Adventures in Silence

by Herbert W. Collingwood

“Walk straight now, and if you bat an eye at this door I’ll call my husband!”

In a community where women were a minority such a command was emphatic, so the milkman proceeded with care and circumspection. Peering about uncertainly, he carefully poured the milk into what he supposed was a milkpail. There was a tremendous commotion within, for quite innocently he had sent a forcible message into the world of silence. It later appeared that the woman of the house was ill and had been greatly disturbed by the bell, so Aunt Sarah had volunteered to end the noise. But Aunt Sarah, though a woman of large and very superior intentions, was not an expert on noises. She was very deaf, and made use of one of the old-fashioned trumpets with a mouthpiece as large as a good-sized funnel. She had not been able to fully complete her toilet, so she did not throw the door wide open; but in order to hear what the milkman had to say for himself, she made an opening just wide enough to thrust out the mouthpiece of her trumpet. The man poured the milk into it—literally giving Aunt Sarah “an earful.” I have heard of several cases where a great nervous shock or a long continuance of trouble has suddenly destroyed the hearing. I wish I might say that Aunt Sarah’s hearing was restored or improved by this milk treatment; the dispenser of the liquid declares that it had a striking effect upon her voice, but that she was quite unable to appreciate his explanation. Were I to repeat some of her remarks, I should add to the force of this narrative, but hardly to its dignity.

The town of Greeley was organized as a temperance community. It was recorded in every deed or lease that the title was to be forfeited at any time that liquor was sold on the premises, and this regulation was absolutely enforced, for the settlers were a band of earnest “cranks,” who saw to it that the wheels went ’round. The result was that this town contained more cases of near-delirium tremens than any other place of equal size in the State. It came to be a favorite plan for those who had been elsewhere on a spree to come to Greeley to sober up. They could get no liquor except what they brought, and most of that was taken away from them. The first time I drove the milk wagon I encountered one of these “patients.” At a lonely place on the outskirts of town a disreputable character suddenly started up from the roadside and caught the horse’s bridle with his left hand, meanwhile pointing a long forefinger at me. He was red-eyed, unshaven and trembly, and I could not hear a word he said. I took it to be “Money or your life”—and who ever knew a milkman to have money? It turned out that he was demanding a quart of new milk with which to help float over a new leaf. I had nothing in which to serve the milk except the quart measure, but I filled that and handed it over. The man sat down on the grass and slowly drank his “medicine”; then I washed the measure in an irrigating ditch and was prepared for the next customer.

This man told me that he was making a desperate effort to recover from a protracted spree, and it was the general belief that a diet of warm milk was the best treatment. It came to be a common thing for us to meet these haggard, wild-eyed sufferers, and help them to the milk cure. I have seldom heard of the treatment elsewhere. It was there considered a standard remedy, though I have never been able to understand the psychology or the physiology of it. A friend of mine who is quite deaf tells me of another experience with a new cure for the drink habit.

He took his vacation one Summer on a steamer running from Buffalo up the Great Lakes. Among other supplies he carried a peck of good apples. I cannot say that apples are to be recommended as a cure for deafness, but to many of us they are better than tobacco for companionship. The first day out, while waiting for his fellow-passengers to realize that a deaf man was not likely to eat them up or convey some terrible disease, my friend took two mellow Baldwins, found a shady place on the forward deck, and prepared for a lazy lunch. He was about to bite into the first of his fruit when an excited man hurried up from below and began talking eagerly. The deaf man could not imagine what it was all about, and while he was trying to explain the newcomer snatched the apple out of his hand and buried his teeth far into it. My friend was reminded of a wild animal half-crazed for food. At this moment an anxious-faced woman appeared. The man turned to her, and with his mouth well filled shouted:

“Mary, you’ll find it in the false bottom of my bag. Get rid of it at once.”

The woman disappeared on the run, while the man finished the first apple and held out his hand for the other. Presently she returned with two bottles of whiskey, and, going to the side of the steamer, she deliberately threw them overboard. Then, while her husband kept at the apples, she made the deaf man understand.

It appeared that her man was a hard drinker, though he was trying with all his poor enfeebled will to free himself from the slavery. He had tried many “cures,” but the only way to overcome the desire for whiskey was to eat sour apples when the craving became too strong. It did not always work, but frequently this remedy was successful. This trip was a vacation for him and his wife, and just before the boat had started some of his companions had brought him two bottles of whiskey, which he had hidden in the bottom of his bag, and he was waiting for an opportunity to “enjoy life.” All the morning he had been prowling about the boat trying to fight off the craving. Finally down in the hold he had come upon what he called a “funeral outfit.” There was a coffin—but let him tell it.

“That coffin was going as freight to the last resting-place, and it made me realize that I was going by express to the same place. Beside it stood an undertaker—one of those melancholy individuals with black burnsides and a long chin. He looked at me, and I thought he was saying:

‘Come on, old man! This is what rum is bringing you to. Give me the job.’”