And Josiah sez, "A coachman is to coach, and a waiter is to wait, and a butler must be to buttle."
Sez I, "Buttle what? Or who? Or when?" But he couldn't tell. Well, Sam he did everything to git into the first and be fashionable, he embezzled a lot, broke down two or three times with enormous profit to himself, spent his money like water, wuz jest as mean as he could be, went over to Europe now and then, did everything he could do to be fashionable and act like a man of the world, and finally he led astray a little girl that lived with 'em, a motherless little girl they had took, pretty as a pink too, and affectionate dispositioned. Jane Olive turned her outdoors, of course, when she found it out. It wuz in the fall of the year, and the night before Christmas the girl with her baby in her arms jumped into the river and wuz drownded.
Her father had some spunk and took Sam up, but he wuz always sly and looked ahead, and he proved that she wuz a day or two older than the age of consent, and he got let off triumphant and her father had to pay the cost, besides the funeral expenses, and grave stun.
Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin' to his powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I believe he brought it down to about ten years. He wuz thought a sight on by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for their interest. He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered broadcast through the country without any license to pay. I spoze there never wuz a more popular statesman. He worked too hard though, and had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts. And he kep' right on, so they say reapin' 'em ever since, cuttin' up and actin', but always actin' jest inside the law and always cuttin' up the same.
He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin' what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community. I spoze there never wuz a more popular legislator.
But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after he'd made a powerful speech at the openin' of a saloon he owned, a old one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin', and by some wimmen too.
Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin' to show off to the world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded off, weaker drinks in one place leadin' up gradual to brandy and whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin' man, so I hearn, who made a prayer and then they all sung the Doxology:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow—
Askin' God to bless what He'd cursed. What must God thought on't! For He and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.
Praise Him all creatures here below—