e kinder scared like.

"'Sol,' says she, 'is this all? An' what's the matter with ye? Ye've
been drinkin'!'

"'Only a few drops with the b'ys, Annie,' says I, but I didn't tell her
it had been a-goin' on fer some time.

"'Don't ye do it any more, Sol,' says she. 'Remember the little uns,
an''--then her voice kinder quavered, 'the habit may grow upon ye.'

"I laughed at her--yes, I laughed then, but oh, God, b'ys!" and the old
man leaned over the table with a look of agony in his face, "I ain't
laughed since! Would any of yez laugh if ye'd left a wife like Annie,
an' such sweet wee uns fer the devil whiskey? If it had lost ye yer
farm, home, respect of all, and drove ye away a drunken sot?

"After a while a bit of my manhood returned. I swore I would make good
agin, an' with that resolve I worked in a lumber camp. With feverish
energy I swung the axe an' handled the peevie till my name was known
fer miles around. My wages I did not spend, as did most of the men, in
gamblin' an' drinkin', an' at last I went to town to send the money to
my wife. Then, may God forgive me, I fell. But what could I do, with
rum shops starin' at me from every corner, doggin' my very steps, allus
allurin' me, an' the men coaxin' me on all sides?"

"I'll take jist one glass," says I, "an' no more.

"But that was enough, an' when I sobered up my money was all gone."

"And brains too," jeered some one from the back of the room.

"Ah, yer wrong there," calmly replied Sol. "I didn't have any to lose
or I wouldn't have acted the way I did.

"I fled from the place. I wandered, ever wandered, God knows whar. I
struck minin' camps, worked like a slave, an' spent my wages to satisfy
the devil within me. But once I let up. A young chap, the parson of
Big Glen, reached out a hand an' gave me a lift. He stuck to me
through thick an' thin. He made me feel I was a man, till down I went
agin, an' I ain't seen 'im since.

"One day, after a drunken spree, an old paper from my own town somehow
drifted into my hands. Here is a piece of it. Look," and Sol held up
a small note book, with a clipping pasted on the inside. "See the
headin':

'Died in the Poor House!'

"It was my Annie! the trimmest lass an' best wife a man ever had. An'
what did it, b'ys? I ask yez that. What did it? Whiskey, that's what
did it, an' ye'll joke about it, an' say it doesn't hurt to take a drop
now an' then."

"He's a weak fool who can't," spoke