The Evolution of "Dodd" Part 16

There is any amount of light nonsense current on this point. See how the method worked in this case.

"Dodd" really meant to do better when he left Mr. Bright's. People in this condition always do mean to do better. He had made pledges to his friend and he hoped to keep them. It takes more than hoping to succeed in such eases, however.

I would by no means intimate that when a drunkard signs the pledge he is always lying and does not mean to keep it. On the contrary, I think the great bulk of those who thus write their names with a trembling hand, do, at the time of writing, really mean to keep all that they promise. But as a rule they change their minds when the trial comes, and "Don't count this time!"

This statement is a sad one, but it is terribly true. There is a reason for it.

And the chief reason is that these "unfortunates," as they are called, get into the habit of being carried when they should walk on their own feet. Your drunkard is always expecting sympathy, and help, and upholding. He leans down on you; he lies down on you. He pleads misfortune, disease, or something, and makes himself out a poor, weak victim of circ.u.mstances. He asks for help, and of a kind that most suits himself. He should not get such.

Help he should have, but of a kind that will make him help himself.

Because, when such a person is merely helped by another he becomes helpless himself, and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

It was so with "Dodd" Weaver. The kind offices of Mr. Bright had really wrought him harm. He had thus been able to get money for some weeks, and as he lived only for the moment now, this "accommodation"

kept him in his low mode of life.

It is the study of a lifetime how to deal justly with people in his condition. If you doubt my word, try it. You will be convinced.

"Dodd" did intend to do better after leaving Mr. Bright's. But he went right down town and took a drink to brace up on. This also is common.

It was two days after this that the young man came once more to appeal to his benefactor. He was in trouble again, and according to the law I have just noted he came for relief to the source from which help had before come. There is no record of how long a man can thus abuse the kindness of a friend. Sometimes death alone ends the scene.

But Mr. Bright was not a man to be trifled with when once he had taken in the situation. He heard "Dodd's" story with disgust. The young man had been drunk again, and in a brawl had struck an antagonist with bra.s.s knuckles. For this offense he said the police were in search of him, and would probably find him. He asked Mr. Bright to let him have money to pay his fine, and so keep him out of jail. He could not bear that disgrace, he declared.

But Mr. Bright was unmoved. He sat looking at "Dodd" for a moment in silence, and then said:

"Not one cent, young man!"

"But I shall have to go to jail," faltered "Dodd," in a broken voice.

"You may go there, and stay there, for all of me," exclaimed Mr.

Bright, in a burst of righteous indignation, as all the past years rose up before him and the memory of them floated before his vision. "I have given you the last cent that I ever shall. You deserve to go to jail, and it is probably the best thing that can happen that you should."

"But my mother!" pleaded "Dodd."

"It is a fine time for you to plead your mother now, isn't it?" replied Mr. Bright. "How much you have considered her and her feelings in the last few years," he continued. "When you have been drunk on the streets; when you have abused the hospitality of a gentleman; when you have lied to me and obtained money from me under false pretenses, then was the time for you to plead for sparing your mother. You did nothing toward that then. I will not help you now."

Mr. Bright spoke firmly, and in a straight-forward tone. "Dodd" shrank under his words as though they were lashes on a bare back. But once more he pleaded:

"I don't know who will help me if you don't, and some one must help me, for I can't suffer this disgrace."

"Well, no one shall help you if I can prevent it," replied Mr. Bright.

"What you need, young man, is to help yourself. If you haven't virtue enough left to do this, you might as well go to jail, or into your grave--it doesn't make much difference which. You are of no manner of use in this world as you are now. You are worse than useless, you are a dead load to your friends, your acquaintances, and society."

Mr. Bright laid on tremendously, now that he had begun, and "Dodd"

writhed under his strokes. The last flagellation left them both out of breath, and there was silence in the room for some minutes. It was Mr.

Bright who spoke first:

"'Dodd,' my boy," he said, "I need not tell you how it pains me thus to talk to you, you for whom I have striven so hard, and from whom I had hoped for so much. You are naturally bright, but you are fickle by nature, and, so far, you have lacked the manhood to correct this fault.

You are the only one who can ever do this. So one else can do it for you. If ever you stand up like a man, it must be on your own feet. I tried to teach you this long ago. I think I failed. At least is seems so now. You did stand for a while though, my boy, and I would to G.o.d you could do so again."

"Dodd" sat in his chair shedding bitter tears; he began feebly:

"Help me this once," he begged, "and before G.o.d, I promise you I will never give you cause to be ashamed of me again."

"Keep your pledges to yourself," returned Mr. Bright. "I want none of them. They are of no value whatever. You have come to a time now when you must do something more than pledge, though there was a time when your word was good, and I would have taken it, unquestioned, on any occasion. But that time is past. It may come again, but the chances are against it."

"You are making me out a monster," interlarded "Dodd," with an attempt at injured innocence in his voice.

"And that is just what you are," said Mr. Bright. "You have grown out of all semblance to the true type of a man. You are wicked, deceitful, weak, vacillating, and untruthful. So long as you retain these qualities there is no hope for you. Perhaps a punishment of a term in jail may serve to bring you to a sense of your condition. If it will, it is the best thing that can happen to you. Anyhow, I am willing to see it tried."

"So you will not give me money to pay my fine?" groaned "Dodd."

"Not one cent," again answered Mr. Bright, as he showed the young man to the door.

CHAPTER XXII.

As they walked through the hall, however, "Dodd" dragging himself along reluctantly, a kindlier mood took possession of the school teacher. He paused, and, turning to the young man, said:

"See here. I have a plan that has just come to me, and I will give you the benefit of it. I am convinced that you will never be any better than you are now if you continue to live in this city. Your companions are here, and so are your old haunts and a.s.sociations. I will do this for you. I will go to your room with you and help you get together whatever clothing you have. Then I will go with you to the depot, and will buy you a ticket to the farthest point from here that ten dollars will take you to. I don't want to know where that place is. I don't want ever to see you or hear from you again, unless you are a different man. I want to give you one more chance to stand on your own feet.

That is all I have to say. You may take it or leave it, as you will."

"Dodd" hesitated a minute, and then said:

"I'll take it."

"Very well," replied Mr. Bright, putting on his coat and hat; "I am ready, and will go with you now."

"I might say good-bye to your family," said "Dodd"; "they have been so kind to me."

"I prefer that you should not," replied Mr. Bright. "I have no desire to have you know them further. You have forfeited all claim to their respect, or regard, or courtesy even, and if you never redeem yourself, I do not care to have them see you again!"

It was a terrible thrust. It was like a sword in the bones to the recipient of the cutting words. "Dodd" reeled under them as though smitten with a veritable blade of steel.

But they were doing good work for this abnormal young man. These cuts, made by the sword of truth, when wielded by the hands of Mr. Bright, laid open to "Dodd" Weaver the secret recesses of his own soul, and he saw there such foulness as he had never before suspected. Not one word had his former teacher said to him which was not true. His final refusal to permit him to say adieu to his family, "Dodd" felt was just and strictly in accordance with his deserts. This hurled him down to where he belonged, and made him realize what a wretch, what an outcast, he was.

Don't you suppose, good people, that it would be a great deal better, all around, if we each one got what we really deserve just when we deserve it? But we don't; and so we flatter ourselves that because the desert does not come to-day it will not come to-morrow, not next day, and we hope it will never come. And so we keep on in our wrong ways.

The book has it: "Because sentence against a wicked work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of men are fully set in them to do evil." This was written a long time ago, but it is as true to-day as it ever was. I think that even the most confirmed skeptic would admit the truth of the pa.s.sage.

So Mr. Bright went with "Dodd" to his lodgings, helped him pack, and got him to the depot. They escaped the police. This was not a hard thing to do. It seldom is, if one has really been doing wrong.

"Here is ten dollars," said Mr. Bright to the ticket agent. "I want you to give me a ticket to a point the farthest away from the city possible for that money."

"What line?" inquired the somewhat surprised official.

"I don't know, and I don't want to know," returned Mr. Bright. "I want a ticket such as I have described, and I want you to tell me which train to take to reach the destination, though I don't want to know what the destination is."