The Life of P.T. Barnum. P.T. Barnum
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cheap,” I responded, holding down my head.
A tremendous roar of laughter bursting from all the workmen showed that they were in the secret. On returning home at night, my grandfather called to congratulate me, with as serious a countenance as if “Ivy Island” was indeed a valuable domain, instead of a barren waste, over which he and the whole neighborhood had chuckled ever since I was born. My mother, too, with a grave physiognomy, hoped I had found it as rich as I anticipated. Several of our neighbors called to ask if I was not glad now, that I was named Phineas; and from that time during the next five years I was continually reminded of the valuable property known as “Ivy Island.”
I can the more heartily laugh at this practical joke, because that inheritance was long afterwards of service to me. “Ivy Island” was a part of the weight that made the wheel of fortune begin to turn in my favor at a time when my head was downward.
“What is the price of razor strops?” inquired my grandfather of a peddler, whose wagon, loaded with Yankee notions, stood in front of our store.
“A dollar each for Pomeroy’s strops,” responded the itinerant merchant.
“A dollar apiece!” exclaimed my grandfather; “they’ll be sold for half the money before the year is out.”
“If one of Pomeroy’s strops is sold for fifty cents within a year, I’ll make you a present of one,” replied the peddler.
“I’ll purchase one on those conditions. Now, Ben, I call you to witness the contract,” said my grandfather, addressing himself to Esquire Hoyt.
“All right,” responded Ben.
“Yes,” said the peddler, “I’ll do as I say, and there’s no back-out to me.”
My grandfather took the strop, and put it in his side coat pocket. Presently drawing it out, and turning to Esquire Hoyt, he said, “Ben, I don’t much like this strop now I have bought it. How much will you give for it?”
“Well, I guess, seeing it’s you, I’ll give fifty cents,” drawled the ’Squire, with a wicked twinkle in his eye, which said that the strop and the peddler were both incontinently sold.
“You can take it. I guess I’ll get along with my old one a spell longer,” said my grandfather, giving the peddler a knowing look.
The strop changed hands, and the peddler exclaimed, “I acknowledge, gentlemen; what’s to pay?”
“Treat the company, and confess you are taken in, or else give me a strop,” replied my grandfather.
“I never will confess nor treat,” said the peddler, “but I’ll give you a strop for your wit;” and suiting the action to the word, he handed a second strop to his customer. A hearty laugh ensued, in which the peddler joined.
“Some pretty sharp fellows here in Bethel,” said a bystander, addressing the peddler.
“Tolerable, but nothing to brag of,” replied the peddler; “I have made seventy-five cents by the operation.”
“How is that?” was the inquiry.
“I have received a dollar for two strops which cost me only twelve and a half cents each,” replied the peddler; “but having heard of the cute tricks of the Bethel chaps, I thought I would look out for them and fix my prices accordingly. I generally sell these strops at twenty-five cents each, but, gentlemen, if you want any more at fifty cents apiece, I shall be happy to supply your whole village.”
Our neighbors laughed out of the other side of their mouths, but no more strops were purchased
There was a poor sot in Bethel, who had a family consisting of a wife and four children. Before he took to drink he was an industrious, thriving, intelligent, and respectable man – by trade a cooper; but for ten years he had been running down hill, and at last became a miserable toper. Once in a while he would “keg,” as he called it; that is, he would abjure strong drink for a certain length of time – usually for a month. During these intervals he was industrious and sober. He visited the stores; the neighbors gladly conversed with him, and encouraged him to continue in well doing. The poor fellow would weep as he listened to friendly admonitions, and would sometimes reply:
“You are right, my friends; I know you are right, for now my brain is cool and clear, and I can see as well as you can that there is no happiness without sobriety. I am like the prodigal son, who, ‘when he came to himself,’ saw that there was no hope for him unless he arose and returned to his father and to the walks of duty and reason. I have come to myself.”
“Yes,” would be the reply; “but will you remain so?”
Drawing himself up, with a look of pride which always distinguished him before his fall, he would say, “Do you suppose that I would bemean myself and family by becoming a confirmed sot?”
His wife was respected and his children beloved by all the neighbors; they continued to interchange visits with our most worthy families; and, notwithstanding his long career of dissipation, his neighbors did not cease to hope that, by appealing to his pride and self-respect, they could be able, during some of his sober intervals, to induce a promise of total and eternal abstinence from the cup. His sense of honor was so elevated, that they felt sure he would break the fatal spell for ever, if he would but once pledge his word to do so.
“No, surely you would not become a sot; your self-respect and love for your family would not permit it; and therefore I suppose you will never drink liquor again,” remarked an anxious neighbor.
“Not till my ‘keg’ is up, which is three weeks from yesterday,” was the reply.
“Oh, give us your word now,” chimed in several friends, “that you will not drink when your ‘keg,’ is up, but that you will abstain for ever. Only pledge your word, and we know you’ll keep it.”
“To be sure I would, so long as the world should stand. My word is sacred, and therefore I am cautious about pledging it. When once given, all the fiends of Pandemonium could not tempt or force me to break it. But I shall not pledge myself. I only say you are right, gentlemen; drinking liquor is a bad business, and when my ‘keg’ is up – I’ll think about it. I break off once in a few months, merely to prove to myself and to you that I am not a drunkard and never shall be, for you see I can control myself.”
With this delusive sophism the poor fellow would content himself, but he almost unconsciously looked forward with hope and joy for the time to arrive which had been fixed upon, for his pent-up appetite grew the stronger as the day approached, and therefore as soon as the moment arrived he would seize the bottle, and be drunk as speedily as possible. Then would be renewed his career of misery, and then again would his trembling wife and children feel overwhelmed by the dark picture opening before them.
At the termination of one of these “kegs,” he got drunk as usual, and beat his wife as he had often done before. On awaking the next morning, he desired her to send a child to the store for rum. She replied that they had all gone to school. He then requested her to go and replenish the bottle. She made an excuse which put, him off for an hour or two, when he arose from the bed and essayed to eat his breakfast. But his parched tongue and burning throat, the results of last night’s debauch, destroyed all appetite except for rum, and although perfectly sober, this raging fire almost maddened him; and turning to his wife, he said:
“Mrs.—, I am sick; you must go and get me some liquor.”
“I cannot do it,” was the sad but firm reply.
“Cannot! Am I to be disobeyed by my lawful wedded wife? Have I sunk so low that my wishes may be thwarted and my directions disobeyed by the partner of my life?” replied he with all his native pride and dignity.
“I never refused to do any thing which would promote your happiness, but I cannot help you procure that which will make you unhappy and your family wretched,” replied the desponding wife.
“We will soon see who is master here,” replied the husband, “and