5
I fell a willing victim to the wiles of the Rum Demon on the night of my conversion, and thereafter, in common with other boys of the town who were aflame with revolt against the religious taboos which had so oppressed us, I drank whenever I could obtain the liquor. This was not often, because I seldom had any money and it was difficult to find a bartender who would sell a drink to a minor. The eagle eye of the W. C. T. U. was constantly upon him. But occasionally the darkies would buy for us in return for one swig at the bottle, and as often as possible we purchased by this means a pint or quart of whisky or gin. I did not drink because I liked the taste of liquor, for I didn’t, and I do not now, but I thought it was smart and manly to get drunk.
And there was another, and a deeper reason. It seemed to me that in the eyes of the Preachers and the Brothers and Sisters a man could commit no more heinous sin than to get tight; it was even worse than smoking. Such being the case, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to achieve that condition, and thereby show them that I had no use for them and the things for which they stood. And that was also the reason we sang vulgar songs, and roared with gusto the parodies on hymns that we learned from time to time. It was our custom to get as drunk as possible and then group ourselves about the pump in the courthouse yard, where we bellowed ditties and parodies until the town marshal or some outraged Brother or Sister stopped us.
There were few such songs that we did not sing; it was at the pump, on a summer night, that I first heard the “Song of Jack Hall.” It was taught to us by a shoe drummer from St. Louis, who sang it with appropriate gestures, and for a long time it was our favorite song. The version that we sang was this—it should be rendered with great gusto and feeling, and the final line of each verse should be dragged from deep down in the chest:
Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall, ’tis Jack Hall,
Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall, ’tis Jack Hall;
Oh, me nyme it is Jack Hall,
And I’ll tell youse one and all,
The story of me fall,
God damn your eyes.