A Horrible Idea | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Dec 16, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 20.

A Horrible Idea.

AN Easterner, riding on a mail-stage in northern Colorado, was entertained by a dialogue which was sustained upon one side by the driver and upon the other by an elderly passenger, evidently a native of the region.

"I understand you're temperance," began the driver.

"Yes, I'm pretty strong against liquor," returned the other. "I've been set against it now thirty-five years."

"Scared it will ruin your health?"

"Yes, but that isn't the main thing."

"Perhaps it don't agree with you?" ventured the driver.

"Well, it really don't agree with anybody. But that ain't it, either. The thing that sets me against it is a horrible idea."

"A horrible idea? What is it?"

"Well, thirty-five years ago I was sitting in a hotel in Denver with a friend of mine, and I says, 'Let's order a bottle of something,' and he says, 'No, sir. I'm saving my money to buy government land at one dollar and a quarter an acre. I'm going to buy to-morrow and you'd better let me take the money you would have spent for the liquor and buy a couple of acres along with mine.' I says, 'all right.' So we didn't drink, and he bought me two acres."

"Well, sir, to-day those two acres are right in the middle of a flourishing town; and if I'd taken that drink, I'd have swallowed a city block, a grocery store, an apothecary's, four lawyers' offices, and it's hard to say what else. That's the idea. Don't you think it's horrible?"