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WHAT GORMAN DID

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 5, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 6.

Read the full edition

WHAT GORMAN DID

By Sophia M. Bryant

SOPHIA M. BRYANT
(Aberdeen, Wash)
(Concluded.)
Mr. Gorman idolized his wife and child. This evening he went down the street with his head bent low, and the cigar unlighted between his teeth. His little boy’s black eye had set him to thinking. When he reached his place of business, the bright lights, the gay crowd, the music, the clink of coin,—all helped to banish any serious thought he may have had while on his way there.
One evening, a week later, just after the crowd began to gather at Gorman’s saloon, a little boy in ragged clothes much too big for him, shambled up to the counter. “I want—a—pail—of beer,” he stammered, laying a quarter in the barkeeper’s hand.
“Ho! ho! hu! Patsy, me jewil, an’ is it yerself?” said an old man, with red eyes, rheumy face, and thick, whisky-choked voice, as he hobbled from a dim corner. It was old Pap Winch, Patsy Flinn’s grandfather, whose every thought was “a drink, one more drink!” He was literally pickled in alcohol, being dead to everything else—an old man of seventy, whose long white hair and beard were sullied with the filth of the alleys and gutters, where he passed most of his time.
The little boy drew back, staring about the room. He took the pail of beer from the barkeeper, and looked, as one fascinated, at the groups of men seated at the card tables.
“Arrah! Patsy, me jewil,” the old man chuckled, as he looked at the foaming pail. “Grandad’ll help ye fetch it home.” The old man reached for the pail; the little boy stepped farther back. The old man’s wheedling changed: “Ye imp! ye spalpeen!” he shrieked. “Ye’ll not give me a sip thin? Take that! and take that! and that!”
“Where’s my papa? I want papa,” came feebly, as the heavy blows fell.
Roy Gorman sprang quickly from one of the card tables when he heard that voice. His face was ghastly as he raised his bleeding boy.
Old Pap Winch trembled, and whimpered: “I didn’t go fer to do it—may the blissed Vargin save me sow! I didn’t go fer to do it, Mr. Gorman. I thought it was Patsy, the imp. Shure, ye’ll not let the hand of the law touch me, wot’s bin yer bes’ tryin’ allus? Do ye moind how me name hidded the list when ye sent round the petition for yer noble license? do ye moind? Shure, now, Mr. Gorman, it’s mony a foine glass we’ve drunk together, and it’s mony more we’ll drink. I didn’t go fer to do it—the poor, little crature, with his yellow curls all blood! I thought it was Patsy as wouldn’t give me a sip o’ beer.”
The old man still held the fire shovel, which had proved such a deadly weapon. Strong hands held the door, and cries of, “Send for the police!” “Send for the doctor!” took the place of the light jests and songs of the moment previous.
“Hush!” cried the agonized father. “My boy, my little innocent boy!”
Strong men wept at sight of the father’s grief. The child’s eyelids lifted. “Was—it a drunkard? Patsy’s clothes—Mama—” And the little life was ended.
The awful news spread like wildfire. Everybody wondered what Roy Gorman would do.
We’ll pass over the mother’s anguish when they laid her broken flower in her arms. She, most of all, wondered what Roy Gorman would do. It was so hard to bear, even with God’s help, and the father had no strong arm to uphold him.
Old Pap Winch staggered home, and gave Patsy a good shaking for not being inside his own clothes. Patsy, poor Patsy, never dreamed it would end the way it did when he coaxed Roy to go and buy a pail of beer, if he wanted to see the drunkards his father made.
“It’s the proper place ye’ll soon be in, Pap,” said Mary Flinn. “It’s me own swate Patsy ye were thinkin’ it was! No doubt ye’d fur rather ’twould be Patsy layin’ cold and dead than Gorman’s boy. How many’s the toime I’ve prayed with ye, and told ye to drink yer beer at home. Ye’ve brought disgrace on us what’s always give ye plenty to drink and eat! You’ll swing fer this! O Patsy, Patsy, wot possessed ye to put yer old duds on that little boy? I wonder what Gorman’ll do to ye for the haythenish trick!”
About midnight a man entered Gorman’s saloon, and the nightwatch dared not interfere when he opened the faucet of every cask and barrel in the great building, flooding the floors with costly wines and liquors. And just as the first faint gray of dawn appeared, the same man stood, with his arm around his wife, and looked out exultantly at the dense masses of smoke and glowing cinders that lost themselves in the somber sky. “So help me, God,” he cried, kneeling beside the little white casket, “I’ll make no more drunkards.”
“Lost everything! No insurance!” said the excited crowd, kicking over the ashes and heaps of melted glass, the next day. “Poor Gorman!”’Tis hard luck for him to lose his new building and his only child the same day. ’Tis a set fire all right enough. I suppose some old toper did it for spite. Wonder what Gorman’ll do? Old Pap’s sure to go to the pen for killing the boy, though he hasn’t been arrested yet.”
Everybody went to the funeral, and everybody soon found out what Gorman would do. After the impressive service, after all had taken a last look at the bruised face of the beautiful child, the father said: “I have not been inside a church for twenty years, and it is not likely I should ever have been again if this had not happened. I know what you all expect me to do; but I’m not going to do it. If I had listened, a week ago, to my conscience, this would not have occurred. My boy would still be alive. I shall not ask the law to help me dispose of a man to whom I have sold liquor till he knows nothing but the taste of alcohol. He thought it was his own grandson whom he was beating, so you see the deed was unpremeditated. I shall do nothing more about this; I shall say nothing more about it. God in His mercy has opened my eyes by the death of my child, to see just how far the innocent may suffer through the guilt of others.”
Pap Winch was bent on his staff, listening to every word. His old gray head shook assent occasionally, though he was too feeble to understand the full import of what he heard.
Roy Gorman laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Pap,” he said, and his voice trembled so that it was almost unintelligible, “Pap, I wish I could give back every dollar I’ve taken from you these fifteen years. I wish I could give back the strength you’ve lost, the manly step and sturdy form, as I first knew it. I’ve taken your home, your money, your manhood; but I’ll not take your liberty.” Going back to his wife’s side, he continued: “I want you all to help me to be a different man. I want to know God my little boy loved to talk about. For fear the burning of my saloon may be laid to others, I will say, I did it myself. I will make no more drunkards.”
“There is joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth,” said the minister, as Mr. Gorman ceased speaking.
Jane Rodgers cried softly as she led her poor, half-blind old father out of the crowded church, out into the bright radiance of a new day. “I didn’t go fer to do it,” he said, as they bore the little white casket past him. “The pretty, swate creature, wid his yellow curls all blood!”
“There, there, father,” said Jane, “don’t grieve now, it’s all forgiven. Mr. Gorman forgives it, and you’ll come home with me. Alexander’s a good man now, and we’ll do all we can to make your last days comfortable. You’ll not care for you’re cups, father, after this. You’ll be wanting to pray and praise God for His mercy.” Old Pap nodded, and clung to his daughter’s hand.
“And he burned his own saloon,” said Mary Flinn, holding Patsy’s hand in a fonder grasp than ever before, as they followed the long line of carriages. She even softened enough to cry as she thought how near she had been to Patsy’s funeral. “Dan,” she said to her husband, “it’s a wonderful thing he did. I thought Pap would sure eat in a dunjun the rest of his days.”
“’Twas a foine saloon,” said Dan; “and Gorman’s a foine man. I think I’ll quit drinkin’, Mary, ’seein’ Gorman’s gone out of business. They’s no other place I’d patronize.”
“’Twas a most foolish thing to do,” remarked one of the leading business men. “He could have sold out for a good round sum. Very foolish to destroy a solid business like that!”
“Hoo-ray!” cried Patsy, throwing his hat up in the air. “He’s burnt his saloon, and now us on Trounce Alley can have ’nough to eat, ’cause our fathers have all turned temperance.”