IX.

The ever-recurring spell--Writing in the sand--Hartford City--In the
Ditch--Extricated--Fairly started--A telegram--My brother's death--Sober--A
long night--Ride home--Palpitation of the heart--Bluffton--The
inevitable--Delirium again--No friends, money, nor clothes--One hundred
miles from home--I take a walk--Clinton county--Engage to teach a
school--The lobbies of hell--Arrested--Flight to the country--Open
school--A failure--Return home--The beginning of a terrible experience--Two
months of uninterrupted drinking--Coatless, hatless, and, bootless--The
"Blue Goose"--The tremens--Inflammatory rheumatism--The torments of the
damned--Walking on crutches--Drive to Rushville--Another drunk--Pawn
my clothes--At Indianapolis--A cold bath--The consequence--Teaching
school--Satisfaction given--The kindness of Daniel Baker and his wife--A
paying practice at law.

CHAPTER X.

The "Baxter Law"--Its injustice--Appetite is not controlled by
legislation--Indictments--What they amount to--"Not guilty"--The
Indianapolis police--The Rushville grand jury--Start home afoot--Fear--The
coming head-light--A desire to end my miserable existence--"Now is the
time"--A struggle in which life wins--Flight across the fields--Bathing in
dew--Hiding from the officers--My condition--Prayer--My unimaginable
sufferings--Advised to lecture--The time I began to lecture.

CHAPTER XI.

My first lecture--A cold and disagreeable evening--A fair audience--My
success--Lecture at Fairview--The people turn out en masse--At
Rushville--Dread of appearing before the audience--Hesitation--I go on the
stage and am greeted with applause--My fright--I throw off my father's old
coat and stand forth--Begin to speak, and soon warm to my subject--I make
a lecture tour--Four hundred and seventy lectures in Indiana--Attitude
of the press--The aid of the good--Opposition and falsehood--Unkind
criticism--Tattle mongers--Ten months of sobriety--My fall--Attempt to
commit suicide--Inflict an ugly but not dangerous wound on myself--Ask
the sheriff to lock me in the jail--Renewed effort--The campaign of
'74--"Local option."

CHAPTER XII.

Struggle for life--A cry of warning--"Why don't you quit?"--Solitude,
separation, banishment--No quarter asked--The rumseller--A risk no man
should incur--The woman's temperance convention at Indianapolis--At
Richmond--The bloated druggist--"Death and damnation"--At the
Galt House--The three distinct properties of alcohol--Ten day