ielded to temptation deserved no pity, no consideration, no aid.
Her sufferings were amusing, her diseases a joke, her future of no
account. From these men Burton and I acquired a desolating fund of
information concerning South Clark Street in Chicago, and the river
front in St. Louis. Their talk did not allure, it mostly shocked and
horrified us. We had not known that such cruelty, such baseness was in
the world and it stood away in such violent opposition to the teaching
of our fathers and uncles that it did not corrupt us. That man, the
stronger animal, owed chivalry and care to woman, had been deeply
grounded in our concept of life, and we shrank from these vile stories
as from something disloyal to our mothers and sisters.

To those who think of the farm as a sweetly ideal place in which to
bring up a boy, all this may be disturbing--but the truth is, low-minded
men are low-minded everywhere, and farm hands are often creatures with
enormous appetites and small remorse, men on whom the beauty of nature
has very little effect.

To most of our harvest hands that year Saturday night meant a visit to
town and a drunken spree, and they did not hesitate to say so in the
presence of Burton and myself. Some of them did not hesitate to say
anything in our presence. After a hard week's work we all felt that a
trip to town was only a fair reward.

Saturday night in town! How it all comes back to me! I am a timid
visitor in the little frontier village. It is sunset. A whiskey-crazed
farmhand is walking bare footed up and down the middle of the road
defying the world.--From a corner of the street I watch with tense
interest another lithe, pock-marked bully menacing with cat-like action,
a cowering young farmer in a long linen coat. The crowd jeers at him for
his cowardice--a burst of shouting is heard. A trampling follows and
forth from the door of a saloon bulges a throng of drunken, steaming,
reeling, cursing ruffians followed by brave Jim McCarty, the city
marshal, with an offender under each hand.--The scene changes to the
middle of the street. I am one of a throng surrounding a smooth-handed
faker who is selling prize boxes of soap and giving away dollars.--"Now,
gentlemen," he says, "if you will hand me a dollar I will give you a
sample package of soap to examine, afterwards if you don't want the
soap, return it to me, and I'll return your dollar." He repeats this
several times, returning the dollars faithfully, then sli