the row?" said Uncle Ike, as he took a
chair between the two boys, lit his pipe, and smiled as he saw the marks
of combat on their persons.

"He said you used to be a drunkard, Uncle Ike, and had been to the
Keeley cure, and I called him a liar, and then we mixed up."

"That's about the size of it," said the other boy; "now, which was
right?"

Uncle Ike smoked up and filled the room so it looked like camping out
and cooking over a fire made of wet wood, and thought a long time, and
looked very serious, and the red-headed boy could see they were in for a
talk. Finally the old man said:

"Boys, you are both right and both wrong, and I'll tell you all about
it. I never was a drunkard, and never drank much, but I have been to the
cure all the same. It was this way: I had a friend who was one of the
best men that ever lived, only he got a habit of drinking too much, and
no one seemed able to reason with him. He wouldn't take advice from his
own mother, his wife, or me, or anybody. He was just going to the devil
on a gallop, and it was only a question of a year or two when he would
die. I loved that man like a brother, but he would get mad the minute
I spoke of his drinking, and I quit talking to him, though I wanted
to save him. I have smoked dog-leg tobacco many a night till after
midnight, trying to study a way to save the only man in the world that
I ever actually loved, and I finally got it down fine. I began to act as
though I was half drunk whenever I saw my friend, spilled whisky on my
coat sleeves, and acted disreputable, and got a few good fellows to
talk with him about what a confounded wreck I was getting to be; and he
actually got to pitying me, and finally got disgusted with me; and one
day he said to me that I was a disgrace, and was making more different
kinds of a fool of myself than any drunkard he ever met. I got mad at
him, and told him to attend to his own business and left him. Then the
boys got to telling him that the only way to save me was to get me to
go to a cure; and, do you know, that good fellow that I would have given
the world to save, came to me and urged me to, take the cure; and
at first I was indignant that he should interfere in my affairs, and
finally he said he would go if I would. Then we struck a bargain, and
went to Dwight, and took the medicine. The boys had told the doctors
the story, and they only gave me one shot in the arm; but that came
near killing me, because it almost bro