The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1902-11-21
A CHAPTER ON TOBACCO.
Influence of the Weed In Preserving
Good Nature in Man and in the
Growth of Nations.


Growth of Nations.
A few months ago the foremost
American citizens" the plumed and
primitive gentlemen beyond the Mis-
sissippi river, were notified that here
after they would be limited to one
wife apiece; and there were conster-
nation and regret in all the lodges
of the great plains and painted tepees
of the mountains.
The order not only restricted fu-
ture matrimonial ventures; it COM
PEELED the warriors to select one
from among the many, and then I'M
CALAMITY drive the others forth. l
doubt not great story lies in that
circums lance, for there have been
splendid love tragedies in the forests.
But, to the surprise of every one who
knew the white man and his Gus
toms, the Indians, without one ex-
ception, chose their old wives, the
bent and ugly crones who had served
them all the years, and sent the
young, bright-eyed and merry-heart-
ed squaws away.
The matter seemed worthy the
frame of an epic, and 1 questioned a
venerable chief of the reservation in
Anadarka, Okla, concerning it, says
a writer in the Washington Star.
did you keep your oldest wife
and send the others away from you?"
/ questioned.
"Ugh!" he responded, soulfully.
did you like the pretty young
women the best?"
UGH"
His expression convinced me of the
brotherhood of men.
well" said, Il am glad you kept
the old one. 1t was beautiful SEN
timent, am sure. You remembered,
didn't you, how pretty and sweet
she was when you first loved her
long ago?"
He made no reply, and l feared he
did not quite understand me. Didn't
you?" L insisted, gently.
NO." he grunted. ME like t'bac!
Old squaw keep pipe full"
Not long ago good woman wrote
me that her husband was the best
of men. That he was true and up
right and generous and tolerant;
but she wanted me to tell her some
thing that would make him abandon
what she described as the "soul-de-
stroying habit of using tobacco"
She admitted that he smoked out
doors when the weather was fine, and
in the kitchen, when the weather
drove him to that shelter. But,
even so, she was afraid the smoke
would creep through the cracks and
doors and Turk in her curtains.
l have known women like her be-
fore; and | want to help her, for
she reminds me of child carrying
in its careless little fingers pearl
of inestimable value. Any moment
it may slip from her foolish clasp
and be gone forever. And | say to
her, and to all like her: go down
on your knees and thank God for
that husband with but one fault,
and drag all your curtains down with
you! Bid him come into the best
room with his pipe; and then, while
its blue wreaths rise to the ceiling
and choke you and blind you, shake
out your hair, that it's mcshes may
catch and hold them evenas it held the
fragrance of your wedding gar
land!"
That handsome young cavalier who
spread his mantle for his queen to
walk upon had ever the good and
comfort of women at heart; and he
never did kinder thing for them
than when he introduced to their
quarrelsome lords the ncrve-soothing
and tempcrtranquiizing weed from
the plantations of Virginia. 1t has
made soft the way for the feet of
women even as his cloak covered the
path for Elizabeth.
The governments that send out
troops have learned Ivy experience
that tobacco is a military necessity.
With it men can bear hunger, cold
and the sting of bullets. Even the
venerable queen, who had small store
of sympathy for such requirements
on the part of her soldiers, came, at
last to understand that her kingdom
stretching dependent on the tobacco
pouch as well as on the sword. The
London Lancet and all medical au-
thorities point out the virtues of the
brown weed in times of stress and
warfare, and the Indian has proved
that the calumet and the lodge fire
smoke best together.
Poor Charlie Lamb tried to give up
smoking because some one thought
he should do so, and as he sat in
the first hours of his enforcement
from his briarwood pipe, looking at
it with longing eyes, he said, mourn
fully:
For your sake, tobacco.
Would do anything but die"
Nobody knows how long he might
have kept up the effort q fancy not
forever) had not friend come to
him and begged him not to resume
the habit if he intended to remain
poet.
Man." he said, "fll up your pipe.
"You write like a tobaccoless fe-
male!"
Had l four walls rooted in with
love and called by that most mean
ing name of ''home," l would build
an altar in the choicest room to
Lady Nicotine, and keep it heaped
with armfuls of her fragrant weed
fetched nv myself do mot ,..o,,,