"Paw and me got so drunk last Christmas we couldn't roll over in bed," piped up Jason.
Taulbee, the great stickler for propriety, summed up the matter authoritatively: "Folks would think they was bad off if they couldn't pass around a jug of liquor a-Christmas," he said; "they would feel like it weren't showing hospitality."
When I remember that this was the idea of the entire Christian world less than a century ago, I cannot be too severe upon my boys, distressing as these conditions are.
Killis spoke again shortly. "I want every boy here that can get to my house on Clinch a-Christmas to come, and see a good time," he announced. "Come the Saturday after New Christmas. I can't drink myself, on account of what paw said; but I got good-and-plenty for my friends. And maw she'll give you all you can eat. And we'll shoot off all paw's guns and pistols."
There was unanimous acceptance, even by boys living nearly forty miles distant from Killis, Nucky's being qualified by the condition, "If the Cheevers haint giving too much trouble at home."
I sighed deeply. "Boys," I said, "you know what I think about drinking; you know I consider it very, very wrong."
"Quare women has quare notions," remarked Joab, forbearingly.
"You know I hope the day will come when not one of you will ever touch liquor," I said. "Is there one now who thinks enough of me to promise not to drink this Christmas?"
The dead silence that followed was broken at last by Philip. "We like you all right," he said; "but, by grab, a fellow's got to see some fun!"
It is rumored that Killis's uncles still carry on the business in which his father perished; so I suppose there will be no doubt about the "good-and-plenty" to drink at his house.