when he wrestled with John Barleycorn and was thrown. Thus
there was no spiritual deterrence. My loathing for alcohol was purely
physiological. I didn't like the damned stuff.

CHAPTER V

This physical loathing for alcohol I have never got over. But I have
conquered it. To this day I conquer it every time I take a drink. The
palate never ceases to rebel, and the palate can be trusted to know what
is good for the body. But men do not drink for the effect alcohol
produces on the body. What they drink for is the brain-effect; and if it
must come through the body, so much the worse for the body.

And yet, despite my physical loathing for alcohol, the brightest spots in
my child life were the saloons. Sitting on the heavy potato wagons,
wrapped in fog, feet stinging from inactivity, the horses plodding slowly
along the deep road through the sandhills, one bright vision made the way
never too long. The bright vision was the saloon at Colma, where my
father, or whoever drove, always got out to get a drink. And I got out
to warm by the great stove and get a soda cracker. Just one soda
cracker, but a fabulous luxury. Saloons were good for something. Back
behind the plodding horses, I would take an hour in consuming that one
cracker. I took the smallest nibbles, never losing a crumb, and chewed
the nibble till it became the thinnest and most delectable of pastes. I
never voluntarily swallowed this paste. I just tasted it, and went on
tasting it, turning it over with my tongue, spreading it on the inside of
this cheek, then on the inside of the other cheek, until, at the end, it
eluded me and in tiny drops and oozelets, slipped and dribbled down my
throat. Horace Fletcher had nothing on me when it came to soda crackers.

I liked saloons. Especially I liked the San Francisco saloons. They had
the most delicious dainties for the taking--strange breads and crackers,
cheeses, sausages, sardines--wonderful foods that I never saw on our
meagre home-table. And once, I remember, a barkeeper mixed me a sweet
temperance drink of syrup and soda-water. My father did not pay for it.
It was the barkeeper's treat, and he became my ideal of a good, kind man.
I dreamed day-dreams of him for years. Although I was seven years old at
the time, I can see him now with undiminished clearness, though I never
laid eyes on him but that one time. The saloon was south of Market
Street in San Francisco. It stood on the west