Little Wolf: A Tale of the Western FrontierCornelius, Mary Ann Mann
General
Little Wolf: A Tale of the Western Frontier
Cornelius, Mary Ann Mann
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
Our heroine went away deeply pondering the words of her newly found
friend.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
DADDY'S SOLILOQUY--A BEER-SOAKER--A KNOCK DOWN ARGUMENT--A
PRESENT FOR LITTLE WOLF.
"I guess that ere Sherman won't be a hanging round the Honey no great
deal after this; if he does I'll put another flea in his ear fur I
ain't a going fur tu see her throwd away on no beer-soaker."
Thus soliloquized Daddy, as he watched with evident satisfaction, the
hurried departure of the young gentleman, whom, when we last left him
he had just released from his inevitable trap.
A horrible oath sounded in Daddy's ear, and he lay sprawling on the
pavement. "Call me a beer-soaker again will you," and out rolled
another oath, but Daddy did not hear it. The fall had stunned him, and
he was taken up insensible.
Absorbed in the subject which was agitating his mind at the time he
received the blow Daddy had raised his voice to a high pitch, and,
"beer-soaker," rang out loud and clear, reaching the ear of a
passer-by, who, being pretty well soaked in the beverage mentioned, or
in something stronger, resented the imagined insult after the manner
described.
Proud of his achievement, which he had just sense enough to see was
not generally approved by the crowd that had gathered round, Daddy's
assailant proceeded defiantly to defend his cruel deed. "He'd better
never say beer-soaker to me again, the cursed scoundrel, nor look it
either, curse him. Let any man in this crowd say that he didn't
deserve what he got, and I'll----
"You'll come right along with me, my friend," and the foolish boaster
was marched off by the city authorities, whom from past experience, he
well knew it was useless to resist.
This same man, now led away amid the exertions of Daddy's friends, had
gone out from his humble home that beautiful sunny morning with the
solemn promise on his lips to keep sober for that one day at least.
His hopeful long-suffering wife had watched lovingly his receding
footsteps, as in days, when a fond husband and father, he always
returned sober. All day long she went trustingly about her work with
kind glad words to her little children, whose pleased surprise to
receive, as of old, their father's fond caress, she delighted to
imagine.
But alas! it was the old story. The man's will was too weak to
withstand the pursuasions of drinking companions, and the tempttations
of the liquor seller. He yielded, and, when once he had got the taste,
wife and children and all were forgotten. At a late hour that night
the little ones were put sadly away to bed; the supper table, spread
in joy, was cleared away in sorrow, and the wife and mother was again
doomed to wait, and watch, and weep.
But let us return to Daddy. Stretched on a couch of suffering he lies;
impatient, vociferous and generally unmanageable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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