A general and rather indignant murmur of dissent ran through the audience.

“Ye don’t believe it,” continued Joe Digg, “but I’ve been a drunkard, an’ I’m one yet, an’ ye all got sense enough to understan’ that I ort to know best about it.”

“Will the gentleman have the kindness to explain?” asked the lecturer.

“I’m a comin’ to it, sir, ef my head’ll see me through,” replied the drunkard.  “You folks all b’leeve that its lovin’ liquor that makes men drink it; now, ’taint no sech thing.  I never had a chance to taste fancy drinks, but I know that every kind of liquor I ever got hold of was more like medicine than anything nice.”

“Then what do they drink for?” demanded the excitable member.

“I’ll tell you,” said Joe, “if you’ll have a little patience.  I have to do it in my own way, for I ain’t used to public speakin’.  You all know who I am.  My father was a church-member, an’ so was mother.  Father done day’s work, fur a dollar’n a quarter a day.  How much firewood an’ clothes an’ food d’ye suppose that money could pay for?  We had to eat what come cheapest, an’ when some of the women here wuz a sittin’ comfortable o’ nights, a knittin’ an’ sewin’ an’ readin’, mother wuz hangin’ aroun’ the butchershop, tryin’ to beat the butcher down on the scraps that wasn’t good enough for you folks.  Soon as we young ’uns was big enough to do anything we wuz put to work.  I’ve worked for men in this room twelve an’ fourteen hours a day.  I don’t blame ’em—­they didn’t mean nothin’ out of the way—­they worked just as long ’emselves, an’ so did their boys.  But they allers had somethin’ inside to keep ’em up, an’ I didn’t.  Does anybody wonder that when I harvested with some men that kep’ liquor in the field, an’ found how it helped me along, that I took it, an’ thought ‘twas a reg’lar God’s-blessin’?  An’ when I foun’ ‘twas a-hurtin’ me, how was I to go to work an’ giv’ it up, when it stood me instead of the eatables I didn’t have, an’ never had, neither?”

“You should hev prayed,” cried old Deacon Towser, springing to his feet; “prayed long an’ earnest.”

[Illustration:  THE TEMPERANCE MEETING.]

“Deacon,” said Joe Digg, “I’ve heerd of your dyspepsy for nigh on to twenty year; did prayin’ ever comfort your stomach?”

The whole audience indulged in a profane laugh, and the good deacon was suddenly hauled down by his wife.  The drunkard continued: 

“There’s lots of jest sech folks, here in Backley, an’ ev’ry where’s else—­people that don’t get half fed, an’ do get worked half to death.  Nobody means to ’buse ’em, but they do hev a hard time of it, an’ whisky’s the best friend they’ve got.”

“I work my men from sunrise to sunset in summer, myself,” said Deacon Towser, jumping up again, “an’ I’m the first man in the field, an’ the last man to quit.  But I don’t drink no liquor, an’ my boys don’t, neither.”