y
a-dying, he told me never to drink another drap, and I haint toch it
sence."

"Mighty hard on you," remarked Joab; "I never pass a Christmas without
being drunk,--paw he gen'ally fills me'n Iry up till we can't see
single, and then makes us walk a crack in the floor, for fun."

"I allus used to swill all I could hold, from New Christmas to Old
Christmas," said Killis.

"I drink all I want and then ride around on Blant's nag and shoot off my
rifle," said Nucky.

"When I were a five-year-old," contributed Geordie, "my uncles give me a
pint of liquor, and then put a cocked pistol in my hand and p'inted it
at Absalom, and told me to shoot. I fired away,--good thing I weren't
sober, I'd a-kilt him sure!"

"The neighbors up the branch they invites us to their house and treats
us a-Christmas," said Hen; "but Keats he haint half a man,--I can drink
twict as much as him!"

"Self-brag is half-scandal," exclaimed Keats, angrily; "it's because
I've had white swelling and typhoid I can't drink as much as you, you
sorry little scald-pate!"

"Paw and me got so drunk last Christmas we couldn't roll over in bed,"
piped up Jason.

Taulbee, the great stickler for propriety, summed up the matter
authoritatively: "Folks would think they was bad off if they couldn't
pass around a jug of liquor a-Christmas," he said; "they would feel like
it weren't showing hospitality."

When I remember that this was the idea of the entire Christian world
less than a century ago, I cannot be too severe upon my boys,
distressing as these conditions are.

Killis spoke again shortly. "I want every boy here that can get to my
house on Clinch a-Christmas to come, and see a good time," he announced.
"Come the Saturday after New Christmas. I can't drink myself, on account
of what paw said; but I got good-and-plenty for my friends. And maw
she'll give you all you can eat. And we'll shoot off all paw's guns and
pistols."

There was unanimous acceptance, even by boys living nearly forty miles
distant from Killis, Nucky's being qualified by the condition, "If the
Cheevers haint giving too much trouble at home."

I sighed deeply. "Boys," I said, "you know what I think about drinking;
you know I consider it very, very wrong."

"Quare women has quare notions," remarked Joab, forbearingly.

"You know I hope the day will come when not one of you will ever touch
liquor," I said. "Is there one now who thinks enough of me to promise
not to drink this Chri