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THE OLD STILL-HOUSE-CLOSED FOR EVER.

From "Elsie Magoon,"-A Tale of the Past-by Mrs. FRANCES D. GAGE.-Arranged by J. R. SYPHER.

Characters.-RICHARD MAGOON, proprietor of the still-house; ELSIE MAGOON, his wife; ELSIE MAGOON, their daughter; GEORGE MAGOON, their son; ALICE MAGOON, younger daughter.

[Stage with side-door and sliding scene, or curtain; table and two chairs and arm-chair; tray, cup and saucer, plate, knife and fork; pen, ink, and paper.]

RICHARD MAGOON and ELSIE his wife.

Richard. Well, Elsie, another hard week's work is done. Elsie. Yes; but not a very profitable one, was it, Richard? Rich. No. There's the worst set of men about here, I believe, that ever were called together in any one place on the face of the earth! They have half of them been drunk all the week; and, for my soul, I can't keep 'em straight. I have got to have a real overhauling among the hands at the still-house, Kit is not fit to stay there : he drinks just enough to make him devilish, quarrels with everybody, and, they tell me, uses his wife shamefully. I saw him whipping little Nelly this morning like a brute. His wife undertook to get the child out of his way, and he gave her a kick that sent her staggering against the side of the house.

too.

Elsie. Kicked his wife!-kicked Abigail, in her condition! Oh, Richard! is there no way for us to live but by that stillhouse?-by making whiskey, to blight the happiness of the whole neighborhood? Frank has been telling me to-night about things at the still. I have seen, too, for myself; and it grows terrible, Richard! Only think how the wives of all these men must suffer! Every day I hear of things as bad as those you tell me you have seen to-day; and it is awful to me—awful to think that we are helping to make all this wrong and crime among the people.

Rich. I am sure we are not responsible for their foolishness. No man is obliged to drink, if he don't wish to. I never asked one of my hands to take whiskey in payment for a day's work in

my life; and you know, Elsie, no man hates this whole matter of dram-drinking more than I do. Besides, I don't see any use of always looking at the black side of the picture. There are some drinking men hereabouts; but where would you go to find the place where there is a better society, or where greater progress has been made than here?

Elsie. I know the neighborhood grows that wealth increases with many; how can it be otherwise, in such a beautiful, fertile country? but would not genuine prosperity increase as rapidly without your distillery? Are not all these outrages against decency and sobriety, just so many blemishes upon our community, that should not and need not be? And, Richard, to be candid, now, is the still-house making you rich among others, or are you sacrificing yourself in this work? Ay, Richard, sacrificing yourself, and the poor, the weak, the misguided, and their helpless families, to make a market for other people's products?

Rich. Something must be done with corn. If I don't use it up, somebody else will. Pork, they say, is going to bring a better price this fall than it ever has. I intend to buy all the hogs I can and fatten them for the eastern market.

Elsie. For the love of Heaven, then, Richard, give them the corn in its natural state; and if there is a devil in it, let it enter the swine, as of old; do not extract it, to make swine of your neighbors. I tell you, Richard, there are not ten men about here who are not becoming the victims of your still-house; and if it goes on five years longer we shall have a terrible neighborhood. Just think what schools we have now; what rowdyism; what wild young men!

Rich. There it is again! every time we sit down for a chat, up comes that same old story-as if my still-house were the cause of all. I tell you, Elsie, it's no use talking; I have invested all I'm worth in it, and must go on. If people will be fools, it is not my fault; and I won't bear to be tormented and reproached, day in and day out, about what I can't help. You can hunt up old Father Peters to talk your nonsense to, if

must talk.

you

(Exit all.

Music-TEMPERANCE SONG.

(Enter Mrs. MAGOON and ELSIE, dressed in walking suits.)

Mrs. Magoon. We have seen a sad sight to-night, Elsie. Elsie. Yes, mother; and I could not help thinking of what might happen in some other home. (Long pause.) You must not die, mother, and leave us alone.

Mrs. M. I was not thinking of that, Elsie; but you have no doubt seen that your father is more given to his habits than

ever.

Elsie. Yes, mother. (Long pause.)

Mrs. M. Are you frightened, Elsie?

Elsie. Frightened! why, mother, I was never frightened in my life when I could see no danger.

Mrs. M. What makes you walk so fast and breathe so hard? Elsie. I am weary and nervous, and I could not shake off a strange feeling that the incidents of the night have thrown over

me.

That terrible death-bed scene, and the life of misery it has ended, are fearful warnings that I tremble to contemplate. (To the audience.) Mrs. Truman was not old-not over fiftyfive; and yet her face and form would have proclaimed her "three score and ten." Her eyes were heavy and dim; care and toil and weeping had driven them back and bleared them with sorrow till she was old, worn, and weary. And what a life she had lived! The early years of it had been spent by the side of one who, when he married her at fifteen, was good and industrious, and meant to do all he promised. She was a pretty girl then, with a heart full to the brim of tenderness and unselfishBut she had grown, in the course of these toiling, suffering years, hard and petulant and vixenish, often matching him in violence and abuse.

ness.

Yet, after all, she had been as good a mother as one plunged in her very childhood into matronly cares and duties-from which there was no escape or rest-could well be. And what had she to encourage her? Truman, kind-hearted and jovial when sober, silly and fawning when half sober, and a very demon when fully drunk, had made life to her a fearful thing.

For thirty long years she never went from home; but washed and ironed, and spun and wove. Day and night, year in and out, was heard the click of her loom or the buzz of her spinning-wheel. She had scolded in the beginning, because she thought scolding would mend matters; because a troop of children, full of life and mischief, who had nothing to do, and nothing to do it with, were always doing the very thing they should not; and because she had no time to reason with them, and did not know how to do it if she had, she strove to govern by screams and threats. She loved her children, toiled for them, saved for them, denied herself everything for them. And her husband, "Drunken old Truman," as all the neighborhood called him, always had a clean whole suit for Sundays, no matter how poor and old it might be; and if she scolded somewhat to get it on, it was love that stirred her tongue, pride, and a lingering hope, that struggled against all hope, that she could still make the husband of her youth, and the father of her children, a little bit respectable. And those twelve children that for these many years have hung upon her while she struggled, and toiled, and wept, and scolded, and suffered-those twelve children-the drunkard's children-every one of them bore, in some form, the brand of the father's sins—every one, more or less, the impress of the mother's trials and sorrows.

And now, when this poor woman was brought, through years of anxious toil and consuming woe, to the verge of death, her husband, whose habits of intemperance had made her life a life of wretchedness, comes staggering drunk to her bed to torment her even in the hour of death; and when his own children attempted to lead him away, the poor dying wife whispered, "No, no, let him stay; I loved him once-yes, once—I love him still. But whiskey, Elsie; you know-yes, you know; it's whiskey, Martha-Reuben. Take care of him when I am gone. I loved him once; he was so handsome and good, and he loved me, too. I was happy once-the birds sang and the sun shone so brightly that morning." Thus, in the moment of dissolution, the tried spirit had stricken out the long weary years of suffering and sorrow, and had linked itself with the

freshness and purity of its early youth-to that day and time. when her soul was nearest heaven-when Nellie had fastened the emblem of purity over her beating heart, and led her away to become the bride of one whom she loved with all a woman's true devotion. What might have been her life-how much that is good and beautiful might have budded and blossomed in so true a soul, had he walked by her side in soberness and good faith to the end? It had taken twenty-five years for that "Old Still House" to crush out the life of that strong, brave, though erring woman. Erring, did I say? Will the recording angels set down against her the sins of a life so filled with trial and temptation? Will God, when he makes up his jewels, find no diamond amid the rubbish of such a life, where faith and hope and labor linked all the hours of a quarter of a century with unfailing love and unrequited toil?

(Turning to her mother.) Oh, mother, mother, how we have labored and prayed to avert a similar catastrophe from our own home! Providence seems to be answering our petitions everywhere but in this one object, where we most earnestly seek for a blessing What shall we do next? Mrs. M.

will come.

I have prayed, my child, and I know that the time
Yes, I know it; and my heart is ready, cheerfully

to bear and suffer, until the hour arrives.

Elsie. I am ready to bear, mother; but not cheerfully. I cannot cheerfully see my father sinking lower and lower every day.

lost. I fear

Mrs. M. You know what I mean; to fret and wear faces of gloom would only waste our own energies, and weaken the courage of the rest. We must keep up, or all is we shall have a scene to-night when we get home. He has been down at the town all day; and you know he always comes home furious from there; and when he finds us both gone, and no warm supper prepared for him, he will be the more so.

Elsie. And we forgot to tell Alice!

Mrs. M. Yes, and she is thoughtless.

Elsie. See, there are lights in every window!—I am frightened now, mother!

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