“But, boys, when God A’mighty put us into this world He put us into a family first of all. He gives us kindness there, and care, and eddication, and the great big thing that fills the whole universe and that we ain’t got no other name for only love. As soon as we’d got pretty well grown He give us another feeling—one that druv us by and by to go and start a family for ourselves. Most of us went and started one, and them that haven’t done it yet’ll do it before the next few years is out. But, boys, what’s it all for? Everything’s got to be for somethin’ or else it’s just lumberin’ up the ground; and this here matter of families is either the worst or the best thing you’ll find anywhere on earth. If it’s not the best it’s the worst, and it has to be one or t’other. “Now I stand before you as one who used to think it was the worst. I won’t say nothin’ of my father and mother. Them things is too sacred to be trotted out. But I’ll speak of my wife, because she’s that grateful for what’s been done for me—and everything done for me has been done twice as much, ten times as much, for her—that she’d like me to bring her into whatever I’ve got to say. I’ve known the time when I was as crazy to be quit of my family as a dog to be rid of the tin can tied to his tail. I had a wife, then, and three children; and, O my God! but I thought they was a drag! I couldn’t go nowhere without thinkin’ I ought to be with ’em, and I couldn’t take a drink without knowin’ I had to steal it from my little boy and my two little girls. They was the p’ison of my life. There was nights when I was reelin’ home and I used to hope that the house had been burnt down durin’ the day and they buried in the ashes. That’d leave me free again. Not to have no home—not to have to ante up for no one but myself—was the only thing I ever prayed for. And by gum, but my prayer was answered! One night I come home and found the house empty. My wife had decamped, and left a note that run somethin’ like this: ‘Dear Beady,’ says she, ‘I can’t stand this life no more,’ says she. ‘If it was only me I wouldn’t mind; but I can’t see my children kicked and beat and starved and hated, not by no one.’ And then she signed her name. “Well, say, boys, most of you has heard what happened to me after that. I sure had one grand time while it lasted—and it lasted just about six months. I saw a man oncet—we was movin’ a party from Harlem to the Bronx—fall down a flight of stairs with a sofa on his back, and he sure did get some pace on. Well, my pace was just about as quick—and as dead easy as he struck the landin’ at the bottom I struck the gutter. Now you know the rest of my story, because some of you guys has had a hand in it.