotton, that contained quantities of worthless woollen trash in the interior, and sometimes stones, gravel, ashes, etc. And sometimes, too, have I (contrary to our usual practice) measured the load of oats, corn or rye which our farmer-customer assured us contained a specified number of bushels, perhaps sixty, and found it four or five bushels short. Of course the astonished woman would impute the rag-swindle to a servant or neighbor who had made it up without her knowledge, and the man would charge carelessness upon his “help” who measured the grain, and by mistake “made a wrong count.” These were exceptions to the general rule of honesty, but they occurred with sufficient frequency to make us watchful of our customers, and to teach me the truth of the adage, “There’s cheating in all trades but ours.”
While I was clerk in the store in Bethel, my father kept the village tavern. I usually slept with my younger brother Eder, but when our house was filled with travellers we were obliged to sleep “three in a bed,” by taking in our honest Irish farmer, Edmund, as sleeping partner. After the store was closed at night, I would frequently join some of our village boys in a party at the house of their parents, and what with story-telling and various kinds of “child’s play,” a couple of hours would glide away, and at eleven o’clock at night (which was later than my parents permitted) I would slyly creep up stairs, and crawl into bed with the greatest caution lest I should awake my brother, who would be sure to report my late hours to my parents.
My brother contrived all sorts of plans to catch me on my return home, but sleep would overtake him, and thus I eluded his vigilance. Sometimes he would pile trunks and chairs against the door, so that I could hardly open it without upsetting the barricade, and awakening him by the noise. I generally managed, however, to open the door by degrees, and get to bed without disturbing his slumbers.
One night I found the door fastened on the inside by a nail firmly driven over the latch. Determined not to let him outwit me, I descended the stairs, found a short ladder which I ascended, and entered our bedroom window without being discovered. These continual contrivances of my brother made me always suspicious of some trap on my return home, and I generally approached my dormitory with the greatest caution. One night I returned as usual about eleven o’clock, and opening the door a few inches with great care, I run in my arm in order to discover any obstructions which might lie in wait for me. My hand soon touched a small cord, which I found was attached to the door-latch by one end; where the other end was fastened I could not imagine, and the darkness would not enable me to discover. I drew a knife from my pocket, and cutting the cord very cautiously, opened the door and got into bed without discovery. On awaking the next morning, I found the other end of the cord attached to my brother’s big toe! This ingenious contrivance he thought would wake him up, and it undoubtedly would have done so but for my timely discovery.
Another night he sat up in the middle of the bed and bolstered himself with pillows, determined to keep awake until I returned. But sleep at last overcame him, and when I arrived and found him in that position, I snugged myself in cosily across the foot of the bed and went to sleep. In the morning he found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, just as he went to sleep the night before. Giving me a kick, he woke me up, and exclaimed:
“You worked it pretty well last night, but I’ll catch you yet.”
“You are welcome to do it if you can,” I replied; “but you will have to get up early in the morning to catch a weasel asleep.”
The next night he fastened a spur upon his naked heel and went to sleep, thinking that when I got into bed I should hit the spur, and perhaps rake my shin, the pain of which would cause me to cry out and thus awake him. I retired with my usual caution that night, and discovering no contrivance, I concluded my brother had abandoned the chase, and turning my back to him I was soon wrapped in the arms of Morpheus.
It chanced that night that a number of tin peddlers and other travellers arrived at a late hour, and every bed being engaged, our Irish Edmund was obliged to sleep with us. Perceiving me stowed away on the farther side of the bed, and my brother lying as usual plump in the middle, he quietly laid himself down on the front and went to sleep. At about two o’clock I was awakened by a fearful noise. The full moon was streaming in at the window, making our bedroom as light as day.
“I’ll tache ye to go to bed wid a spur on, ye little divil ye,” exclaimed Edmund, as he held my brother high in the air, one hand gripping his neck and the other holding the offending leg with the spur on, just over my head.
“What is the matter, Edmund?” I exclaimed in surprise.
“Nothing is the matter, except this brother of yours has run his spur into me groin a matter of three inches,” replied the indignant Irishman, who was suffering under the smart of his wound.
“I did not mean it for you; I meant it for Taylor,” whined out my brother, only half awake.
“Divil a bit do I care who you meant it for, so that I have got it,” replied Edmund, at the same time giving my brother several slaps, which made him yell like a young Indian.
Edmund then unbuckled the spur, and arranging us all in bed again, he turned to go to sleep, simply remarking to my brother: “The nixt time ye try to ride me for a horse, ye’ll find I’m a kicking one, ye spalpeen!”
Sunday School – Old Meeting-House
The Sunday-School – Eccentric Clergyman – A zealous Brother – Pumping a Witness – Awful Disclosures – Suspicious Circumstances – The Trial – The Climax – The Wedding Fee – Doctrinal Discussions – The Old Meeting-House – The Stove Reform – Power of Imagination – The Deacon’s Appeal – The Bible-Class – The One Thing Needful – An Explosion.
LIKE most persons in the New England States, I was brought up to attend church regularly on the Sabbath. Indeed, before I was able to read, I was one of the first scholars in Sunday-school. We had but one church or “meeting-house” in Bethel, (Presbyterian,) and here all attended. A difference in creeds and sects was scarcely known in our little country village at that time. The old meeting-house had neither steeple nor bell, but