“Excuse me, parson,” interrupted Mr. Crupp; “but I don’t want to join the church—not just now, anyhow. I——”
“Wish to consecrate your ill-gotten gains to the service of the Lord,” broke in the good pastor; but Mr. Crupp frowned, then pouted, then compressed his lips tightly, and gave so sudden a twitch as to wrench one of the joints of the sacred chair, as he replied:
“No, sir, I don’t, for I haven’t any ill-gotten gains. I never sold anything but good liquor, and the price was always fair. I never sold any liquor to a drunken man, either. What I came to you for is this: I know who drinks, when they drink, what they take, and I know pretty well why they drink. Some of them signed the pledge last night, and they’re going to have an awful hard job in keeping it.”
“Prayer——” interrupted the minister, but the hard-headed Crupp quickly completed the sentence.
“Prayer never cured a dyspeptic stomach, that I’ve heard of, and I don’t believe it’ll take away a man’s hunger for whisky. These fellows that’s been drinking, and have got anything to ’em, can be kept from falling into the old ways again; but they’ve got to be handled carefully, and what I came to you for was to ask who was going to do the handling? You know who’s free-handed with money in your congregation, and free-handed men ought to be free-hearted. I’m going to Dominie Brown on the same errand, and to the other preachers, too.”
Mr. Crupp’s speech consumed only a moment of time, but its effect upon the preacher was wonderful—and depressing. From being a mirror of irrepressible Christian exultation, Mr. Wedgewell’s face became as solemn as it ever was when he bemoaned from the pulpit the apathy of the elect. His eyes enlarged behind his glasses, and he stared for a moment in an abstracted manner at a dreadful chromo which hung upon his wall—a chromo at which no one in active possession of his mental faculties could possibly have looked so long. But the old pastor had a heart so great that even his theology had been unable to wall it in, and after a moment of inevitable despondency he realized that Crupp was intent upon doing good.
“Mr. Crupp,” said he, turning his head suddenly, and regaining a portion of his earlier expression of countenance, “I do not fully comprehend your intention, but I can see that it is good. May I ask what the people of God can do for these beings who have been under the dominion of alcohol?”
“Well, it’s a long story,” replied the old bartender. “Among them that signed, there isn’t one in ten that ever drank, and of them that drank, half of ’em’ll take something before night.”
“And break their solemn vow! Awful! awful!” ejaculated the minister.
“Yes,” said Crupp, “’tis awful; but, on the other hand, there’s some that’s in earnest. There’s Tom Adams, now—he that drives the brick-yard team. Tom’s a good, square, honest fellow, and he loves his family, but I don’t see how he’s going to stop drinking. He can’t work without it; leastways, he can’t work along the way he’s working now. Deacon Jones ought to give him easier work to do until he can bring himself around; but Deacon Jones won’t waste his money in that way, if he is a member of your church. Then there’s old Bunley: there isn’t anything to him. He’s been drinking and drinking and drinking this forty year, he says, and yet he was well brought up, and he can’t keep himself from going to church every Sunday. He’s got some children that ain’t grown yet, and if some of the storekeepers would only give him credit without ever expecting to see their money again, the old fellow wouldn’t get down-hearted so often, and maybe he could quit drinking. As far as taking care of his family goes, he isn’t good for much the way he is; he borrows from soft-hearted fellows who can’t afford to lose as well as the storekeepers can, and maybe he steals sometimes—I don’t say he does, mind. At any rate, the biggest part of his support comes out of the public, and as the public can’t help itself, it ought to be sensible enough to try to make the old chap feel and act like a man.”