Francis Murphy, like all the big temperance men, like Gough and the rest, has been through “the mill” himself, and has had a terrible experience of his own. He alluded to it the other night, at the reception, but he didn’t go into some particulars, which are familiar to me.
The farmer for whom Murphy worked a while in this State was one of the “closest” specimen of a man in money matters the country can produce.
He was liberal in the way of “time.” He told Murphy when he engaged him that he must do a certain specified amount of work each day. But then “there was nothin’ mean about him.” He would give Murphy plenty of time to do it all in. He might take his over time; in fact, he might take all his time. He might work from mornin’ till midnight, in fact, if he wanted to. He might work all the time he wanted–eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, if he chose. The farmer wouldn’t say a word. The only thing he was particular about would be that Murphy should do all the work and should do it only for his clothes and “keep.” Such a way of “givin’ time” was hardly appreciated by Murphy at the time.
He was set to work at drivin’ in cattle among other things, and didn’t know how to do it; for it takes a certain act to drive oxen, just like anythin’ else. So the farmer pitched into him, and the rest of the farm-hands made fun of him. But Murphy was shrewd and turned the tables on the farm-hands. He watched and came to the conclusion that the men and boys around the place must have first established friendly relations with the cattle, and after that the matter must have been easy. So he determined to establish friendly relations with the livestock.
One day, as Murphy himself once told the story, he got into the barn where there was a long row of ears of corn hangin’ on one side. “While nobody was lookin’,” he said, “I stuffed my pockets full of those ears of corn and went into the yard where the oxen were, and held out a great handsome yellow ear of corn to Old Buck, (the boss ox). Buck gave me a queer look out of his great, soft eyes, as much as to say he hadn’t forgotten the beatin’ I gave him the other day; but I kept creepin’ up closer and closer and holdin’ out the corn till I felt sure I had got his attention, and then I stopped.
“Old Buck turned his big head a little on one side, gave a shake of the ears, rattled the hoof of one hind leg, and then inquired by a look which had something of doubt in it:
“‘Is this for me?’”
“‘It is,’ said I, in return by a look and by stretchin’ out the ear of corn still closer.
“Then he came a step toward me, reached out his great red tongue, half as long as your arm, and I reached out the ear of corn, and after that I never had any more trouble with the oxen.”
Murphy has always said that this little experience with the oxen has laid the foundation of his success as a lecturer. “It was kindness that conquered the oxen, and it is kindness that conquers the man.” Murphy has never believed in yellin’ at or denouncin’ men that drink too much rum (or sell rum, either), but he talks to ‘em pleasantly, gives ‘em a smile, a kind word, and a ribbon, and wins over the men.
In after years Murphy got along very well as a rumseller, and would have made and kept plenty of money if he had kept what was called “the rumsellers’ pledge,” which several people in his neighborhood kept faithfully. This rumsellers’ pledge was the simplest kind of a thing, consistin’ of only two points: first, to sell all the rum you could to anybody else; second, never to take any rum yourself. But Murphy soon got to be his own best customer and went down hill.
He got into a row over his liquor one day in his low groggery, was arrested for aggravated assault and sent to jail. And durin’ his life in jail, his poor wife and family passed through terrible afflictions. He had seven children and nothin’ to keep ‘em alive on. The two oldest boys stopped goin’ to school and went round trampin’ to see if they couldn’t get odd jobs to keep themselves and their mother alive. They couldn’t get any jobs, so they did without food, but for a while they managed to keep the stove a-goin’. There was a heap of cinders down on the wharf and they used to go down to sift out coal for “mother’s fire.” But an employee of the steamboat company drove the boys away, and after that they all went cold as well as hungry.
For awhile, wretchedly poor as they were, the family used to manage to rake up money enough to pay their car fare to see Murphy in prison once a week; but the time came when they hadn’t any money even for car fare, and had to go some ten miles on foot to see their father in jail. One day when there was only one piece of bread in the house for the whole family, although they were all hungry, they all resolved to go without eatin’ anythin’, and one of the boys trudged wearily along this ten miles to carry to his father in prison the only piece of bread.
On the night after receivin’ that piece of bread which he had eaten up before he had learned its history, Francis Murphy tried to commit suicide in jail–and no wonder. He went mad with grief at thinkin’ over the condition of his family, and that he had himself brought ‘em to the state. He went mad, I say, awhile, and havin’ no other way to end his life, tried to beat himself against his cell wall, but was prevented by his jailers.
When at last Francis Murphy was released from jail he found himself a free–pauper. Of his home there remained only the four walls–all the furniture had gone for debt or bread.
And although his devoted wife put her arms around his neck on his return from jail, and said she was glad to see him, she was too sick to smile, she was too sick to stand up, she was too sick to live, and three months or so after his return she died of insufficient nourishment and a broken heart.
It was at his dead wife’s side, with her cold, still hand in his, that Francis Murphy took his pledge.
