o’clock one night he went down to the Father Mathew Temperance Society,
and with a broken heart he said: ‘Put my name down for membership in this
society.’
“And then he went away crying, and at earliest dawn the next morning they
came for him and routed him out, and they said that new ship of his was
ready to sail on a three years’ voyage. In a minute he was on board that
ship and gone.
“And he said–well, he was not out of sight of that town till he began to
repent, but he had made up his mind that he would not take a drink, and
so that whole voyage of three years was a three years’ agony to that man
because he saw all the time the mistake he had made.
“He felt it all through; he had constant reminders of it, because the
crew would pass him with their grog, come out on the deck and take it,
and there was the torturous Smell of it.
“He went through the whole, three years of suffering, and at last coming
into port it was snowy, it was cold, he was stamping through the snow two
feet deep on the deck and longing to get home, and there was his crew
torturing him to the last minute with hot grog, but at last he had his
reward. He really did get to shore at fast, and jumped and ran and
bought a jug and rushed to the society’s office, and said to the
secretary:
“‘Take my name off your membership books, and do it right away! I have
got a three years’ thirst on.’
“And the secretary said: ‘It is not necessary. You were blackballed!'”
WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS
ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S 92D BIRTHDAY
ANNIVERSARY, CARNEGIE HALL, FEBRUARY 11, 1901, TO RAISE FUNDS
FOR THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY AT CUMBERLAND GAP, TENN.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,– The remainder of my duties as presiding chairman
here this evening are but two–only two. One of them is easy, and the
other difficult. That is to say, I must introduce the orator, and then
keep still and give him a chance. The name of Henry Watterson carries
with it its own explanation. It is like an electric light on top of
Madison Square Garden; you touch the button and the light flashes up out
of the darkness. You mention the name of Henry Watterson, and your minds
are at once illuminated with the splendid radiance of his fame and
achievements. A journalist, a soldier, an orator, a statesman, a rebel.
Yes, he was a rebel; and, better still, now he is a reconstructed rebel.
It is a curious circumstance, a circumstance brought about without any
collusion or prearrangement, that he and I, both of whom were rebels
related by blood to each other, should be brought here together this
evening bearing a tribute in our hands and bowing our heads in reverence
to that noble soul who for three years we tried to destroy. I don’t know
as the fact has ever been mentioned before, but it is a fact,
nevertheless. Colonel Watterson and I were both rebels, and we are blood
relations. I was a second lieutenant in a Confederate company for a
while–oh, I could have stayed on if I had wanted to. I made myself
felt, I left tracks all around the country. I could have stayed on, but
it was such weather. I never saw such weather to be out-of-doors in, in
all my life.
The Colonel commanded a regiment, and did his part, I suppose, to destroy
the Union. He did not succeed, yet if he had obeyed me he would have
done so. I had a plan, and I fully intended to drive General Grant into
the Pacific Ocean–if I could get transportation. I told Colonel
Watterson about it. I told him what he had to do. What I wanted him to
do was to surround the Eastern army and wait until I came up. But he was
insubordinate; he stuck on some quibble of military etiquette about a
second lieutenant giving orders to a colonel or something like that. And