Little Wolf: A Tale of the Western Frontier

by Mary Ann Mann Cornelius

T'other night a neighbor of mine was a walkin hum with me and we went past the house of an old Scothman, who gits drunk every time he ken git trusted, or treated or ken git change enough fur tu buy the whiskey, and his wife ain't no better than he is. They hev two nice leetle children, a boy and a gal, and them air unfeeling wretches, hed, in a fit of drunken madness, actually shet their leetle boy and gal out of doors that cold freezing night. The poor babies was half naked, and they had curled powerful close together on the door step, where the winds blowed around and gnawed away at their half froze bodies, until the stout hearted boy cried with pain as he tuck off his Scotch bonnet and put his sister's poor, little, red, frostbit feet inter it. His own feet was bare, and their heads was bare, and in a little while they might hev froze to death, hed we not passed that air way. Wall, we stopped and tried fur tu make them air critters inside open the door, but they hed locked up, and settled down inter a drunken sleep, and the children begged us not fur tu disturb 'em for them are children was afeared of being mauled tu death. They'd ruther freeze than ventur in. So one of 'em I tuck and my neighbor tuck t'other hum. He was a swearing away all the time at them air folks making such beasts of themselves.

Now, what du yer think he did hisself the next day? He got so tight he couldn't walk straight. I met him a going hum smellin like a whiskey barrel and raising his feet powerful high. Says I, 'Neighbor G., I wouldn't hev thought you would ever hev teched another mite of liquor after what we see last night.' Says he, 'Mr. Roarer, I ken control my appetite. I know jest when fur tu stop. I shall go hum and kiss my wife and children and not drive 'em out of doors as Scotch Billy did.'

Says I, 'Thats just the way Scotch Billy talked five years ago.' 'Wall, wall,' says he, 'I ain't one of yer Scotch Billys; I know when fur tu stop.'

But ye won't du it; ye'll cave under by and by. Them air kind that brag that they know jest when fur tu stop is generally the very ones that go under afore they know it, I thinked tu myself as he staggered off.

If there is an old toper present, or a young toper, let 'em take the warning of an old man who has been awatching the gradual down fall of moderate drinkers for threescore years. I've seen 'em live, and I've seen 'em die. Die ain't no name fur the last struggle I've seen 'em go through with. Jest picture tu yourself a grapery, stretchin miles away, and in that air grapery is walkin men of every age and condition, and all are a pluckin them are big purple grapes. Some eat many, some, few; some grow red and portly, some grow pale and thin, (them air pale ones take the longest strides and get to the end fust.) They hev all been warned that that air fruit hes been pisened, and some of them git a leetle frightened at seein the strange way it effects companions, and they turn back, but the most on 'em go on, plucking and eating, heedless of the cries of them without. O, they know jest how many fur tu eat and not die. Their friends needn't worry: they ken take care of theirselves.

'Mother,' says a youth, lookin through the lattices, with a glow upon his cheek, 'I'm all right, don't bother about me. See Mr. Moderate Drinker ahead there,—see how hale he looks—he'll live longer than any of ye outside.' But afore long that air smart youth goes reeling past Mr. Moderate Drinker, toward the end.—It is too late now—let his mother cry to heaven and wring her hands and lie in the ashes upon the hearth. It is all in vain.—'My boy, oh, my boy!' rings unheeded in his ear. A mother's voice, a mother's tears, a mother's anguish, what are they compared with the fruit, which he has lost the power to resist, and which his companions are constantly urging upon him? But look! He suddenly starts back pale and fearful. He has seen the precipice and the black gulfs with open jaws jest afore him? No, ah no, the heavy clusters and the interlaced vines hide that. But he heard the despairing shriek of a feller traveller as he plunged in; and for a moment he tremblingly questions, what is there?

Ah, there is no clusters, no leaves, no vines, between that spot and his devoted mother's eye. She has long looked fearfully towards it, and, just upon the verge, she sees him falter.

A faint hope springs up within her, and, with the courage of desperation, she cries out in a voice that might pierce the skies, 'Turn, oh, my boy, turn, flee fur yer life—one step forward and ye are lost!' Her last words are drowned in the jeers of his companions, and his senses are deadened by the odors of the purple cluster just ahead, and to reach it he takes the fatal step. Fur a moment he hangs suspended over the abyss, clutchin the vines whose roots take hold on hell, and as with bloodshot eyes and fearful shrieks, he tugs and strains to regain his footin, a foul sarpent winds its way among the leaves, and stealthily strikes his fangs inter the branch to which he clings, and gnaws his last refuge.

That air is the way they die.

Now, can't nothin be done fur to keep folks out of that air grapery? If the law would only put a door tu it, and shet it tight, I recken there wouldn't be many that would git in thar. Some old topers that hev got a strong hankerin after that pisen fruit, might crawl through the lattices to get it. When the place is wide open and everything looks temptin, and they see a crowd a going that air way, it is easy fur tu foller, but when it's all shet up they turn away tu somethin better, fur almost any thin is better than sech a place as I hev described.