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Peck's Sunshine, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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A Temperance Lecture That Hurt |
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_ There was probably the most astonished temperance man up above Stevens Point the other day that ever was. The name of the temperance man is Sutherland. He is a nice gentleman, but, like many another man, he can never see a person with his keg full of bug juice without giving him a talking to. The other day Sutherland was driving along the road when he overtook an Indian who asked for a ride. He was allowed to get in the wagon, when Sutherland discovered that the Indian had a breath that would stop a temperance clock. He smelled like a sidewalk in front of a wholesale liquor store. The Indian was comfortably full, so full that his back teeth were floating. Sutherland thought it was a good time to get in his work, so he began talking to the Indian about the wickedness of looking upon the whisky when it was bay, and when it giveth its color in the nose. He told the Indian of the wrecked homes, the poverty, the disgrace and death that followed the use of liquor, and wound up by pleading with him to give up his cups and join the angel band and shout hosannas in a temperance lodge. The Indian did not understand a word that Suthland was saying, but supposing by the looks of his nose and pleading eyes that he wanted a drink, the Indian drew a large black bottle from under his blanket and handed it to Sutherland, remarking: "Ugh! Dam firewater." Sutherland thought that he had made a convert, and telling the Indian that he was glad he had resolved to lead a different life, took the bottle and dashed it upon the ground, smashing it into a thousand pieces. Well, the air seemed full of Indians. If Sutherland had torn out the Indian's heart he could not have hurt the red man worse. With a war whoop the Indian jumped on the seat, took Sutherland by the hair and yanked him out on the ground. Sutherland yelled and the Indian galloped over him. The team ran away, and the Indian mauled Sutherland. He cut open his face, italicised his nose, put a roof over his eye and felt for his knife to stab him. Sutherland got away and run to Stevens Point, where his wounds were bound up. He says if any gentleman wants to take the job of reforming Indians he will give up his situation. He meant well, but lacked judgment.
In preparing the youth of the land for a business career there is nothing that tends more to ripen the mind and to prepare it for overcoming the obstacles that will naturally be found in after life than to learn to cut a dog in two. The ignorance of some of the business men of the present day is largely to be attributed to the fact that the instructors of the youth in the olden time never taught them how to carve a dog. How many times have we been in positions since arriving at man's estate, when poring over some great problem of science, where we would have given ten years of the front end of our life if we knew how to make both ends meat, even if it was dog meat? The knowledge that the students of the present day obtain in their study of the dog will be valuable to them if ever they are caught in a melon patch, and a dog fastens his teeth into their garments. They will know how to go to work scientifically to unhinge the jaws of a dog, instead of pulling one way, while the dog pulls the other, until the cloth or the skin tears out. It will be a great thing to know all about how a dog is put together. And if these students are taught how to kill cats they will more than get their money back when they grow up. Ignorant people who have never had the advantages of studying the cat when it is dead, attempt to kill them with boot-jacks and empty ale bottles and tomato cans, but the next generation will know how to do it scientifically, and not hurt the cat. This is certainly an age of improvement, and the _Sun_ desires that school children shall know all about the anatomy of the festive dog and the nocturnal cat, if they don't even know how to spell their own names. _ |
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