Jared spent the first year in clearing up a little field for the plow, and in erecting the necessary farm buildings; and by the time the baby boy came, things about the place were taking on a comfortable, homelike appearance. The little family were not utterly alone in this far-away land, for the “tote-road,” over which supplies from the distant railroad station, for the farther away camps of the north, were hauled, ran past their door, and their home became a stopping place for teamsters and other travelers.
It was not long before Jared’s thrifty, Yankee mind saw the opportunity for gain lying to his hand in opening his place as a regular tavern, and he told his wife of his intention. But Margaret objected.
“Ye know, Jared,” said she, “I don’t mind the work. I’m able for that a-plenty; but ye well know I married ye and came here to get rid of the tavern. I will not have the rum about me.”
“But, Margaret,” replied Jared, “we’ll have no drink in the tavern; just lodging and the eating.”
Thus it was for a time; but the old habits of life were revived by the frequent demands of their guests for liquor, as they would come in from the long, cold drives, and Jared’s cupidity at length got the better of his honesty and his faith with his wife, and he began to keep and dispense liquor again.
At first he endeavored to keep his sin from the knowledge of his wife; but greed bred carelessness and indifference, and before the third year of their wilderness home, Jared had his barroom open as a feature of the roadhouse.
Faithfully Margaret pleaded and earnestly did she warn her husband that “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” but he refused to be moved. “I don’t drink it myself, ye know, an’ if these fools want to part with good money for the stuff, it’s their affair. Some one else will let them have it if I don’t, and I may as well have the money as any one else.”
It was not long before the effects of the stream of damnation that flowed out from Slater’s roadhouse began to show themselves. When John Pollard went home and beat his wife, so that the life of a soon-expected little one was snuffed out, and the mother lingered long at death’s door, it was whispered that the blame lay in Jared Slater’s barroom. And when that winter a tote team arrived at a camp further north with the body of the driver stark and stiff, an empty bottle from Jared’s shelf told the story.
Not only did the tavernkeeper sell his liquid hell to white travelers, but his Indian neighbors, although especially protected by a law of the land, became his customers on the sly, and Jared’s eyes gloated over the piles of rich pelts stored in the back room, that represented to him but a paltry outlay in liquor.
“It’ll come on ye, Jared, it’ll come on ye. I’m afeared for ye. Ye know how the drink sets the red men wild. It’ll come back on ye, as sure as God lives,” solemnly protested Margaret.