Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-03-16
Washin9ton Standard
HIS SHOES WE'RE TOO TIGHT.
BIT the Young Mans Mother and Sister Do
Not Know WHY Tic Signed the Pledge.

HIS SHOES WE'RE TOO TIGHT.
BIT the Young Mans Mother and Sister Do
Not Know Why Tic Signed the Pledge.
The Young man about whom his
friends arc telling this story has lived
all his life in Chicago. He has never
been known as a hard drinker, but
that lie does enjoy glass or two OF
wine occasionally nobody can deny.
His mother ard sister are ardent tenn
perance workers, and orc night last
week the sister persuaded him to act
as her escort to the temperance lee
ture on the ground that she had no
one else to accompany her and had
promised to attend.
This persuasion on her part set the
first causes Of her brothers undoing,
as he views the matter, i'll motion.
The second causes of the trouble were
the new shoes which he was b" breaking
in" The agonics he suffered during
the process were by no means new.
but the later developments which they
brought about seem rather novel.
The shoes began to torment him
almost as soon as he had taken his
seat in the hall; the longer the lee
ture lasted the worse they panied him.
AS the evening was chilly he had
drawn the laces rather tight about his
ankles, and the shoes themselves were
tight, anyway. The high tempcra-
ture of the steam-heated hall caused
his feet to swell, and after that!
Well, any one who has ever broken in
pair of new shoes will understand
what he suffered.
The lecturer was eloquent and mov-
ing in his beseechings to his listeners
to sign the pledge. The young man
with the tight shoes was disguised
with his pleadings and tried to pre-
serve a face OF adamant. In vain!
The shoes we're nearly killing him,
and his countenance slowly took ON a
look as OF great remorse and sorrow.
The speaker detected this expression
the young man and his sister were in
front row aud the people behind
them were packed in SO tightly that
he hesitated to move-and redoubled
his efforts, directing them especially
at the head of the miserable young
man. The sister glanced up at him
and leaped from her seat with joy.
80, my dear brotherw she cried, re-
joicing, "you are moved to hatred of
the drink devil at last. Why! l can
see tear in your eye, and your face is
all pale and strange looking. Hurry,
hurry, and just as soon as you have
gone up to the platform and signed the
pledge we will 90 home and tell
motherw
The young man would have alb
ruptly declined to follow out any such
program ut another time, but his feet
were particularly painful at that mo-
ment, and the idea of going home and
taking off those shoes seemed irresisti-
bly, tempting. Besides, the aisles and
passage-ways behind him were 60
crowded that hasty escape that way
seemed impossible; the door Mt the
back of the platform was open and the
way thereto unimpeded. He hesitatcd,
suffered in silence a moment longer,
and capitulated.
His hating steps and suffering
countenance were attributed to re-
morse, sorrow, shame and various
other exalted feelings, by the devoted
people who watched him make the
trip to the platform. Even his sister,
notwithstanding the fact that he
snubbed her numerically all the way
home, attributed his conduct to a
natural feeling of shyness and a
shamed recollection of his previous
diatribes against temperance pledges
and all connected with them. And
only the unfortunate fellows chum
and roommate and the few dozen other
fellows with whom he shared the story
Ms altogether too good to keep, are or
ever will be aware of the real reason
why he signed that pledge, posed for
nine or ten awful minutes as the hor-
rible example called into being by the
eloquence of that detested temperance
lecturer, and bore more or less patient
ly with his mothers and sisters
anthems of rejoicing.
And only these friends know and
understand why the sight OF a certain
pair of new and handsome shoes
moves him to the most awful lamenta-
lions, together with an occasional
lapse into profanity, every time he
comes unon them