A GIRL AND A GLASS OF WINE.

White Ribbon, Volume 18, Issue 210, 18 December 1912, Page 13

A GIRL AND A GLASS OF WINE.

(ByJennie N. Standifer, Gulfport, Mias.)

One Sunday several years ago, at the request of a friend who was doing W.C.T.I’. wora in visiting gaols and prisons, 1 accompanies her to see a noted prisoner, condemned to death. This man, Bill Maynor, we will call him, was only twenty-seven years of age, vet guilty of a most atrocious double murder, illicit distilling, anil highway robbery. Throughout the section ol count} in which he lived he had lor several years been a terror, and a power for evil. As we entered the gaol gate, a horny-handed, gri/./.led old farmer and ,1 ln-nt faded old woman came down the walk. They were accompanied by the sheriff, of whom we asked permission to visit the cell of the condemned man. “I will tell the gaoler to admit you,” said the sheriff. “These are Bill Maynor s parents,” he added as he returned to speak to the gaoler. The old mother burst into heartrending sobs. The father caught mv hand, and his tear-dimmed old eves looked into mine with mute appeal. “He wouldn't tell me, or his maw, but inebbc he’d tell you, ma’am—and it’s break in* my heart to know ! Won’t vou git him to tell you what started him on the lust step downward ? Me and maw done our best to raise him right, and he was as good a bov as ever 1 see, tell he was grown. We has blamed ourselves for his goin wrong, and we don’t know whar we failed 111 our duty. Won’t you trv to lind out ?”

“I certainly will,” I replied, and without being able to offer a word of comfort, I passed into the gaol. The prisoner w as a small man, with a weak lace, and shifting, restless gray eyes. lie sat on the side of his cot, and listened re spectfully while my friend and I read from the Book of Life passages urging him to repent and trust the Lord for salvation. Teajs

flowed down his cheeks, ami he us to pray for him. When the prayer was ended i as.ted the question w hieh his lather had requested. “What was your lirst step on the road th.it led you here ?’’ “It's a mighty long road, ma’am, though taint so many years I’\e '«een a traxelin it. Tell I was eighteen I was as moral and good a bov as vou’d lind. I belonged to the Church, and 1 was a Christian, and lived right, hut 1 got to drinkin', and it brought me here ! “Who gave you the first drink ?’’ asked mv friend. “A girl, ma’am. I went to a party, and they had wine. I never had tetched nor tasted none, because maw aud paw was squar agin it, and never let no kind of liquor come in the house. But th it girl just dared me to taste it, and said 1 wasn't game ii I didn’t drink with her. 1 left that party with a devil in me, and it’s been thar ever sence. I took to dancin' ,ind playin’ cards, and they turned me onten the church, and ecery cent I got went for drink.’ “Didn't any one trv to help you reform ?’’ “Yes, but 1 got a taste of drink and the pleasures of s.n, and I could not turn loose, and 1 fell under everv temptation I went away from home to keep lrom w< rryin the old folks, but it wasn’t no use trvin’ to do better when everything seemed to pull me down." “Whv did vou go into the illicit still business ?” “I couldn't hold a job, and I didn't have money buy drink. A man who had been sellin' moonshine whisky for twenty years offered mv a job to help him run lus still and peddle the go<*ds. I took it and after I had worked for him while, I could beat him at his trade I went to work for myself, and I've made more whisky than anv do/cn men in the state. “Did you make much money ?" “Lots of it, but it took all of it to bnl>e officers and keep out of gaol, or pav lawyers." “What led Vou to do the killing?

“Whisky, whisky, whisky ! I had been drink in’ all day and moonshine whisky sets you wild. About night, two revenue men rode up to mv gate to arrest me for ‘stillin,' and I asked them to go in t > the fire and I’d get ready and go with them without anv trouble, as I knew I could make bail. They set down before the fire, and I shot

them —before my wife and baby. Then I burned their bodies. You know the rest. I was drunk ! A drinkin' lawyer was all there was who wo ild take my ease. Wli.n he needed all lus wits to save mv neck la- was drunk, and people laughed at him. I'm not savin' but what I deserve all Ml get, and I’ve got a lot of sins to answer lor, but 1 don’t leiieNe I’d have betii lure il it hadn’t been for that girl and a glass of w ine."