But, ‘tennyrate, no matter how Satan wuz laughin’ and sneerin’ and angels bendin’ down from the gold bars of Heaven lookin’ through their pityin’ tears hopin’ it must be a mistake, not believin’ it possible that them prayers and hims could come from a man-killin’ saloon.  And coverin’ their eyes with their droopin’ wings when they found it wuz so—­they sung it through and the minister, for he wuz a stiddy man, went home in good season.  And Perkins also started home walkin’ afoot, it wuz so little ways.

And as I said, some wimmen sot on him and hoss-whipped him.  Some of these wimmen’s husbands had been ruined and killed by the Poor Man’s Club.  And there wuz some mothers whose little boys of seven and eight had been coaxed with brandy-soaked candy into another saloon Perkins owned.  For this saloonkeeper had boasted, Perkins backin’ him, that money spent enticin’ the young and innocent to drink, whilst they wuz easily influenced, wuz money well spent.

For of course, as good calculators, they had to in the interest of their profession provide new recruits to take the place in the staggerin’ ranks of the hundred thousand they annually killed off.  And this saloonkeeper, helped on by Perkins, had the name of the most active boy and girl ruiner among the thousands in the city, though they all did a flourishin’ bizness.

Two or three of Perkins’ saloons made a specialty of sellin’ drink to girls, and their mothers who lay their heads on their pillows at night and found ’em like thorns and fire under their heads, thinkin’ of the pretty warm-hearted girls who had to be away from mother’s care to earn their livin’, out to service and in manufactories and elsewhere.  And some rich mothers, whose girls wuz away to school——­

These mothers thinkin’ what a weak thing a girl’s will wuz when drink had drownded out the small self-control they had, and youthful passion and temptation urgin’ ’em on, and the company Perkins nachully drawed ’round him.

These mothers whose boys and girls wuz like pieces of their own hearts, and these wives in the grief made recklessness of despair, made a hash vow that they would break up Perkinses saloons or die in the attempt, so they sot on him that night and gin him good drubbin’.

But they couldn’t do much, for the police, of course, horrified by their onparalelled and onprovoked crime, hustled the wimmen off to jail, and escorted Perkins home with honor.  But to resoom backwards.

I will git up (in fancy) from the steps of Solomon’s Temple and go on in.

This is a complete copy of the magnificent temple built by Solomon, the wisest man in the world.  Though like all wise men he had his foolish streaks, seven hundred wives is too many for one man to git along with, I should told him so if I had lived neighbor to him.  I’d say: 

“Mr. Solomon, if you have the name of knowin’ so much show your smartness by gittin’ rid of six hundred and niney-nine on ’em; keep jest one, pick her out, take your choice, but discharge the rest.  Set ’em up in dressmakin’ or millionary or sunthin’ to git a livin’ by, and settle down peaceable with one.”  Mebby he’d hearn to me and mebby not, men are so sot in their way.