The Caledonian

MRS. MORGAN'S MAINE LAW.
BY JONES SMITH, JR.

Mrs. Morgan's husband was an excellent workman, and had the best wages, but he would drink, and like most men in his class when in liquor, generally beat his children, and sometimes his wife.
Mrs. Morgan was a notable woman, and loved her husband in spite of all, but after years of patient forbearance, she came to the conclusion that Jimmy Morgan, as she called him, should stop drinking whether or not. In other words, manufacture a private Maine law of her own.

The occasion was one day when Jimmy came home to dinner, half tipsy, which was what always happened when he stopped at the tavern on his way, and he did this on an average about twice a week.

"Now you Morgan," said she, as soon as he entered, "you've been at the whisky bottle again. You needn't deny it. I know it by your looks. And by your breath too—go away you nasty beast! how dare you try to kiss me when you've been drinking."

Jimmy had essayed this matrimonial caress hoping it would conciliate the good wife, but finding his purpose foiled he stood upon his dignity.

"Hoity, toity," said he, "how you put on airs. Give us some dinner, and don't sulk."

Mrs. Morgan did not often get roused, but she was now. She put her arms akimbo and answered:

"Not a mouthful of dinner do you get in this house to-day, nor any other day till you come home sober. So the sooner you go the better."

The half tipsy husband looked at her in amazement. For a moment he thought of enforcing his will, as he had often done before, but whether he had not drank quite enough to arouse his courage, or whether the blazing eye of his irate frightened him, he turned after a little hesitation, and left the house.

Of course he went straight to the tavern, as Mrs. Morgan rather expected he would. And of course, when night came, he was led home thoroughly inebriated, as she rather wished he would be.

He had just sufficient reason left to wonder at the extraordinary care with which his wife, after assisting to undress him, tucked him in bed. But this, like everything else, was soon forgotten in a stupid sleep.

She waited until satisfied that he was entirely insensible, when she proceeded to sew the offender up in the sheets, exactly as if he had been a mummy. The stitches were not small, but she knew they were taken with trebled thread, and they would hold, especially as he could now use neither hands or arms. Once or twice he grunted, as if about to awake, but she stopped a moment at such a time.

At last the proceeding was completed. And now she brought forth a cart whip, which she had borrowed that afternoon from a neighbor.

"Now, Jimmy Morgan," said she, apostrophising him, "I'll cure you of your beastly habits, or—please God—I'll whip you till you'll be sore for a month."

Down came the lash as vigorously as her brawny arm could lay it on; again, again, and yet again, and it seemed as if she was never going to stop. And very soon, the offender roused from his stupor, saw what it was and began to beg for mercy.

"Not till you've promised to leave off drinking," was the answer, and the blows descended more vigorously than ever. "Swear to leave off drinking."

"Oh! you'll kill me, you'll kill me!"

"No, it will do you good. To think how drunk you was ten minutes ago, and now to see you rolling about so lively—never tell me, Jimmy Morgan, that I am killing you after that."

"Mercy, mercy, mercy," roared the criminal. "How can you, Polly, use your husband so?"

"I can and will." And another shower of blows descended. "Halloo as much as you like, for it will do no good; only I can tell you one thing, it will not rouse the neighbors. I told them what I was going to do if you came home drunk again. Have you had enough yet? Will you promise at once, or are you going to hold out still?"

"Oh, oh, oh," groaned the helpless husband twisting and turning in every direction, but unable to escape the cataract of blows, "oh, oh, oh."

"Will you promise? You'd better do it quick," resumed his inexorable spouse, "or I'll beat you to a jelly. These six years I've borne your drunkenness, but I'll bear it no longer. I've tried coaxing, and I've tried everything, and now I'm trying whipping. You've beaten me often enough, and I'm paying you back. Promise at once, the quicker the better, for I'll not let you up till you do even if it keep me here all night, and you're sick for a week afterwards."

It was a good while before the criminal gave in. He thought his wife would tire out at last, but when the castigator had proceeded for some time, and he saw no symptoms of either fatigue or relenting, he was compelled to succumb.

"I'll swear, I'll swear," he said at last, "I'll do anything; only let me up. That's a dear good Polly. Oh, Lord, don't whip me any more, for I've said I'd swear, oh, oh."

Mrs. Morgan gave him three or four sound cuts more, to "make assurance doubly sure," before she administered the oath, which she did, at last, with the Bible in her hands, completing the ceremony by making him kiss the book.

From that night Jimmy Morgan was never known to taste liquor. He told his neighbors that he had been so sick, after his last spree that he had resolved to join the temperance society, but he did not tell them what had made him ill. Mrs. Morgan, too, kept the secret, nursing him through his bruises, which were neither few nor slight. However, as she said to herself, "desperate diseases require desperate remedies;" and so she never repented of the medicine she had administered, even though her husband did not earn a dollar for three weeks.

A word more and our tale is told. Perhaps other wives might work cures as miraculous if they would try Mrs. Morgan's Maine Law.