University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
ONE OF THE SUMMER DIVERSIONS OF PTOLEMY.

Ten days after the journey to Tiberius, the highways in
both valleys, and those descending from the hills on either
side, were unusually thronged. Country carriages, buggies
of all fashions, and light open carts, rapidly succeeded each
other, all directing their course towards the village. They
did not halt there, however, but passed through, and, climbing
the gentle acclivity of the southern hill, halted at a grove,
nearly a mile distant. Here the Annual Temperance Convention
of Atauga County was to be held. The cause had been
languishing for the past year or two; many young men had
become careless of their pledges, and the local societies were
beginning to fall to pieces, because the members had heard all
that was to be said on the subject, and had done all that could
conveniently be done. The plan of procuring State legislation
in their favor rendered it necessary to rekindle, in some measure,
the fires of zeal—if so warm an expression can be applied
to so sober a cause—and one of the most prominent speakers
on Temperance, Mr. Abiram Stokes, was called upon to brush
up his well-used images and illustrations for a new campaign.

It was announced, by means of large placards, posted
in all the village stores, post-offices, and blacksmiths' shops,
far and wide, that not only he, but Mr. Grindle and several
other well-known speakers were to address the Convention.
Strange as it may seem, the same placard was conspicuously
displayed in the bar-room of the Ptolemy House, the landlord
candidly declaring that he would be glad if such a convention

were held every week, as it brought him a great deal of custom.
The friends of the cause were called upon for a special
effort; the day was carefully arranged to come at the end of
haying, yet before the wheat-harvest had fairly commenced;
moreover, it was Saturday, and the moon was nearly full.
The weather favored the undertaking, and by noon the line of
the roads could be distinguished, at some distance, by the
dust which arose from the strings of vehicles.

The principal members of the local societies—especially
those of Atauga City, Anacreon, Nero Corners, Mulligansville,
and New Pekin—came in heavy lumber-wagons, decorated
with boughs of spruce and cedar, carrying with them their
banners, whenever they had any. With some difficulty, a
sufficient sum was raised to pay for the services of the Ptolemy
Cornet Band, in performing, as the placard stated, “melodies
appropriate to the occasion.” What those melodies were, it
was not very easy to determine, and the managing committee of
the Ptolemy Society had a special meeting on the subject, the
night before. A wag suggested “The Meeting of the Waters,”
which was at once accepted with delight. “Bonny Doon”
found favor, as it “minded” the hearers of a Scottish brook.
“The Campbells are Comin'” was also on the list, until some
one remembered that the landlord of the Ptolemy House bore
the name of that clan. “A wet sheet and a flowing sea” hinted
too strongly at “half-seas over,” and all the familiar Irish airs
were unfortunately associated with ideas of wakes and Donnybrook
Fairs. After much painful cogitation, the “Old Oaken
Bucket,” “Allan Water,” “Zurich's Waters,” and “The
Haunted Spring” were discovered; but the band was not able
to play more than half of them. Its most successful performance,
we are bound to confess, was the air of “Landlord, fill
the flowing bowl,” which the leader could not resist giving
once or twice during the day, to the great scandal of those
votaries of the cause who had once been accustomed to sing it
in character.

The grove was a beautiful piece of oak and hickory timber,

sloping towards the north, and entirely clear of underbrush.
It covered about four acres of ground, and was neither so
dense nor fell so rapidly as to shut out a lovely glimpse of
the valley and the distant, dark-blue sheet of the lake, between
the boles. It was pervaded with a grateful smell, from the
trampled grass and breathing leaves; and wherever a beam of
sunshine pierced the boughs, it seemed to single out some bit
of gay color, in shawl, or ribbon, or parasol, to play upon and
utilize its brightness. At the bottom of the grove, against
two of the largest trees, a rough platform was erected, in
front of which, rising and radiating amphitheatrically, were
plank benches, capable of seating a thousand persons. Those
who came from a distance were first on hand, and took their
places long before the proceedings commenced. Near the
main entrance, venders of refreshments had erected their
stands, and displayed to the thronging visitors a tempting
variety of indigestible substances. There was weak lemonade,
in tin buckets, with huge lumps of ice glittering defiantly at
the sun; scores of wired bottles, filled with a sarsaparilla mixture,
which popped out in a rush of brown suds; ice-cream,
the cream being eggs beaten up with water, and flavored with
lemon sirup; piles of dark, leathery ginger-cakes, and rows
of glass jars full of candy-sticks; while the more enterprising
dealers exhibited pies cut into squares, hard-boiled eggs, and
even what they called coffee.

Far down the sides of the main road to Ptolemy the vehicles
were ranged, and even inside the adjoining fields—the owner
of which, being a friend to the cause, had opened his bars to
the multitude. Many of the farmers from a distance brought
their own oats with them, and unharnessed and fed their horses
in the fence-corners, before joining the crowd in the grove.
Then, accompanied by their tidy wives, who, meanwhile, examined
the contents of the dinner-baskets and saw that every
thing was in order, they approached the meeting with satisfied
and mildly exhilarated spirits, occasionally stopping to greet
an acquaintance or a relative. The daughters had already preceded

them, with their usual independence, well knowing the
impatience of the young men, and hoping that the most agreeable
of the latter would discover them before the meeting was
called to order. This was the real charm of the occasion, to
old as well as young. The American needs a serious pretext
for his recreation. He does not, in fact, recognize its necessity,
and would have none at all, did not Nature, with
benevolent cunning, occasionally furnish him with diversion
under the disguise of duty.

As the banners of the local societies arrived, they were set
up in conspicuous positions, on and around the speaker's platform.
That of Tiberius was placed in the centre. It was of
blue silk, with a gold fringe, and an immense geyser-like fountain
in its field, under which were the words: “Ho! every one
that thirsteth!” On the right was the banner of Ptolemy—a
brilliant rainbow, on a white ground, with the warning: “Look
not upon the Wine when it is Red.” What connection there
was between this sentence and the rainbow was not apparent,
unless the latter was meant to represent a watery deluge. The
banner of Anacreon, on the left, held forth a dancing female,
in a crimson dress. One foot was thrown far out behind her,
and she was violently pitching forward; yet, in this uncomfortable
position, she succeeded in pouring a thick
stream of water from a ewer of blue china into the open
mouth of a fat child, who wore a very scanty dress. The
inscription was: “The Fountain of Youth.” The most ingenious
device, however, was that from Nero Corners. This little
community, too poor or too economical to own a temperance
banner, took a political one, which they had used in the
campaign of the previous year. Upon it were the names of
the candidates for President and Vice-President: “Pierce
and King.” A very little alteration turned the word “Pierce”
into “Prince,” and the word “Water” being prefixed, the
inscription became: “Water,—Prince and King.” Those
from other neighborhoods, who were not in the secret, greatly
admired the simplicity and force of the expression.

Woodbury, who was early upon the ground, was much interested
in the scene. Between two and three thousand persons
were present, but an order and decorum prevailed, which
would be miraculous in lands where the individual is not permitted
to grow up self-ruled, or swayed only by the example
of his fellows, and self-reliant. No servant of the law was present
to guard against disorder, because each man was his own
policeman. Even some tipsy rowdies, who came out from
Ptolemy towards the close of the afternoon, were sobered
by the atmosphere of the place, and had no courage to make
their intended interruptions. The effect of such meetings,
Woodbury confessed to himself, could not be otherwise
than good; the reform was necessary among a people whose
excitable temperament naturally led them to excesses, and
perhaps it was only one extreme which could counteract
the other. There was still too little repose, too little mental
balance among them, to halt upon the golden middle-ground
of truth.

The band occupied the platform for some time after he arrived,
and its performances gave intense satisfaction to the
people. The clear tones of the horns and clarionets pealed
triumphantly through the shade, and an occasional slip in an
instrument was unnoticed in the hum of voices. Gradually,
the hearers were lifted a little out of the material sphere in
which they habitually moved, and were refreshed accordingly.
They were made capable, at least, of appreciating some sentiment
and imagination in the speakers, and words were now
heard with delight, which, in their common moods, would have
been vacant sound. They touched, in spite of themselves, that
upper atmosphere of poetry which hangs over all human life—
where the cold marsh-fogs in which we walk become the rosy
cloud-islands of the dawn!

At two o'clock, the band vacated the platform, and the Convention
was called to order. After an appropriate prayer by
the Rev. Lemuel Styles, a temperance song was sung by a large
chorus of the younger members. It was a parody on Hoffman's

charming anacreontic: “Sparkling and Bright,” the
words of which were singularly transformed. Instead of:
the refrain terminated with:
—in the style of a medicinal prescription. Poor Hoffman!
Noble heart and fine mind, untimely darkened! He was at
least spared this desecration; or perhaps, with the gay humor
with which even that darkness is still cheered, he would have
parodied the parody to death.

The Annual Report was then read. It was of great length,
being mainly a furious appeal to voters. The trick of basing
a political issue upon a personal habit was an innovation in the
science of government, which the natural instincts of the people
were too enlightened to accept without question. The
County Committee, foreseeing this difficulty, adopted the usual
tactics of party, and strove to create a headlong tide of sympathy
which would overbear all hesitancy as to the wisdom of
the movement, or the dangerous precedent which it introduced
into popular legislation. “Vote for the Temperance Candidates,”
they cried, in the Report, “and you vote for morality,
and virtue, and religion! Vote against them, and you vote for
disease, and misery, and crime! Vote for them, and you vote
reason to the frantic brain, clearness to the bleared eye, steadiness
to the trembling hand, joy to the heart of the forsaken
wife, and bread to the mouths of the famishing children! Vote
against them, and you vote to fill our poor-houses and penitentiaries—to
tighten the diabolical hold of the rumseller on his
struggling victim—to lead our young men into temptation, and
bring ruin on our beloved land! Yes, you would vote to fill
the drunkard's bottle; you would vote oaths and obscenity into
his speech; you would vote curses to his wife, blows to his
children, the shoes off their feet, the shirts off their backs,
the beds from under them, and the roofs from over their heads.”

The Report was adopted with tremendous unanimity, and
the faces of the members of the Committee beamed with satisfaction.
The political movement might be considered as
successfully inaugurated. This was the main object of the
Convention, and the waiting orators now saw that they had a
clear and pleasant field before them. Woodbury, who was
leaning against a tree, near the end of a plank upon which his
friends the Waldos were seated, listened with an involuntary
sensation of pain and regret. The very character of the Report
strengthened him in the conviction that the vice to be cured
had its origin in a radical defect of the national temperament,
which no legislation could reach.

Mrs. Waldo looked up at him, inquiringly. He shook his
head. “It is a false movement,” said he; “good works are
not accomplished by violence.”

“But sometimes by threatening it,” she answered, with a
meaning smile.

He was about to reply, when the President announced that
Byron Baxter, of the Anacreon Seminary, would recite a poem,
after which the meeting would be addressed by Mr. Abiram
Stokes.

Byron Baxter, who was an overgrown, knock-kneed youth
of nineteen, with long hair, parted in the middle, advanced to
the front of the platform, bowed, and then suddenly started
back, with both hands extended before him, in an attitude of
horror. In a loud voice, he commenced to recite:

As the young man had evidently never tasted any thing

stronger than molasses-and-water, the expression of his abhorrence
was somewhat artificial. Nevertheless, a shudder ran
through the audience at the vehemence of his declamation,
and he was greeted with a round of applause, at the close.

The orator of the day, Mr. Abiram Stokes, then made his
appearance. He was a man of forty-five, with a large, handsome
head, and an imposing presence. His hair and eyes were
dark, and his complexion slightly tinted with olive. This trait,
with his small hands and showy teeth, seemed to indicate a
mixture of Spanish blood. He had a way of throwing his
head forward, so as to let a large lock of his hair fall over his
forehead with a picturesque effect, and then tossing it back to
its place with a reverse motion. His voice was full and sonorous;
although, to a practised ear, its pathos, in passages intended
for effect, was more dramatic than real. Few of his
present auditors, however, were able to discriminate in this
respect; the young ladies, especially, were in raptures. It
was rumored that his early life had been very wild and dissipated,
and he was looked upon as one of the most conspicuous
brands which had been snatched from the burning. This rumor
preceded him wherever he went, created a personal interest
for him, in advance, and added to the effect of his oratory.

His style of speaking, nevertheless, was showy and specious.
He took no wide range, touched but slightly on the practical
features of the subject, and indulged sparingly in anecdotes
and illustrations. None of the latter professed to be drawn
from his personal experience: his hearers might make whatever
inference they pleased, he knew the value of mystery too
well, to enlighten them further. He was greatest in apostrophes
to Water, to Reform, to Woman, to any thing that permitted
him, according to his own expression, “to soar.” This
feature of his orations was usually very effective, the first time
he was heard. He was in the habit of introducing some of
his favorite passages on every occasion. Woodbury, who was
not aware of this trick, was agreeably surprised at the natural
warmth and eloquence of the speaker's language.

His peroration ran something in this wise: “This, the purest
and most beneficent of the Virtues, comes not to achieve her
victory in battles and convulsions. Soft as the dews of heaven,
her white feet are beautiful upon the mountains, bringing glad
tidings of great joy! Blessed are we that she has chosen her
abode among us, and that she has selected us to do her work!
No other part of the world was fitted to receive her. She
never could have been produced by the mouldering despotisms
of Europe, where the instincts of Freedom are stifled by wine
and debauchery; the Old World is too benighted to behold
her face. Here only—here on the virgin bosom of a new Continent—here,
in the glorious effulgence of the setting sun—
here only could she be born! She is the child of the West—
Temperance—and before her face the demon Alcohol flees
to his caverns and hides himself among the bones of his victims,
while Peace sits at her right hand and Plenty at her left!”

“Beautiful!” “splendid!” was whispered through the audience,
as the speaker took his seat. Miss Carrie Dilworth
wiped her eyes with a very small batiste handkerchief, and
sighed as she reflected that this man, her beau-idèal (which
she understood to mean an ideal beau), would never know what
an appreciative helpmeet she would have made him.

“Oh, Hannah!” she whispered, leaning forward, to Miss
Thurston, who was seated on the next plank, “did you ever
hear any thing so beautiful?”

“I thought it fine, the first time I heard it,” Hannah replied,
with a lack of enthusiasm which quite astounded the
little sempstress. She began to fear she had made a mistake,
when the sight of Miss Ruhaney Goodwin, equally in tears,
(and no wonder, for her brother Elisha had been a miserable
drunkard), somewhat revived her confidence.

“Flashy, but not bad of its kind,” said Woodbury, in reply
to Mrs. Waldo's question.

“Are you not ashamed? It's magnificent. And he's such
a handsome man!” she exclaimed. “But I see, you are determined
not to admire any of them; you've not forgotten

Grindle's attack. Or else you're a pess— what's the name of
it? Mr. Waldo explained the word to me yesterday—pess”—

“Oh, a pessimist? Not at all, Mrs. Waldo. On the contrary,
I am almost an optimist.”

“Well, that's just as bad—though I am not sure I know
what it is. Oh, there's Grindle going to speak. Now you'll
catch it!”

She shook her hand menacingly, and Woodbury, much
amused and not a little curious to hear the speaker, resumed
his position against the tree.

Mr. Grindle, who carried on a moderate lumber business in
Atauga City, neglected no opportunity of making himself heard
in public. He was a man of shallow faculties, but profound
conceit of himself, and would have preferred, at any time, to
be abused rather than ignored. His naturally fluent speech
had been cultivated by the practice of years, but as he was
neither an earnest thinker nor a close reasoner, and, moreover,
known to be unscrupulous in the statement of facts, the consideration
which he enjoyed as a speaker would soon have become
exhausted, but for the boldness and indecency of his personal
attacks, whereby he replenished that element of hot water in
which he rejoiced. Mr. Campbell, the landlord of the Ptolemy
House, had several times threatened him with personal chastisement,
and he only escaped by avoiding an encounter until
the landlord's wrath had a little cooled. He was so accustomed
to insulting epithets that they never produced the slightest
impression upon him.

He had spoken nearly half an hour, airing a quantity of statistics,
which he had mostly committed to memory—where
that failed, he supplied the figures from his imagination—
when he perceived that the audience, after having tasted the
spiced meats of Mr. Abiram Stokes, seemed to find the plain
food he offered them rather insipid. But he had still the resource
of personality, which he knew, from long experience, is
always entertaining, whether or not the hearers approve of it.
The transition was easily made. “Looking at this terrible

array of facts,” said he, “how can any man, who is worthy the
name of a human being, dare to oppose the doctrines of Temperance?
How dare any man suppose that his own miserable
personal indulgences are of more consequence than the moral
salvation of his fellow-creatures? Yet there are such men—
not poor, ignorant, deluded creatures, who know no better,
and are entitled to some allowances—but men who are rich,
who appear to be educated, and who claim to be highly moral
and respectable. What are we to think of those men?”

Mrs. Waldo glanced up at Woodbury with a look which
said: “Now it's coming!”

“Let it come!” his look replied.

“They think, perhaps,” the speaker continued, “that there
are different laws of morality for different climates—that they
can bring here among us the detestable practices of heathen
races, which we are trying to root out! I tell such, they had
better go back, and let their unhappy slaves hand them the
hookah, filled with its intoxicating draught, or steady their
tottering steps when the fumes of sherbet have mounted to
their brains!”

Many persons in the assembly knew who was meant, and
as Woodbury's position made him easily distinguished, they
watched him with curiosity as the speaker proceeded. He
leaned against the tree, with his arms folded, and an amused
half-smile on his face, until the foregoing climax was reached,
when, to the astonishment of the spectators, he burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter.

Mr. Grindle, too, had discovered his victim, and occasionally
darted a side look at him, calculating how far he might carry
the attack with safety to himself. Woodbury's sudden and
violent merriment encouraged while it disconcerted him: there
was, at least, nothing to be feared, and he might go on.

“Yes, I repeat it,” he continued; “whatever name may be
given to the beverage, we are not to be cheated. Such men
may drink their sherbet, or their Heidsick; they may call their
drinks by respectable names, and the demon of Alcohol laughs

as he claims them for his own. St. Paul says `the Prince of
Darkness is a gentleman:' beware, beware, my friends, lest the
accursed poison, which is harmless to you under its vulgar
names, should beguile you with an aristocratic title!”

“Will the speaker allow me to make a remark?”

Woodbury, controlling his laughter with some difficulty,
straightened himself from his leaning position against the tree,
and, yielding to the impulse of the moment, spoke. His voice,
not loud, but very clear, was distinctly heard all over the
crowd, and there was a general rustling sound, as hundreds of
heads turned towards him. Mr. Grindle involuntarily paused
in his speech, but made no reply.

“I will only interrupt the proceedings for a moment,” Woodbury
resumed, in a cool, steady tone, amidst the perfect silence
of the multitude—“in order to make an explanation. I will
not wrong the speaker by supposing that his words have a
personal application to myself; because that would be charging
him with advocating truth by means of falsehood, and defending
morality by the weapons of ignorance and insult. But
I know the lands of which he speaks and the habits of their
people. So far from drunkenness being a `detestable heathen
habit' of theirs, it is really we who should go to them to learn
temperance. I must confess, also, my great surprise at hearing
the speaker's violent denunciation of the use of sherbet, after
seeing that it is openly sold, to-day, in this grove—after having,
with my own eyes, observed the speaker, himself, drink
a large glass of it with evident satisfaction.”

There was a sudden movement, mixed here and there with
laughter, among the audience. Mr. Grindle cried out, in a
hoarse, excited voice: “The charge is false! I never use intoxicating
beverages!”

“I made no such charge,” said Woodbury, calmly, “but it
may interest the audience to know that sherbet is simply the
Arabic name for lemonade.”

The laughter was universal, Mr. Grindle excepted.

“The speaker, also,” he continued, “mentioned the intoxicating

beverage of the hookah. As the hookah is a pipe, in
which the smoke of the tobacco passes through water before
reaching the mouth, it may be considered a less dangerous
beverage than the clay-pipe of the Irish laborer. I beg pardon
of the meeting for my interruption.”

The laughter was renewed, more heartily than before, and
for a minute after Woodbury ceased the tumult was so great
that Mr. Grindle could not be heard. To add to the confusion,
the leader of the Ptolemy band, taking the noise as a sign that
the Convention had adjourned, struck up “Malbrook,” which
air, unfortunately, was known in the neighborhood by the less
classical title of “We won't go home till morning.”

The other members of the Committee, on the platform, privately
begged Mr. Grindle to take his seat and allow them to
introduce a new orator; but he persisted in speaking for another
quarter of an hour, to show that he was not discomfited.
The greater portion of the audience, nevertheless, secretly rejoiced
at the lesson he had received, and the remainder of his
speech was not heard with much attention. Woodbury, to
escape the curious gaze of the multitude, took a narrow and
uncomfortable seat on the end of the plank, beside Mrs. Waldo.
He was thenceforth, very much against his will, an object of
great respect to the rowdies of Ptolemy, who identified him
with the opposite cause.

There was another song, commencing:

which was likewise sung in chorus. Then succeeded other
speakers, of less note, to a gradually diminishing circle of hearers.
The farmers and their wives strayed off to gossip with
acquaintances on the edges of the grove; baskets of provisions
were opened and the contents shared, and the stalls of cake
and sarsaparilla suds experienced a reflux of custom. As the
young men were not Lord Byrons, the young ladies did not
scruple to eat in their presence, and flirtations were carried on
with a chicken-bone in one hand and a piece of bread in the
other. The sun threw softer and slanter lights over the beautiful
picture of the valley, and, gradually creeping below the
boughs, shot into the faces of those who were still seated in
front of the platform. It was time to close the performances
of the day, and they were accordingly terminated with a third
song, the refrain of which was:

Woodbury and the Waldos, to avoid the dust of the road,
walked back to Ptolemy by a pleasant path across the fields.
Ere long they overtook Hannah Thurston and Miss Dilworth.
Mr. Grindle was, of course, the theme of conversation.

“Wasn't he rightly served, Hannah?” Mrs. Waldo exclaimed,
with enthusiasm. Woodbury was fact assuming
heroic proportions, in her mind.

“I think Mr. Woodbury was entirely justifiable in his interruption,”
Miss Thurston answered, “and yet I almost wish
that it had not occurred.”

“So do I!” Woodbury exclaimed.

“Well—you two are queer people!” was Mrs. Waldo's
amazed remark.