John Habberton
The Barton Experiment
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066152550
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. REFORMERS AT WHITE HEAT.
CHAPTER II. BUSINESS vs. PHILANTHROPY.
CHAPTER IV. REFORM WITH MONEY IN IT.
CHAPTER V. AN ASTONISHED VIRGINIAN.
CHAPTER VI. A COURSE NEVER SMOOTH.
CHAPTER VII. SOME NATURAL RESULTS.
CHAPTER VIII. AN ESTIMABLE ORGANIZATION CRITICISED.
CHAPTER IX. SOME VOLUNTEER SHEPHERDS.
CHAPTER X. BRINGING HOME THE SHEEP.
CHAPTER XII. TWO SIDES OF A CLOUD.
CHAPTER XIII. A PHENOMENON IN EMBRYO.
CHAPTER XIV. SAILING UP STREAM.
CHAPTER XV. A FIRST INWARD PEEP.
CHAPTER XVI. A REFORMER DISAPPOINTED.
CHAPTER XVII. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER
PREFACE.
This book is not offered to the public as a finished romance, or even as an attempt at one; the persons who appear on its pages are not only not those who inspire pretty stories, but they are so literally the representatives of individuals who have lived that they cannot well be separated from their natural surroundings. It has seemed to the author that if American people could behold some of the men who have astonished themselves and others by their success as reformers, individual effort would not be so rare in communities where organization is not so easily effected, and where unfortunates are ruined in the midst of their neighbors, while organization is being hoped for. It is more than possible, too, that the accepted business principle that the pocket is the source of power, is not as clearly recognized as it should be in reform movements, and that the struggles of some of the characters outlined herein may throw some light upon this unwelcome but absolute fact.
The ideal reformer, the man of great principles and eloquent arguments, fails to appear in these pages, not because of any doubts as to his existence, but because his is a mental condition to which men attain without much stimulus from without, while it need not be feared that in the direction of individual effort and self-denial, the greatest amount of suggestion will ever urge any one too far.
THE
Barton Experiment.
CHAPTER I.
REFORMERS AT WHITE HEAT.
Long and loud rang all the church bells of Barton on a certain summer evening twenty years ago. It was not a Sunday evening, for during an accidental lull there was heard, afar off yet distinctly, the unsanctified notes of the mail-carrier’s horn. And yet the doors of the village stores, which usually stood invitingly open until far into the night, were now tightly closed, while the patrons of the several drinking-shops of Barton congregated quietly within the walls of their respective sources of inspiration, instead of forming, as was their usual wont, lively groups on the sidewalk.
The truth was, Barton was about to indulge in a monster temperance meeting. The “Sons of Temperance,” as well as the “Daughters” and “Cadets” thereof, the “Washingtonians,” the “Total Abstinence Society,” and all various religious bodies in the village had joined their forces for a grand demonstration against King Alcohol. The meeting had been appropriately announced, for several successive Sundays, from each pulpit in Barton; the two school-teachers of Barton had repeatedly informed their pupils of the time and object of the meeting; the “Barton Register” had devoted two leaders and at least a dozen items to the subject; and a poster, in the largest type and reddest ink which the “Register” office could supply, confronted one at every fork and crossing of roads leading to and from Barton, and informed every passer-by that Major Ben Bailey, the well-known champion of the temperance cause, would address the meeting, that the “Crystal Spring Glee Club” would sing a number of stirring songs, and that the Barton Brass Band had also been secured for the evening. The only inducement which might have been lacking was found at the foot of the poster, in the two words, “Admittance Free.”
No wonder the villagers crowded to the Methodist Church, the most commodious gathering-place in the town. Long before the bells had ceased clanging the church was so full that children occupying full seats were accommodatingly taken on the laps of their parents, larger children were lifted to the window-sills, deaf people were removed from the pews to the altar steps, and chairs were brought from the various residences and placed in the aisles. Outside the church, crowds stood about near the windows, while more prudent persons made seats of logs from the woodpile which the country members of the congregation had already commenced to form against the approaching winter.
A sudden hush of the whispering multitude ushered in the clergy of Barton, and, for once, the four reverend gentlemen really seemed desirous of uniting against a common enemy instead of indulging in their customary quadrangular duel. Then, amid a general clapping of hands, the members of the Crystal Spring Glee Club filed in and took reserved seats at the right of the altar; while the Barton Brass Band, announced by a general shriek of “Oh!” from all the children present, seated themselves