“'You hold on!' said I; 'don't you cross a foot-log till the tree's down. I'm tryin' a new dicker. I've always heard that “familiarity breeds contempt,” an' I've also heard that “the hair o' the dog is good fer the bite.” Now, I've tried my level best to quit liquor by stayin' away from it, an' I'm a-goin' to see ef I cayn't do it with its eye on me all the time.' Well, sir, the sweet little woman—she's a sweet, dear little creature, Captain Duncan, ef I do say it myse'f.”
“I've always heard so, Baker,” the planter said. “She's very popular with your neighbors.”
“An' I'm jest t'other way,” said Pole. “Well, Sally she got up an' kissed me, an' said that somehow she felt like my plan would work.”
“And did it?—I mean”—the captain recalled Pole's spree of only the night before—“I mean, did it work for any length of time?”
“I was goin' on to tell you,” answered the mountaineer. “That night fer the fust time sence my marriage I woke smack dab in the middle o' the night, an' as I laid thar in the room filled with moonlight I couldn't see a blessed thing but that row o' bottles, an' then my mouth set in to waterin' at sech a rate that I got afeard I'd ketch my death from sleepin' on a wet pillow. It was certainly a struggle with the flesh. I'd put my thirst, captain, when she's good an' dry, ag'in any that ever tickled a human throat. It ud take the blue ribbon at a convention o' drunkards. It's a rale thing; it kin walk, an' talk, an' kick, an' squirm, but it won't be dictated to. Finally Sally woke up an' said:
“'What's the matter, Pole? Hain't you comfortable?'
“'Comfortable the devil!' said I—I'm usually polite to Sally, but I felt like that wasn't no time an' place to talk about little matters. 'Comfortable nothin',' said I. 'Sally, ef you don't take that “doghair” out o' this house an' hide it, I'll be as drunk as a b'iled owl in ten minutes.'
“'Dog-hair?' said she, an' then the little woman remembered, an' she got up. I heard the bottles tinkle like sorrowful good-bye bells callin' wanderin' friends back to the fold as she tuck 'em up an' left. Captain, I felt jest like”—Pole laughed good-naturedly—“I felt like thar was a mean, stinkin' plot agin the best friends I ever had. I actually felt sorry fer them thar bottles, an' I got up an' stood at the window an' watched Sally as she tuck 'em away out in the lonely moonlight to the barn. I seed 'er climb over the fence o' the cow-lot an' go in at the side whar I kept my hay an' fodder an' roughness fer my cattle. Then I laid down in bed ag'in.”
“You acted right,” said the planter; “and you deserve credit for putting your foot down so firmly on what you felt was so injurious, even, even”—the captain came back again to reality—“even if you didn't remain firm very long afterwards.”
“Well, I'll tell you one thing—” The ex-moonshiner laughed again, and his eyes twinkled. “It tuck Sally longer, it seemed to me, to git to sleep after she got back than it ever had in all her life. Of all times on earth, she wanted to talk. But I shet her off. I made like I was breathin' good an' deep, an' then she set in, too. What did I do? Captain Duncan, I spent the best half o' that night out in the barn lookin' fer hens' nests. I found two, an' had to be put to bed at sun-up.”