The Bottomless Jug

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 44.

The Bottomless Jug.

I SAW it hanging up in the kitchen of a thrifty, healthy, sturdy farmer, in Oxford County, Maine—a bottomless jug! The host saw that the curious thing caught my eye, and smiled.

"You are wondering what that jug is hanging up there for, with its bottom knocked out?" he said. "My wife, perhaps, could tell you the story better than I can; but she is bashful, and I ain't, so I'll tell it.

"My father, as you are probably aware, owned this farm before me. He lived to a good old age, worked hard all his life, never squandered money, was a careful trader, and a good calculator, and, as men were accounted in his day and generation, he was a temperate man. I was the youngest boy; and when the old man was ready to go—and he knew it—the others agreed that, since I had stayed at home and taken care of the old folks, the farm should be mine. And to me it was willed. I had been married then three years.

"Well, father died—mother had gone three years before—and left the farm to me, with a mortgage on it for two thousand dollars. I'd never thought so much of it before; but I thought of it now. I said to Molly—my wife—'Molly,' says I, 'look here. Here's father had this farm in its first strength of soil, with all its magnificent timber, and his six boys, as they grew up, equal to so many men, to help him; and he has worked hard—worked early and late—and yet look at it. A mortgage of two thousand dollars! What can I do?' And I went to that old jug—it had its bottom in then—and took a good stiff drink of Old Medford rum from it.

"I noticed a curious look on the face of my wife just then, and I asked her what she thought of it; for I supposed, of course, she was thinking of what I'd been talking about. And so she was. Says she: 'Charles, I've thought of this a good deal; and I've thought of a way in which I believe we can clear this mortgage off before five years are ended.'

"Says I, 'Molly, tell me how you'll do it.'

"She thought for a while, and then she said, with a funny twinkling in her blue eyes—says she, 'Charles, you must promise me this, and promise me solemnly and sacredly: promise me that you will never again bring home for the purpose of drinking for a beverage at any one time, more spirits of any kind than you can bring in that old jug—the jug that your father has used ever since I knew him, and which you have used since he was done with it.'

"Well, I knew father used, once in a while, especially in haying time, and in the winter time when we were at work in the woods, to get an old gallon jug filled; so I thought she meant that I should never buy more than two quarts at a time. I thought it over and after a little while I told her I would agree to it. 'Now mind,' said she, 'you are never—never—to bring home for a common beverage more spirits than you can bring in that identical jug.' And I gave her the promise.

"And before I went to bed that night I took the last pull at that jug. As I was turning it out for a sort of night cap, Molly looked up and says she, 'Charley, have you got a drop left?' There was just about a drop. We'd have to get it filled on the morrow. And then she said, if I had no objection, she would drink that last drop with me. I shall never forget how she brought it out—'t at last drop!' However, I tipped the old jug bottom up and got out about a great spoonful, and Molly said that was enough. She took the tumbler and poured a few drops of hot water into it, and a bit of sugar, and then she tinkled her glass against mine, just as she'd seen us boys do when we'd been drinking good luck, and says she, 'Here's to the old brown jug!'

"Sakes alive! I thought to myself that poor Molly had been drinking more of the rum than was good for her, and I tell you it kind of cut me to the heart. I forgot all about how many times she'd seen me when my tongue was thicker than it ought to be, and my legs not quite so steady as good legs should be; but I said nothing. I drank the sentiment—'The old brown jug!' and let it go.

"Well, I went out after that and did my chores, and then went to bed; and the last thing I said before leaving the kitchen—this very room where you now sit—was, 'We'll have the old brown jug filled to-morrow.' And then I went off to bed. And I have remembered ever since that I went to bed that night, as I had done hundreds of times before, with a buzzing in my head that a healthy man ought not to have. I didn't think of it then, nor had I ever thought of it before; but I've thought of it a good many times since, and have thought of it with wonder and awe.

"Well, I got up the next morning and did up my work at the barn, then came in and ate my breakfast, but not with such an appetite as a farmer ought to have, and I could not think more then that my appetite had begun to fail me. However I ate breakfast and then went out and hitched up the old mare; for, to tell the plain truth, I was feeling the need of a glass of spirits, and I hadn't a drop in the house. I was in a hurry to get to the village. I got hitched up and came in for the jug. I went for it in the old cupboard and took it out, and—

"Did you ever break through the thin ice, on a nipping cold day, and find yourself in an instant over your head in freezing water? Because that was the way I felt at that moment. That jug was there, but the bottom was gone. Molly had been and taken a sharp chisel and a hammer, and with a skill that might have done credit to a master-workman, she had clipped the bottom clean out of the jug, without even cracking the edges or the sides! I looked at the jug and then I looked at Molly. And then she burst out. She spoke—oh, I never heard anything like it! no, nor have I ever heard anything like it since. Said she:—

"'Charles, there's where the mortgage on this farm came from! It was brought home in that jug, two quarts at a time! And there's where your white, clear skin, and your clear, pretty eyes are going! And in that jug, my husband, your appetite is going also. Oh, let the bottom stay out forever! Let it be as it is, dear heart! And remember your promise to me!'

"And then she threw her arms around my neck and burst into tears. She couldn't speak more.

"And there was no need. My eyes were opened as though by magic. In a single minute the whole scene passed before me. I saw all the mortgages on all the farms in our neighborhood; and I thought where the money had gone. The very last mortgage father had ever made had been to pay a bill held against him by the man who had filled his jug for years! Yes, I saw it as it passed before me—a fitting picture of rum!—rum!—rum!—debt!—debt!—debt!—and, in the end—death! And I returned my Molly's kiss, and said I: 'Molly, my own, I'll keep the promise, I will, so help me Heaven!'

"And I have kept it. In less than five years, as Molly had said, the mortgage was paid off; my appetite came back to me; and now we've got a few thousand dollars out at interest. There hangs the old jug—just as we hung it on that day; and from that time there hasn't been a drop of spirits brought into the house for a beverage which that bottomless jug wouldn't have held.

"Dear old jug! We mean to keep it; and to hand it down to our children, for the lesson it can give them—a lesson of life—of a life happy, peaceful, prosperous, and blessed."

And as he ceased speaking, his wife, with an arm drawn tenderly around the neck of her youngest boy, murmured a fervent, Amen.—W. C. T. U. Bulletin.