eer-soaker to me again, the cursed scoundrel, nor look it
either, curse him. Let any man in this crowd say that he didn't
deserve what he got, and I'll----
"You'll come right along with me, my friend," and the foolish boaster
was marched off by the city authorities, whom from past experience, he
well knew it was useless to resist.
This same man, now led away amid the exertions of Daddy's friends, had
gone out from his humble home that beautiful sunny morning with the
solemn promise on his lips to keep sober for that one day at least.
His hopeful long-suffering wife had watched lovingly his receding
footsteps, as in days, when a fond husband and father, he always
returned sober. All day long she went trustingly about her work with
kind glad words to her little children, whose pleased surprise to
receive, as of old, their father's fond caress, she delighted to
imagine.
But alas! it was the old story. The man's will was too weak to
withstand the pursuasions of drinking companions, and the tempttations
of the liquor seller. He yielded, and, when once he had got the taste,
wife and children and all were forgotten. At a late hour that night
the little ones were put sadly away to bed; the supper table, spread
in joy, was cleared away in sorrow, and the wife and mother was again
doomed to wait, and watch, and weep.
But let us return to Daddy. Stretched on a couch of suffering he lies;
impatient, vociferous and generally unmanageable.
"Hurry up that ere doctor afore I die," he exclaims; "hurry him up I
say. Lord, that ere pain in my shoulder; now its in my long ribs; now
its in my short ribs; I ken feel it clare down to my heel cord and toe
cord. Take away that ere infernal brandy," he cried, raising his voice
to its highest pitch, "ye don't spose I want fur to drink pison, do
ye, when I'm most dead already?"
"But it will strengthen you, Daddy," said the attendant soothingly.
"It won't nuther. It will set me all on fire and I'll mortify afore
the doctor gits here."
When Dr. Goodrich at length made his appearance, there was then
enacted a scene, if possible, still more uproarious. Poor Daddy
winced and groaned at every touch, and oftimes, commanded his
physician to desist in his examinations of the injured parts. "Don't!
Hold on there doctor, you'll yank me all to bits. There; stop that
yanking; for the lord's sake, doctor, hold on there."
"I am holding on, Daddy," said the doctor very firmly, as he mended
th
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