Wonderful things
occasionally happened in that alley.
"Yes," said Sally, "that is true; and old Pete wasn't much like him."
The tone spoke volumes. It would have almost angered her, even now, to
have had it hinted that old Pete was superior to that father, though
hardly a person acquainted with the two but would have said that there
was more hope for old Pete, even in his miserable past, than for this
one.
How they managed it, those two: the difficult task of getting him
persuaded to go, find then the more difficult task of keeping him
sufficiently sober to get there, would make a story in itself. I fancy
there are many such stories in real life which will never get told. The
probabilities are, if they were, some wise critic would pronounce them
unnatural and sensational.
Suffice it to say that the task was accomplished, and among the most
attentive listeners to the great speaker that evening was Sallie's
father, while she sat at home and mended a badly torn jacket, and cried
now and then, and was glad and sorry and proud and frightened and
hopeful by turns all that long evening.
I am not sure but it was better for her that she sat at home. I don't
know just what she might have done had she been in the hall to see her
father, at the close of the meeting, shamble forward with the crowd, and
sign his name to the total abstinence pledge.
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