Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1914 — HIS OWN MEDICINE [ARTICLE]

HIS OWN MEDICINE

By J. A. TIFFANY.

“Say, Joe, do you happen to have a hundred in your clothes?” “Got it in the safe, father —which is just as handy. More, too, if you want it.”

“No; L thank you, boy. A hundred will do me.”

As the father pocketed the five S2O bills and left the office, Joe Kershaw looked after him with a proud and affectionate glance, then sighed, as be reflected how much older Mr. Kershaw was looking this morning.

This little money transaction reminded him of many similar ones years ago, when the positions of the two men had been reversed. “Funny!” Kershaw soliloquized. “Father used to object very strongly to that term ‘in your clothes,’ whenever I had occasion to touch him myself. But it’s the first time, I guess, that lie ever asked anybody for money, and I suppose he found the phrase expressive.” • Though stjll quite a young man, and a highly proper sort of person, there had been a time when Joe Kershaw was as wild as the best—or the worst—of the boys. Many were the hundreds —the thousands, for that matter—that the old gentleman had been called upon to pay out on account of Joe’s vagaries; and they had always been paid without a murmur.

Of the most staid and exemplary habits himself, Mr. Kershaw had always treated his son’s follies leniently; borne them with philosophy. Of old Puritan stock, he had prided himself upon the absence of any hereditary tendency io dissipation in his own family, and accounted for all the boy’s vagaries on the theory bf some ancestral taint on the side of Joe’s mother. . '

Joe was not particularly ashamed of those days; though he was not in the habit of talking about them, either. He regarded it as ‘‘all in a lifetime” —part of a man’s experience. If a fellow z was born to make a fool of himself for a certain number of years, while he was young, he would do it—so Kershaw reasoned. The only thing he ever regretted about it was the anxiety and pain he had caused his excellent old father. Sometimes, Mr. Kershaw had remonstrated with his son, in a mild sort of wav, over some piece of folly more flagrant than usual; but he had never refused to “cough up” and come to the rescue. In money matters he had always been liberal. This morning Joe remembered the last occasion on which he had gone to his father for help out of his difficulties. It was a big sum that he wanted, and as the —old gentleman signed his name to the check, he had said, in a kind, quiet way: “Don’t you think, Joe, it would pay you to get married and settle down?”

“I believe you are right, father,” he had replied, “but where’s the decent girl who would marry a fellow like me?”

“There are lots of them, my boy. You don’t want to get into the way of thinking of yourself like that. You’re not a bad fellow. All you have to do is to pull yourself together and settle down to hard work. It’s really astonishing how quickly people will forget a young man’s peccadilloes, when they see he’s trying to go right. You have brains and energy. You can make your mark in the law, if you like. I believe in letting a boy have his fling, but you don’t want to let the follies of youth become the vices of your manhood, Joe. I don’t want to see you go to the dogs.” “You are perfectly right, dad,” Joe had replied as he folded the check and put it in his pocket. “I guess I’ll put the peg in and quit.” This morning Joe rehearsed that scene. Almost word for word. He was glad to have the opportunity now, of accommodating his father with a hundred dollars. He was sorry the old gentleman had not wanted a thousand.

By the irony of fate, Joe Kershaw, the reformed rake, had been impressed into the service of a vigilance committee, which had been formed in Swifton, for the purpose of purifying the city of some of its gambling hells, all-night saloons, and other “sinks of iniquity,” which, according to the pulpit agitators, were being run in defiance of law and disregard of decency.

About 12 o’clock that night, in pursuance of this committee work, Joe Kershaw happened into one of the more pretentious of the down town saloons, to see what was going on.

“Looking for your father?” was the first greeting he received. It came from a tipsy young gentleman in evening dress, whom Kershaw knew by sight and reputation. “No, sir; I am not/’ Kershaw replied, distantly.

“Well, of course, I didn’t know,” the young fellow returned with a grin and a hiccough. “But if you do want him. he’s in the Bide room there, entertaining Nellie Nimbell, the star at the Grand this week, with a bird and a bottle. Wouldn’t like to see you go in and spoil love’s young dream, but, of course, If you want him —well, that’s where he is, you see.”

The sound of a woman’s voice rallying her companion on some too youthful gallantry, came from the room Indicated, and was followed by a familiar laugh. Then Joe heard the topes of his father’s voice, in gentle

deprecation, and, turning on his heel, he left the place, without pursuing his investigations further. The next day Kershaw did not see his father, at all, but Jen the morning following the old gentleman was around at his office bright and early. “Say,' Joe,” said he, slapping the young man on the shoulder, “can you help me out? I’ve got to have a thou? sand dollars right off." * “Certainly, father,” Kershaw replied in the tone and with the air of a man seeking rather than conferring a favor —the air of a man fearing a lecture on extravagance. Carefully folding the check that Joe handed him, Mr. Kershaw gave his son a pleasant nod and said: “You’re not looking very well, my boy. Working too hard, I guess. It won t do, Joe. You must- take care of yourself.” “Yes, father,” Joe answered sheepishly. With the check in his pocket and whistling an air from the new opera, Mr. Kershaw walked jauntily Out of his Son’s office.

That night Joe’s duties as member of the Swifton vigilance committee took him into a gambling room. He found a faro bank and a keno game in full operation, besides several small tables surrounded by men playing poker. At first, the smoke from., many cigars affected Kershaw’s sight and respiration, and before he had become accustomed to it, he heard his father’s voice. The old gentleman was just saying in the most cheery tones: “Give me SSO worth, and I’ll have another flutter.”

That was enough for Joe. The subsequent procedings interested him no more. He walked sorrowfully away.

Though people were, naturally, diffident of saying anything to the younger Kershaw concerning the old gentleman’s eccentricities, some things inevitably came to Joe’s ears. Hardly a day passed on which he did not hear something of his father’s continued evil courses to make him anxious and miserable.

But things reached a climax when, late one night, on his way home from the club, Kershaw met his father with a gang of young roysterers, marching arm in arm down the middle of the street, wearing their coats turned inside out, and singing “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Catching sight of his son, Mr. Kershaw broke away from his companions and darted up a side street. Following, at a leisurely, dignified pace, young Kershaw ran his quarry to earth, near his own door. —_

“Won’t, you come in and take a night-cap, father?” he asked. The old gentleman accepted the invitation, and over a cigar and a glass of toddy he was the first to broach the painful subject that occupied the son’s mind these days to the exclusion of everything else. “Tell you what it is, Joe,” he said, "I’m going to reform.” “Reform?” the young man echoed, as if he considered his father the most exemplary old gentleman in the world. _____

“Oh, you know, Joe. No need of pretense between you and me. Fact is, Joe, I’m going to the bow-wows, and you know it.” “I wouldn’t say that, father.” “Why shouldn’t I say it, when it’s true. I’m a disgrace to you, and there’s no use of your denying it. But I’m going to alter my hand. Trouble is that I didn’t sow my wild oats when I was a young fellow. That was dead wrong. It’s always best to get it over and done with. A man may go along to forty or fifty and think he’s a deuce of a swell on the water wagon, but if he’s got a bias for playing the giddy ox, it’s bound to come out. Still, that doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve been trying to do so for a long time, Joe, but it’s uphill work. Now, you know the ropes, Joe; you’ve been through the mill yourself. Tell me —what’s the best thing for a fellow to do in order to break away from it all. Give the old man a straight tip, Joe.” “Well, father,” Kershaw replied, after a moment’s reflection, “you’re not an old man. You’re good 25 or 30 years yet; why don’t you marry and settle down?" “You’re right, boy. That’s what I told you to do, a few years ago—to get married and settle down. Give me your hand! What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Yes, I’ll take my own medicine, too.” (Copyright, by Daily Story Pub. Co.)