CHAPTER NINE—Preparing for Christmas
CHRISTMAS,” said the Old Soak, “will soon be here. But me, I ain't going to look at it. I ain't got the heart to face it. I'm going to crawl off and make arrangements to go to sleep on the twenty-third of December and not wake up until the second of January.
“Them that is in favour of a denaturized Christmas won't be interfered with by me. I got no grudge against them. But I won't intrude any on them, either. They can pass through the holidays in an orgy of sobriety, and I'll be all alone in my own little room, with my memories and a case of Bourbon to bear me up.
“I never could look on Christmas with the naked eye. It makes me so darned sad, Christmas does. There's the kids... I used to give 'em presents, and my tendency was to weep as I give them. 'Poor little rascals,' I said to myself, 'they think life is going to be just one Christmas tree after another, but it ain't.' And then I'd think of all the Christmases past I had spent with good friends, and how they was all gone, or on their way. And I'd think of all the poor folks on Christmas, and how the efforts made for them at that season was only a drop in the bucket to what they'd need the year around. And along about December twenty-third I always got so downhearted and sentimental and discouraged about the whole darned universe I nearly died with melancholy.
“In years past, the remedy was at hand. A few drinks and I could look even Christmas in the face. A few more and I'd stand under the mistletoe and sing, 'God rest ye merry, gentlemen.' And by the night of Christmas day I had kidded myself into thinking I liked it, and wanted to keep it up for a week.
“But this Christmas there ain't going to be any general iniquity used to season the grand religious festival with, except among a few of us Old Soaks that has it laid away. I ain't got the heart to look on all the melancholy critters that will be remembering the drinks they had last year. And I ain't going to trot my own feelings out and make 'em public, neither. No, sir. Me, I'm going to hibernate like a bear that goes to sleep with his thumb in his mouth. Only it won't be a thumb I have in my mouth. My house will be full of children and grandchildren, and there will be a passel of my wife's relations that has always boosted for Prohibition, but any of 'em ain't going to see the old man. I won't mingle in any of them debilitated festivities. I ain't any Old Scrooge, but I respect the memory of the old-time Christmas, and I'm going to have mine all by myself, the melancholy part of it that comes first, and the cure for the melancholy. This country ain't worthy to share in my kind of a Christmas, and I ain't so much as going to stick my head out of the window and let it smell my breath till after the holidays is over. I got presents for all of 'em, but none of 'em is to be allowed to open the old man's door and poke any presents into his room for him. They ain't worthy to give me presents, the people in general in this country ain't, and I won't take none from them. They might 'a' got together and stopped this Prohibition thing before it got such a start, but they didn't have the gumption. I've seceded, I have. And if any of my wife's Prohibition relations comes sniffin' and smellin' around my door, where I've locked myself in, I'll put a bullet through the door. You hear me! And I'll know who's sniffin', too, for I can tell a Prohibitionist sniff as fur as I can hear it.
“I got a bar of my own all fixed up in my bedroom and there's going to be a hot water kettle near by it and a bowl of this here Tom and Jerry setting onto it as big as life.
“And every time I wake up I'll crawl out of bed and say to myself: 'Better have just one more.'
“'Well, now,' myself will say to me, 'just one! I really hadn't orter have that one; I've had so many—but just one goes.'
“And then we'll mix it right solemn and pour in the hot water, standing there in front of the bar, with our foot onto the railing, me and myself together, and myself will say to me:
“'Well, old scout, you better have another afore you go. It's gettin' right like holiday weather outside.'
“'I hadn't really orter,' I will say to myself again, 'but it's a long time to next holidays, ain't it, old scout? And here's all the appurtenances of the season to you, and may it sing through your digestive ornaments like a Christmas carol. Another one, Ed.'
“And then I'll skip around behind the bar and play I was Ed, the bartender, and say, 'Are they too sweet for you, sir?'
“And then I'll play I was myself again and say, 'No, they ain't, Ed. They're just right. Ask that feller down by the end of the bar, Ed, to join us. I know him, but I forget his name.'
“And then I'll play I was the feller and say I hadn't orter have another but I will, for it's always fair weather when good fellows gets together.
“And then me and myself and that other feller will have three more, because each one of us wants to buy one, and then Ed the bartender will say to have one on the house. And then I'll go to sleep again and hibernate some more. And don't you call me out of that there room till along about noon on the second day of January. I'll be alone in there with my joy and my grief and all them memories.”
CHAPTER TEN—Continuing the History—the Old Soak Fears for the Growing Children
ANOTHER thing wrong with Prohibition that will one day make them sorry they passed that commandment onto the constitution is the way it will bring liquor in front of the growing children and if the children learns to drink it too young what will become of this country I would like to know when the next war comes along.
I guess they didn't think of that, all these here wise Johnnies when they passed that law.
When you used to get all you wanted in a barroom you went there for it and the children didn't see you and they couldn't go into them places and it wasn't sticking around under the children's noses at home all the time making them ask Pa what do you need with so much of that medicine and can I have some Pa.
But now you have it at home and it is sticking under their noses all the time and the chances are millions and millions of children will learn to drink too soon just because it is sticking under their noses all the time and that is what Prohibition is doing for this country for everyone knows if they drink it too soon it will stunt their growths.
It is a great responsibility to bring up children right and Godfearing and be sure they say their lay me down to sleep every night like the Good Book says they should, and what I want to know is why this government don't help the parents and fathers with all them responsibilities instead of being a stumbling block in their way and putting liquor in the home where the growing children will smell it all the time and if they smell it they will want some of it.
Of course a young feller has got to learn to drink some time but there is such a thing as learning too young and it stunts their growth and the good book says keep it out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Maybe a little beer is all right if a baby is puny to fatten him up but I never give my children any hard liquor till they had their growth and I got no use for a government that turns in and puts liquor in the home to make drunkards out of the little innocent children.
Maybe if a child has got a cold a little whiskey is good for him and what is left in the bottom of the glass when their dad is done with it if they put some sugar and water in it and play they are like Pa won't hurt none of them any and will help make them so they can hold their share when they get growed up, but that is different from forcing it down their poor little innocent throats all the time and every day, which is what that Prohibition commandment amounts to.
I knowed a child once in a fambly where they thought it was smart to let him have some hard liquor and he growed up with goggle eyes and all rickety from it and took to smoking these here cheap cigarettes and it was a shame as any person with any heart a tall would have said and does this government want the whole future generation of posterity to grow up goggle eyed and rickety like that by forcing liquor into the home and where will they get their strong soldiers from in the next war.
I will say they got no conscience to do a thing like that to the whole passel of children waiting to grow up and go to be soldiers.
It is enough to make any honest man stop and think and his heart bleed when he thinks of all them millions and millions of innocent children and the way they are being ruined with liquor in the home and maybe helping their daddies make it with yeast and raisins and things and cornmeal in the cellar.
I teached my boys to drink in the barroom just as fast as they growed up and teached them to tell good liquor from bad liquor and not to mix their drinks and not to go in for fancy drinks and to drink along with me for a comfort for my old age and a father had ought to make chums of his boys like that and give them the right example and they stay close to him and he knows what they are thinking about and can give them good advice and my boys has been a comfort to me.
My boys is all growed up, but what worries me is the millions and millions of little children that is going to learn to drink too young.
Well, in my next chapter I promise to get down to brass tacks and tell just exactly what those barrooms was like that has been vanished.