Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1890-02-12
Almost a Tragedy.

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lage aAame, literally as well as fgur-
atively, but created great excite
ment throughout the country, and was
the foundation of numerous sensation
al articles written for the papers of
those days. 1t may be said that when
the Independent Order of Good Tenn
plars was started in our village, there
were some villagers who did not join.
One of those was the tavern keeper.
The lodge would not have accepted
him if he had proposed himself for
membership, unless he had consented
to knock in the head his barrels of
beer and whisky and break his bottles
of brandy and gin. This, ofcourse, he
had no intention of doing, and he had
quite a number of followers among
the old topers of the village. In fact
those that joined the temperance lodge
were not those who needed to, as the
membership was mainly composed of
people who did not drink anyhow.
Some of these were really earnest
temperance workers and they believed
thoroughly that the keeping and the
selling of liquor was a great and en-
ormous crime that should be repressed
by almost any methed that could be
used. The great bulk of the lodge
people, however, met there merely for
the social amusement of the thing, to
sing songs and to hear speeches and
things of that sort. So the inaugura-
ton Of the temperance movement in
our.village had really the effect of
dividing it into two bitter factions, the
temperance people on one side and
the anti-temperance people on the
other. The school house was the
center of the temperance movement
and the tavern was the center for
those who believed in personal liber-
ty," as they called it. 1t was rumor-
ed that a suit was to be brought
against the tavern keeper for selling
liquor Oh Sunday and after the reg
ular hours, and it was rumored on the
other hand that terrible vengeance
was to be wrecked by the desperate
liquor faction against those whom they
called temperance fanatics.
With this state Of things, of course
we boys had nothing to do. We did
not understand the row, nor did we
care to know anything aboutit. But
there was one thing that we were Wild
ly anxious to learn, and that was the
awful secrets and pass words, and signs
and grips, of the new temperance order.
1t had been resolved that one Of our
number should secrete himself in the
school house desk some night which
had a sort of cupboard under it, and
thus learn the secrets. But no one
boy had ever the courage to do this.
We drew lots several times to see who
should take the perilous position, but
iu spite of urging, the victim on whom
the lot fell always refused to under
take the task. 1t was believed by us
boys that instant and terrible death
awaited the person who disclosed the
secrets of the order and | remember
that we thought our fathers and moth.
ers would stand helplessly aside while
the masked headsman of the order ex.
ecuted us in some atrocious way, our
parents being powerless to interfere, il
they had wanted to, which we thought
doubtful. We presumed that they
were so infatuated with the order that
perhaps with their own hands they
would visit. the merited punishment
on the spy who endeavored to solve
the awful mysteries Of the lodge. If,
however, dozen of us could have
been secreted in that desk together, !
think we would have mustered up
courage enough to have gone but as
that was impossible the secrets were
not to be divulged in this particular
way. Every lodge night the school
mistress, who was a member of the
order, tackled up against the windows
brown cloths so that nobody outside
could see in. Then there was supposed
to be an outside guard who sat on the
steps of the school honse and challeng-
ed all corners. He had regala with
a silver sword OIL it, and on lodge
nights he carried real sword in his
hand which was terror to us boys.
AS l have said before, the school house
was situated on an elevation of ground
that overlooked the big swamp. The
front door of the school house, was in
the north end Of the building, and
level with the ground, but the ground
sloped backwards and the other end
of the school house was on tall up
right timbers. The rear end was so
high from the ground that boy could
walk upright under the school house,
although he would have to crawl on
his hands and knees if he came out at
the front. Underneath the school
house was the unremoved debris that
had accumulated during the building,