“He said ‘yes,’ only after I told him of your promise to me that you would not drink any more after we were married. He said you were the best born and best bred young man he had ever met—as if I didn’t already know it, you dear boy—but that he would rather bury me than let me marry a drinking man.”
During the delivery of this short speech Fred looked by turns astonished, sober, flattered, sullen, indignant, and finally business-like and judicial. Then he said:
“Darling, you must let me believe that your father is not fully posted about men who take an occasional glass. It’s no fault of his; he probably never tasted a drop of liquor in his life—he may never have felt the need of it. But believe me when I tell you that many of the smartest men drink sometimes, and are greatly helped by it. A business man whose daily life can’t help being often irregular, sometimes finds he can’t get along without something to help him through the day. Why, a few days ago I helped Sam Crayme, captain of the “Excellence,” you know, at a difficult bit of business; I worked thirty-six hours on a stretch, and made fifty dollars by it. That’s more money than any of your young temperance men of Barton ever make in a month, but I never could have done it if it hadn’t been for an occasional drink.”
“But,” said Esther, “you know I don’t say it by way of complaint, Fred dear, but for a week after that you felt dull and didn’t say much, and didn’t care to read, and one evening when I expected you you didn’t come.”
“But think how tired a man must be after such a job, Ettie,” pleaded Fred in an injured tone.
“You poor old fellow, I know it,” said Esther; “but you wouldn’t have been so if you hadn’t done the work, and you yourself say you couldn’t have done the work if you hadn’t drunk the liquor, and you know you didn’t need the money so badly as to have had to do so much. Any merchant in the town would be glad to give you employment at which you would be your own natural self.”
“And I would always be a poor man if I worked for our plodding, small-paying merchants,” said Fred. “Why, Ettie, who own the handsomest houses in town, who have the best horses, who set the best tables, whose wives and children wear the best clothes? Why, Moshier and Brown and Crayme and Wainright, every one of them moderate drinkers; I never in my life saw one of them drunk.”
“And I would rather be dead than be the wife of any one of them,” said Esther with an energy which startled Fred. “Mrs. Moshier used to be such a happy-looking woman, and now she is so quiet and has such sad eyes. Brown seems to spend no end of money on his family; but his children are always put to bed before he comes home, because he is as likely as not to be cross and unkind to them; when they meet him on the street they never shout ‘Papa!’ and rush up to him as your little brothers and sisters do to your father; but they look at him first with an anxious look that’s enough to break one’s heart, and as likely as not cross the street to avoid meeting him. Mrs. Crayme was having such a pleasant time at Nellie Wainright’s party the other night, when her husband, who she seldom enough has a chance to take into society with her, said such silly things and stared around with such an odd look in his eye that she made some excuse to take him home. And Nellie Wainright—she was my particular friend before she was married, you know—was here a few days ago, and I was telling her how happy I was, when suddenly she threw both arms around my neck and burst out crying, and told me that she hoped that my husband would never drink after I was married. She insists upon it that her husband is the best man that ever lived, and that if she only mentions anything she would like, she has it at once if money can buy it, and yet she is unhappy. She says there’s always a load on her heart, and though she feels real wicked about it, she can’t get rid of it.”
Fred Macdonald was unable for some moments to reply to this unexpected speech; he arose from his chair, and walked slowly up and down the room, with his hands behind him, and with the countenance natural to a man who has heard something of which he had previously possessed no idea. Esther looked at him, first furtively, then tenderly; then she sprang to his side and leaned upon his shoulder, saying,
“Dear Fred, I know you could never be that way; but then all these women were sure they knew just the same about their lovers, before they were married.”