Chapter XVII. I Founded the
Priddy Historical Club
ONE of the important items we had overlooked in securing the tenement at the border of the village was a saloon which stood next door to it! A saloon, too, that was the common resort of the village, because it stood outside the town lines! “Never mind, lad,” said my uncle, “we’ll struggle on in spite of it, you see. If only your aunt didn’t have it under her nose all day! It’ll be hard for her!” But there it was and matters could not be changed.
The first few weeks passed and found my aunt and uncle solidly entrenched behind strong temperance resolutions.
With this in mind, I began to enjoy my new situation. I made the acquaintance of a cloth designer, a young Englishman who loved books and talked familiarly and intelligently about ambition. He stimulated me to “make something of myself,” when I unfolded my ambition toward that goal. We had long walks at night and on Sundays, and I learned for the first time the joys of sympathetic friendship.
I became a regular attendant at the village church. Indeed, my whole life seemed washed of its grimy contact among the peace and simplicity of village life. To go from week to week and not see cheapness and vulgarity in the profusion I had been face to face with in the city, was dream-like and delightful. Now I seemed to be on the way toward the finer things of life.
I responded to my opportunity in a very definite and practical way. I founded an historical society! In my reading, I had picked up during a holiday in the city a history of the region, a history whose background was the romantic one of Indian lore and fascinating to me. I spoke enthusiastically to the cloth designer about it; he and I secured the interest of three or four other youths, and we resolved thereupon to establish an historical society, with regular, stated meetings, and lectures, real lectures!
The work in the mill with such a definite thing in mind as an historical society became less and less irksome. For the first time, I could master my duties and enjoy pleasant surroundings. I found humane conditions for the first time, and was better in mind and body because of them. In the mill we talked over the society, and resolved, finally, to call it the Priddy Historical Club. It was formally voted, too, that I should go into the city, seek out the author of the ponderous history we had read, and ask him if he would not come out and lecture to us and start the club.
To see a real, live author and talk to him! What a task for me! How I was growing in the finer things. If only the College Graduate Scrubber could know that! It was a vast task, loaded with honor, and truly symbolical of my new intellectual attainments. So I dressed myself in my best clothes, put on a celluloid collar, and went into the city.
The author was a grey-bearded man, who was also librarian of the city library. I found him in his private office, where he listened graciously to the plans of the Priddy Historical Club. He consented to come out and address us, and also said that he would typewrite a course of historical research for our use!
The author met us, one evening, in a room of the church. He told us fascinating tales of early settlers, and left in our possession typewritten sheets filled with a well-planned and complete course of study. That was the first and only meeting of the club. The fellows lost interest at the formidableness of the program, the cloth designer had too much work to bother reading on so large a scale, and I—I had other things of great moment to bother about.
In the middle of summer, a farmer across the way asked me to work for him, and though the wages were much smaller than I earned in the mill, and my aunt at first was loath to have me accept, I began work on the farm. My uncle was greatly pleased with this arrangement.
“Thank God, you have a chance to get some color in your cheeks,” he said, and aunt laughed. “It would be a good sight to have him put a few pounds of flesh on his bones, wouldn’t it?”
At last I was out of the mill, out in the fresh air all day! I stretched my arms, ran, leaped, and worked with great delight. I felt better, stronger, more inspired than ever to get ahead. But when I went home, after the day’s work, I was so sleepy through exposure that I could no longer study. “Never mind,” I thought; “if I only get a strong body out of it, it will be all right.”
So I milked cows, delivered milk to a village three miles distant, and worked about the place, all with hearty good will. Every day I would look in a glass to see if my cheeks were puffing out or getting ruddy.
On Sunday I attended the village church and worshiped near the superintendent of the mill. I shared the farmer’s pew, and though the beat of air and sun on my eyes made me very sleepy when in a room, and though the minister must have wondered why I winked so laboriously during the service, as I tried to keep awake, I always brought to mind the pleasant places into which I had been led, and joined with the minister in a sincere prayer to the God who was leading me.
But one night I went home, and, as I neared the house, I heard hysterical screams and ran as fast as I could, knowing full well what I should see. My aunt was squirming on the floor, her hair undone, and her hat entangled in it. She had on her best dress. Her face was convulsive with hate, with intense insanity. She was shrieking: “Oh, he’s killing me, killing me! Help! Murder!” I ran to her, caught the sickening odor of whisky from her lips and on examination found that there was a gash on her cheek. Then I stood up and looked around. Uncle, breathing heavily, sat at the other end of the table, before an untasted supper. His face was very stern and troubled.
“What have you done?” I shouted. “You’ve been hitting her, you coward!”
“I had to—to protect myself,” he muttered. Then he showed me his face. The blood was dropping down when he took his handkerchief from it, and there was a gash in his temple.
“She threw a saucer square at me,” he explained, in a low voice. “She had a table knife, and she’s stronger than I am, so I just had to smash her with that,” and he pointed to a stick of wood. “It saved her from murder, Al. I’m going away. It will maybe bring her round. If I stayed, she’d raise all sorts of rows and maybe get me to drinking again. She’s been out to that rum shop. I found her, when I got home, dressed as she is, trying to warm a can of soup in the frying-pan. She tried to say she hadn’t been drinking, and then we had the row, lad. Get her to bed, if you can. Get her out of the way, because when she sees me she’s sure to begin it all over. I can’t stop here, can I?”
“No, get away,” I said; “we’ve had rows enough. Send us some, money when you get work, and it’ll be all right. Come and see us, if you get a good place. We might move away from here.”
He packed his bundle, and went to the city on the next trolley-car, and left me alone to fight the matter through. I was earning four and a half dollars a week, and knew that we would have to fight hard if uncle did not send us any money. After I had placed my aunt in bed and left her to manage as best she could, knowing that her sobs would die down and a deep sleep ensue, I went out on the front step and sat down to think matters over.
“Now everybody in the village, the designer, and all your fine friends will know that your aunt drinks,” I thought. “What’s the use trying to be somebody and have these miserable things in the way!” How were we to get through the winter? It seemed inevitable that I should have to go back to the mill. The mill was bound to get me, in the long run. It was only playing with me in letting me out in the sun, the fresh air, and the fields for a while. The mill owned me. I would have to go back!
We tried to live through the winter, without getting word from my uncle, on the money I earned. Occasionally aunt would take some liquor, but she seemed to realize at last that she must not indulge overmuch. One day, growing desperate, I said to her, “If I catch you drinking on my money, now, I’ll leave home, you see! I’ll earn money to buy food, but I won’t earn it for no saloon-keeper, mark my words!” I was only then beginning to see the light in which my own, personal rights to freedom stood. My aunt scolded me for awhile at such unheard of rebellion and such masterly impudence, but she took notice of my earnestness and knew that I would keep my word.
Finally the struggle became too much for us. We saw that we could not starve longer on the little wage I was earning, so we made plans to return to the city where the mills were plenty and where I might earn more money. My aunt was only too eager to get away from a place where it was impossible to hide one’s actions.
A card came from my uncle announcing that he had returned to New Bedford already, and asking us to come and join him.
“Yes,” smiled my aunt, “I’ll bet he’s thinking of his stomach. He finds, when he’s away, that it isn’t every lodging-house keeper that can cook potato pies and things as tasty as his own wife. That’s what he’s homesick for, I’ll bet. Write him that we’ll be on hand. He means all right, but I’ll guarantee he’s half starved.”
I eagerly accepted the privilege of running ahead to New Bedford to rent a tenement. I said to myself, “Yes, and I’ll get one so far away from saloons that the temptation will not be under their noses, anyway!”
That was almost an impossible thing. The rents were excessively high in such paradises. I had to compromise by renting a downstairs house on what seemed to be a respectable street. The nearest saloon was five blocks away.