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Updated: May 19, 2025
Mindful of his infirmity, Jim gave his bank book to grandmother to keep for him. "Hide it," he used to say to her. "Even if I come and want it, don't you let me have it." That was when Jim was himself; but when he had gone for a playday, he came rip-roariously home, time and again, and demanded his book, to get more money for drink.
But Curdie said he did not know that he was going among ladies and gentlemen, and that as work was better than play, his workday clothes must on the whole be better than his playday Clothes; and as his father accepted the argument, his mother gave in.
Those rum sellers shan't get it from him!" she exclaimed. When he had recovered from the effects of his playday Jim was always fervently glad that he had not spent his savings. But his bad habits rapidly grew on him, and we fully expected that his savings, which, thanks to grandmother's resolute efforts, now amounted to nearly four hundred dollars, would eventually be squandered on drink.
Meanwhile, I took the advantage of every playday to present myself before my grandfather, to whom I seldom found access, by reason of his being closely besieged by a numerous family of his grandchildren, who, though they perpetually quarrelled among themselves, never failed to join against me, as the common enemy of all.
At table he would scarcely look up; and there is not the least doubt that his grief and shame were genuine. Yet as surely as the months passed the same feverish restlessness would again show itself in him. We came to recognize Jim's symptoms only too well, and knew, when we saw them, that he would soon have to have another playday.
About once a month, sometimes oftener, he wanted a playday; we always knew that he would come home from it drunk, and that we should have to put him away in some sequestered place and give him a day in which to recover. For two or three days afterwards Jim would be the meekest, saddest, most shamefaced of human beings.
It is quite likely that Jim brooded over the rebuff; he was surly for a week afterwards. Then, like the weakling that he had become, he stole away for another playday; and again grandmother, with Theodora's and Miss Emmons's connivance, hid the book, this time somewhere in the wagon-house cellar. Jim did not come home to demand his book, however; in fact, he did not come back at all.
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