Parched lips, scalded tongues, cracked
throats, throbbing temples, and burning shame were indisputably ours. So we
awoke on the morning of the day set apart for the exhibition, an exhibition
in which we were to appear before our respected teacher, friends and
relatives, besides all the people of the surrounding country. Early in the
day we commenced to get ready for the afternoon's work by resorting to the
same jug that so recently had bereft us temporarily of reason, and laid us
in the mud and snow. I only got one big drink of the poison and so
contrived to get through passably well with my part of the performance;
some of the boys got too much, and failed to remember anything, so that
they failed utterly and hid behind the curtains, and, taken all in all, we
did little or nothing toward the success of the exhibition or to making
those interested gratified with our parts. Some of the boys who figured on
the stage that day are dead; but others are alive and of those I am not the
only one writhing in the coils of the serpent of alcohol, though not one of
them has fallen so low as I. If at that time I might have been permitted to
lift the curtain and looked down future-ward through the unlighted years of
shame, and weariness, and suffering, I think the dreadful vision would have
stayed me forever in a career which has only grown darker and more
unendurable with every step.
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