I told her that I had bought them at her husband’s store, and she shrieked:
“You saucy, blasphemous boy!”
But on that particular occasion I was not lectured, although she telephoned my mother that I had been impudent to her. My mother told her it was too bad.
2
I learned to play pinochle when I was about fifteen, only a few months after I had become an accomplished cigarette fiend and was generally considered a fine prospect for Satan, and thereafter was a regular participant in the game that went on every night in the back room of Karl Schliesser’s cigar factory. This was a notable den of evil, and while religion had me in its clutches I thought black magic was practiced there, and that its habitués had communion with the Devil; among us it was believed that God had doubtless never heard of the place or He would have destroyed it with a withering blast of lightning. It was frequented by Germans and other low forms of life, and they were principally Catholics and Lutherans, with a sprinkling of renegade Protestants like myself. The Brothers and Sisters held the opinion that if this crowd had a God at all he must have been a very queer being, for bursts of ribald laughter came from Schliesser’s back room, and there was card-playing, and I do not doubt that occasionally someone gambled.
Schliesser was the Town Socialist, and was looked upon with grave suspicion by the better element, as in those days it was generally recognized that a Socialist was an emissary of the Devil. But the Brothers and Sisters and the Preachers looked with even more suspicion upon Victor Quesnel. In this attitude they had the support of the Catholics. Victor Quesnel was born in France, but he had lived in Farmington for many years. He frequently quoted Voltaire, and appeared to believe that a man’s religion and his belief or disbelief in God was a matter of his own personal taste, and he was therefore regarded as an atheist. As a matter of fact he was probably more truly religious than most of the pious Brothers and Sisters; the principal difference was that he did not try to compel everyone he met to embrace his creed.
Frequently, and without particular regard as to who heard him, Quesnel discussed the advantages of sleeping naked, or, as we say in present-day journalism, undraped. That was his hobby. He said he thought it was a healthful practice, that he slept better without clothing, and that come what might he was going to continue to sleep that way. This was considered heathenish doctrine; some of our finest church members owned stores in which they sold nightgowns and pajamas, and it was felt that Quesnel’s attitude was not only a direct affront to God but was also injurious to business. Moreover, the Brothers and Sisters did not consider such a practice modest; there were scores, perhaps hundreds of people in Farmington who had never in their lives removed all of their clothing. Once at a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid Society I heard an old Sister say that she had reached the age of sixty and had never been entirely undressed; and that when she bathed she kept her eyes closed as she applied the sponge to her body. A great deal of juicy conversation could be overheard at these Ladies’ Aid meetings by a bright young lad who knew where the best keyholes were located.
3
Sunday was much more enjoyable after I had become a sinner and had left Sunday school and the Church to whatever fate the Lord had in store for them. I arose a little later, had a leisurely breakfast and a refreshing quarrel or fight with my brothers and sister, and then went leisurely to my room and as leisurely put on my Sunday suit, with no intention of removing it until I retired for the night. Curiously enough, as soon as I quit going regularly to church and Sunday school I began to wear my Sunday suit all day, and the little voice that I had in the selection of this garment I raised in hopeful pleas for loud checks and glaring colors. No longer did I wish to clothe myself in the sombre blacks suitable for church wear and religious activity; I desired to blossom and bloom in the more violent and pleasant colors of Hell.
Once arrayed in my Sunday suit, I left the house, a cigarette dangling from my lower lip, and my hat, carefully telescoped in the prevailing mode, sitting just so on the side of my head. I tried to time my march downtown so that I would reach Elmwood Seminary just as the young lady students resident there marched across the street, after Sunday school, from the Presbyterian church; they were not permitted to remain at the church during the fifteen or twenty-minute interval because they attracted such hordes of feverish boys intent upon everything but religion. Usually I reached the scene in time, and leaned nonchalantly against the Seminary fence, puffing vigorously and ostentatiously on a cigarette and winking at various and sundry of the girls as they passed in their caps and gowns.