And if you guessed a thousand years, you never would guess where that blessed old lady steered those innocent Presbyterians. Into "Bohemia," one of the swiftest, all-night restaurants and dance halls in New York City. Neither Mr. or Mrs. George has ever had the courage to this day to ask how on earth Mother came to even know of the existence of such a place, much less of its locality.
Down Twenty-ninth Street they marched; Mother in the lead, the two sisters next, then Uncle Abinidab "with whiskers down to here," and last, and making himself the "least," he could, with his two hundred and seventy pounds, came George, wondering what the finish would be. The Orchestra, one of those Austrian Table-Dote-with-Red-Wine Affairs, consisting of half a dozen crazy fiddlers and a girl beating one of those woven wire mattress pianos with a couple of sticks, was whooping it up for all they were worth; the loud shrill voices of the women and the hoarse voices of the men, the shouts of the waiters and the clatter of dishes made a very babel of sound.
And then the Presbyterian convention walked in.
The crowd gave one look—and every sound stopped. The Orchestra died away in a discordant wail; the guests stopped, with glasses raised half way to their lips; the waiters stood as if petrified. Old Bohemia had seen many strange sights in its career; but no stranger cavalcade had ever marched in through its portals than this "Peaceful Valley Quartette." The three aged women, dressed in all the simplicity of their village home; Uncle Abinidab, tall, austere and with the snow-white whiskers, and behind them, a big, smooth-faced, broad-shouldered young chap that looked like a Plain Clothes Man in charge.
Four pale, anemic, shifty-eyed young fellows who were seated at a table near the door, took one look at George, reached under their chairs for their hats, and faded away through the door into the night. Mother, with a happy smile, piloted her little brood over to an empty table, and with a graceful gesture, motioned them to be seated. Then, with expectant faces, they all looked at George. Every eye in the place was still focussed on them. The silence and air of expectation which pervaded the room was so tense that everybody jumped when George mustered up courage at last to stammer,
"Er-er-what'll you have?"
The silence grew still more tense as everybody leaned forward to hear the answer. Uncle Abinidab glanced at the sisters nervously, then cleared his throat and said:
"Er-er-hem; I think I'll take a wee drop of whiskey."
There was a deep sigh of relief went up from the whole room, a sigh which swelled to an almost articulate cry of joy as Mother-in-law chimed in, "I think I will too."
The two sisters voted with the majority and George made it unanimous.