The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-11-21
WHAT A FEW KIND WORDS DID
How Hard Drinker Was Made to Promise
to Give Up whisky

How Hard Drinlzer Was Made to Promise
to Give Up Whisky.
In the winter of 1882 Mr.. Edmund
Kirke had occasion to cross the noun
tains from Morristown, Tenn, to Ashe-
vile, N. G. During his journey he
found himself in the house of a North
Carolina backwoodsman He thus de-
seribes the experience:
After the customary greeting the man
drew black flask from his pocket, and
picking up broken glass from the floor
beside him, said to me; q say, stran-
ger, take a little apple-iack-'tw twill warm
you up; you've cold ride before you. ="
mo, my friend; l can stand the cold
better without that kind of warming
''Well, thought you was Yankee
when you come in; now 1 know it. y
This was said in friendly tone, and
not at all disrespectfully.
''How do you know l am a Yam
keep
"By your being so free with your
money, and knowing enough not to
drink before going out into the cold. y
What do you know about the Yam
kees?n
"a heap. / was a prisoner to John
sons Island, and after the surrender
stayed three years among them"
'.Well, my friend, am a Yankee,
and, whatever you are, you're very
decent fellow; you've only one fault
and if you won't shoot me I'll tell you
what it is
Il won't. What is it?" he asked,
smiling.
"And you won't draw that butcher
knife you carry in the back pocket OF
your trousers?"
it, )" he answered, now laughing out
right.
"Well, it's that flask OF apple-iack in
your side-pocket Throw it away, and
there isn't anything you couldn't make
of yourself. "
"Do you b'lieve that?"
81 don't believe it; know it."
"Then, | sw ar, I'll throw it away. ="
"Do it at once. Pitch it out of the
SJJII
again.
He took the flask from his pocket
and gazed at it fxedly for moment;
then he said: "But how kin | do it.,
strangerP What other comfort has a
man that has had such losses and dis
appointments as I've had? It's only
when / take it that feel like man.
cts only a bogus manhood. No
man who takes it habitually has any
real manliness. 1t keeps him poor, and
it makes his wife and children suffer-
wouldn't hurt your feelings, but can
see that Sam knows it is running you;
so give it up on the boys account, iffor
no other reason.
Ehe man rose and paced the room
with an unsteady step for few mo-
ments; then he paused, and, turning to
me, said: "Be you preacher?"
"No, | am not; and l have no dis
position to preach to you; but I We seen
u good deal of the world, and it isn't in
me to see a fine, manly fellow like you
going straight to the devil without say
ing word to stop him."
He took few more turns up and
down the room while was speaking,
and then, with a long swing of his
arm, he threw the flask of apple-iack
out of the opening in the weather
boarding, saying, when he had done
so: "Sir, l don't know your name, and
Imay never see you again, but | prom
Use you, before the God that made us,
never to taste drop of the cursed
stuff from this time forth for ever"
He kept his word, as 1 learned from
him and others more than year after
the occurrence. He told me then that
he had often before come to the brink
of that resolution, and that when | met
him it needed only a feather to turn
the trembling scale which was to de-
eide his future. That feather was my
reference to his boy Sam.
record this little incident simply to
encourage those who would do unob-
trusive good by the wayside. We
know little how much a few words
dropped here and there and ''fitly
spoken" may help some fellow who
has fallen and is struggling to get up
on his feet again. -Llppincott' s Moga-
zS7le