Temperance in the Home by Augusta C. Bainbridge

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 9, 1908

Temperance in the Home

By Augusta C. Bainbridge

AUGUSTA C. BAINBRIDGE

“Here I am at home! My, how good the house looks!” said Joe to himself, thinking out loud, as he entered the gate, and walked briskly up to the front door. He had left home, as usual, that morning; but so much had happened during the day, that it seemed a long time since he had turned the knob.

“Yes, mother, it is I, your young whirlwind, and so glad to see you,” said he, giving her an unusually warm greeting.

Sister Elsie fared the same, and even Tabby, quietly sleeping on the rug, had to be lifted and petted, with a, “Hey, puss! Do you know you’re well off?”

“You seem to be bubbling over, my son; what’s up? Are you particularly happy about something?” said Mr. Gray.

“Indeed I am, happy and sad all mixed together, and if I did not have a home like this to come to, I’d burst.”

“Let’s hear about it,” said mother, and all drew their chairs to the table, knowing that the story Joe had to tell would be for all ears.

“Father, you remember Guy Emmons, that tall, fine-looking young man who used to sail the yacht on the lake last summer?”

“Indeed I do, son.”

“Yes, and I remember the double price he paid me for milk, and would not wait for the change,” said Elsie.

“I saw him to-day. I did not know him; but he knew me, and came to me. How he has changed! It is hard to believe a man could become so thin and pale in such a short time; and he looks so woe-be-gone—well-dressed, all right, but his face like an all-day funeral. We sat down on the bench there by the old fountain, and talked all my noon hour; and when I went back to the store, he asked me to meet him there after my work was done. Sure enough, there he was, and we’ve been talking ever since.”

“Well, what was it all about?”

“You see, he came out here for his health, last summer; for the doctor had told him to spend all his time in the open air, and to drink wine freely, to make blood and build up his body.”

“What a mix up! Fresh air for his lungs, and poison for his stomach!” said Elsie.

“You’re right, sis, and it has been a mighty mix up for him. At first, he thought he was better, but when he returned to the city, in spite of using liberally the very best port wine that could be bought, he said he knew he was worse. He drank more wine; changed doctors and drank whisky; but he could see for himself that he was losing blood instead of gaining. He told me that he had been drunk, absolutely drunk, several times under this treatment. His folks have sent him here for the summer again; and he said that he would have no doctor, and take no more doctor’s stuff. O, I couldn’t tell you half he said! He said he didn’t want to drink any more liquor; for he saw danger ahead of him, but he does not know what to do.”

“It almost made you wish you were a doctor, yourself, didn’t it?” said mother.

“Yes indeed, it did; and I hope I shall be a doctor some day, but not the drunkard-making kind. I told him the best I could remember of our last talk on alcohol and the circulation. I told him that the presence of alcohol in the blood will cause the red corpuscles to lose some of their ability to carry oxygen, that persons who use alcohol have a smaller number of white blood cells than the temperance people, and that was one reason why they were sick oftener. They could not resist disease. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, my son,” said the father, “and what more did you tell him?”

“He kept asking me questions, and he listened so earnestly. I thought, ‘You are older, and wiser, and smarter, and richer than I am, but you have never heard this before.’ I told him about the capillaries in the lungs, and how fine they are, and about the little disks of blood moving one by one, in order, each one getting its supply of oxygen, and how alcohol paralyzes the capillaries, and hinders this.”

“So I am starving my blood, instead of feeding it,” he said. “I told him that was just it. I tried to tell him about the lungs and the heart. But how I wished for you, father,” and his hand, almost as large as his father’s, slipped across the corner of the table, and held that parent’s hand in a grip such as an earnest boy knows how to give.

With a loving look at his mother, he said, “I tell you, I felt proud of you all, and so thankful and glad that I have parents who really know what will make my life a blessing instead of a curse. Why! With all the money that Guy Emmons has, I wouldn’t change with him. And I might have been away off from decency and honor and home and God, but for you and what you have taught me. I am sorry for him, but O, I am so glad for myself!”

Just here Elsie led, and all joined her:

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise him who heals the drunkard’s woe, Praise him who leads the temperance host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

“O mother, I almost forgot, he is coming up in the morning for some milk, and you’ll tell him what’s good for him, won’t you?”

With a smile and a nod came the satisfactory answer, “The blood is the life,” you know.

San Francisco, Cal.