. Them air kind that
brag that they know jest when fur tu stop is generally the very ones
that go under afore they know it, I thinked tu myself as he staggered
off.

If there is an old toper present, or a young toper, let 'em take the
warning of an old man who has been awatching the gradual down fall of
moderate drinkers for threescore years. I've seen 'em live, and I've
seen 'em die. _Die_ ain't no name fur the last struggle I've seen 'em
go through with. Jest picture tu yourself a grapery, stretchin miles
away, and in that air grapery is walkin men of every age and
condition, and all are a pluckin them are big purple grapes. Some eat
many, some, few; some grow red and portly, some grow pale and thin,
(them air pale ones take the longest strides and get to the end fust.)
They hev all been warned that that air fruit hes been pisened, and
some of them git a leetle frightened at seein the strange way it
effects companions, and they turn back, but the most on 'em go on,
plucking and eating, heedless of the cries of them without. O, they
know jest how many fur tu eat and not die. Their friends needn't
worry: they ken take care of theirselves.

'Mother,' says a youth, lookin through the lattices, with a glow upon
his cheek, 'I'm all right, don't bother about me. See Mr. Moderate
Drinker ahead there,--see how hale he looks--he'll live longer than
any of ye outside.' But afore long that air smart youth goes reeling
past Mr. Moderate Drinker, toward the end.--It is too late now--let
his mother cry to heaven and wring her hands and lie in the ashes upon
the hearth. It is all in vain.--'My boy, oh, my boy!' rings unheeded
in his ear. A mother's voice, a mother's tears, a mother's anguish,
what are they compared with the fruit, which he has lost the power to
resist, and which his companions are constantly urging upon him? But
look! He suddenly starts back pale and fearful. He has seen the
precipice and the black gulfs with open jaws jest afore him? No, ah
no, the heavy clusters and the interlaced vines hide that. But he
heard the despairing shriek of a feller traveller as he plunged in;
and for a moment he tremblingly questions, what is there?

Ah, there is no clusters, no leaves, no vines, between that spot and
his devoted mother's eye. She has long looked fearfully towards it,
and, just upon the verge, she sees him falter.

A faint hope springs up within her, and, with the courage of
desperation, she cries out in a voice th