The doorkeeper was incorrigible; “he’d seen just as honest looking men,” he said, “who were the greatest cheats in the world, and if father wanted to go in, he could do so by paying the usual fee; if not, he must budge.”
Finding there was no alternative, father yielded, and then made his way into the tent, scanning with his keen grey eyes the sea of faces until he singled out Charlie, who was so absorbed in stamping and hallooing at Mlle. Glaraine’s leaping through a hoop, that he never dreamed of father’s presence until a rough hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a stern voice demanded of him why he was there?
Perfectly thunderstruck, Charlie started to his feet with the exclamation of “Je-ru-sa-lem!” but before he could make any explanation father discovered Lizzie and me. ’Twas the first suspicion he had of our being there, and now, when he saw us, he turned pale, and reeled as if smitten by a heavy blow. Had he felled me to the earth it would have hurt me less than did the expression of his face and the tones of his voice, as he said, “You, too, Rosa! I never thought you would thus deceive me.”
I began to cry aloud; so did Lizzie, and in this way we made our exit from the circus, followed by Charlie, John, and Will, the latter of whom, the moment we were in the open air, began to take the blame all to himself, saying, as was very true, that we never would have thought of going but for him, and suggesting that he alone should be punished, as he was the one most in fault. I thought this was very magnanimous in Will, and I looked up in father’s face to see how it affected him, but the moonlight was obscure, and I could discover nothing, though the hand that held mine trembled violently. I presume he thought that in this case corporal punishment would be of no avail, for we received none, but in various ways were we made to feel that we had lost the confidence of the family. For four long weeks we were each night locked into our rooms, while for the same length of time we were kept from school, Lizzie and I reciting our lessons to our mother, while Will, Charlie, and John, to use their own words, “worked from morning until night, like niggers.”
But the worst part of it all was the temporary disgrace which our act of disobedience brought upon father. A half drunken fellow, who saw him enter the tent, and who knew that we were there, hurried away to the village with the startling intelligence that “Deacon Lee and all his family were at the circus.”
The news spread like wildfire, gathering strength in its progress, until by the time it reached us it was a current report that not only was father at the circus, but grandma too! This was more than the old lady could bear. Sixty-nine years had she lived without ever having had a word breathed against her morals, and now, just as her life’s sun was setting, to have such a thing laid to her charge was too much, and she actually worried herself into a fever, which confined her to the house for several weeks.
After this adventure it became a serious question in father’s mind as to what he should do with Will, who kept our heretofore quiet household in a state of perpetual excitement. Nothing seemed to have the least effect upon him save the mention of his mother, and that for the time being would subdue him, but when temptation came, he invariably yielded, and Charlie, who was an apt scholar, was pretty sure to follow where his wild, dashing cousin led. There was scarcely any boyish vice to which Will was not more or less addicted, and “Deacon Lee’s sons,” who had often been held up as patterns for their companions, began soon to prove the old adage true, that “evil communications corrupt good manners.”
John learned to handle an oath quite fluently, while Charlie was one Sunday morning discovered playing euchre with Will on the hay loft, where they kept their cards hidden. But all this was nothing compared to the night when both the boys were brought home so intoxicated that neither of them was able to stand alone or speak! They had been to a “raising,” where the brandy bottle circulated freely, Will, as a matter of course, drinking from the beginning. Charlie, however, hesitated until they taunted him with “being afraid of the old deacon,” daring him “to drink and be a man.” Then he yielded, and with fiendish pleasure the crowd gathered around, urging him on, until he was undeniably drunk; after which they chuckled with delight as they wondered what the “blue Presbyterian” would say. We were sitting down to supper when they brought him home, and the moment mother saw him, she darted forward, exclaiming, “Is he dead? Tell me, is my boy dead?”
“Yes, dead—drunk,” answered the man, with a cold, ironical sneer at her distress.
He was used to it, for of five noble sons who once called him their father, four slept in a drunkard’s grave, and the fifth had far better have been there than the wreck he was. My father had risen from his seat, but at the words “he is drunk,” he dropped upon the floor as if scathed with the lightning’s stroke. You who think it a light matter—the holding of the wine-cup to the lips of your neighbor’s child—you should have seen my father that night, as moan after moan of anguish came from his pale lips, while the great drops of perspiration stood thickly upon his forehead and about his mouth. The effect it had upon him was terrible; crushing him to the earth, and weaving in among his hitherto brown locks more than one thread of silver. Once when Charlie was with me, I heard him in the barn, praying that the promise of a covenant God might be remembered towards him, and that his son might yet be saved. Charlie’s feelings were touched, and dropping on his knees at my side he made a solemn vow that never again should ardent spirits of any kind pass his lips; and God, who heard that vow mingled with my father’s prayer, registered it in Heaven, and from that day to this, amid all the temptations which come to early manhood, it has been unbroken.