Right across from us was another store, the owner of which had been a "whiskey trader" the greater part of his life.
One morning I was taking the shutters off our windows, when a man galloped up in great haste and told me he was after a doctor, that there was someone either freezing or frozen out on the ice in the bay, a little below the village; and away he flew on his errand.
The old "whiskey trader" happened just then to come to the door of his store, and I told him what I had heard. With a laugh and an oath he said, "John, I'll bet that is old Tom Bigwind, the old rascal." (Poor Tom, an Indian, was the victim of drunkenness, and this man had helped to make him so.) "He owes me, and I suppose he owes you also. Well, I will tell you what we will do; you shall take his old squaw, and I will take his traps."
My boyish blood was all ablaze at this, but as he was a white-headed old man, I turned away in disgust.
I then went in to breakfast, and when I came out I had an errand down the street, and presently met the old trader, all broken up and crying like a child. I said, "What is the matter?" and he burst out, "Oh, it is George! Poor George!" "What George?" I asked; and he said, "My son! my son!" And then it flashed upon me—for I knew his son, like old Tom, the Indian, had become a victim of the same curse.
Ah! thought I, this is retribution quick and sharp.
I went on down to the town hall, into which the lifeless body had been brought, and there, sure enough, was poor George's body, chilled to death out on the ice while drunk!
One of the gentlemen present said to me, "John, you must go and break this sad event to his wife."
I pleaded for someone else to go, but it was no use. I was acquainted with the family, had often received kind notice from this poor woman who now in this terrible manner was widowed, and with a troubled heart I went on my sad errand.
What had spoken to her? No human being had been near the house that morning, and yet, with blanched face, as if in anticipation of woe, she met me at the door.