Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1909-02-25

unusually of late in our southern tier
New York town, and a wise one, with
ten words, has turned the ordinary
clattery -spsttery thought bubbling in
to stream. She said: Last month
endei our FIRST no-license year. What
of it ?"
tim be worth noting that no
woman, in the discussion eDgendered,
has backed up against any mans fire.
side, qmoke-ringed opinion in the mat
ter. Perhaps this feminine lone
thinking carries in itself the 6rst mod.
est tally-one for the new order.
The lineman's wife, who has lived
in many places. emitted the first
rounded opinion 1--WE had the best
saloons in the State, | think. Where
else would a saloon keeper come, as
lid Mr.. Kern, and tell me my boy
was there too much ? I'd rather my
husband would stop in at a place like
that than to be finding bottles about
the house, as do now"
The next clear word came from a
farm tour miles in the hills. Only
strong feeling and long thought could
have pulled the quiet woman out TO
say II will come down and work
day and night, any way | can, on my
knees in the street if need be, to hold
the town dry. You know why. Its
been a new kind of year for us-the
first prospering one In ten. YES,
there's m IRE hard cider drunk-some.
times too uch-and every one knows
now it was last Fourth. But the hab-
It ia broken-the habit of running TO
town, with all it's psltry excuses, de-
serted work and miserable night hours
of waiting, keeping US all poor, sick,
and sour. Oll it's been good year,
up our way-a new kind Of year for
us."
BEST of all, I think, and my girla
think so, too, said Mrs. Van Ness, ''ls
the feeling-the clean feeling as one
walks the town. No more dodglng
around to avoid Hanson 8 and the 9TH
er corners. They might be drinking
lust behind the walls, but the streets
are ours now anyway, and the place
somehow has a different feel to me
cleaner, prOuder-and my girls notice
it, too,
Those who want it will get it, v
said the lineman's wife. Mrs.
Hurd's Bennie was carried home help
less Saturday night"
And the mother takes it cheerful
w." broke in Mrs. Hurd's neighbor
90 What's spree now and thene" Gays
Mrs. Hurd. It's the dribble, dribble,
so many a day and increasing every
year, that breaF Fs the hearts. Bennies
alright it will be long time before
he'll want to be so sick again. A
mans got to blow of every so often,
somehow, and we can take that and
laugh. But it's the coming with four
drinks every night that eats the vltals
out of a homeland then eats the
home. And that's the saloon every
time. I've lived them both and I'm
for the spree. "
So the talk has run. But for the
most part the women have become un'
wontedly cautious and thorg ghtful,
knowing as never before that the pro-
blem ia a little more than half theirs.
The sudden change in our little civic
machine caught come fingers, even
crushed and crippled in rare places
Some fine dreams have gone up and
out ike our yard-engine smoke; and
we could wish that many of our last
years brave predictions and promises
had been less loudly voiced.
We know that drinks are being
sold, as in rear rooms at the lower
hotel, by one druggist, strangely al
the harness shop and at farm mile
out. We know that the drinkers viii
drink, and the old liars will 60 on ly-
ing, our consumPtives are bound tc
cough, But youth youth remains tC
usl Youth is the feld--the hope of al
tempersce Somewhere in youth, the
drinkers learned to drink. in saloons
and. with few exceptions, not readily
but through repeated sickneeses, pains
mental and physical disgusts, self de-
nunciations, kept on because the path
was we'll graded, and nearly rsspecta'
bic, and the others were going thai
way, until the body and mind adjust
ed themselves to the new conditions
and another habit climbed to tbe
drivers seat and laid lifelong hand
upon the steering gear.
knew a man In the country who
| formed the habit of going each night
| after sunper IN a neiohbors q porch and