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Updated: June 13, 2025
As Janice came nearer she saw that Marm Parraday did not look as she once did. Her hair had turned very gray, there were deeper lines in her weather-beaten face, and a trembling of her lips and hands made Janice's heart ache. If the Inn was doing well and Lem Parraday was prospering, his wife seemed far from sharing in the good times that appeared to have come to the Lake View Inn.
"Why, Marm!" exploded Lem, trying to get in front of her. "Stand out o' my way, Lem Parraday!" She commanded, with firm voice and unfaltering mien. "Yeou air crazy!" shrieked the tavern keeper, dancing between her and the barroom door. "Not as crazy as I was," she returned grimly. She thrust him aside as though he were a child and strode into the barroom.
Joe Bodley frankly admitted having paid over the gold piece to Hopewell Drugg, as a deposit on the fiddle. But he professed not to know how the coin had come into the till at the tavern. Joe had full charge of the cash-drawer when Mr. Parraday was not present, and he had helped himself to such money as he thought he would need when he went up town to negotiate for the purchase of the fiddle.
With her coming another awful flash and crash illumined the room and shook the roof tree of the Inn. "It's come! it's come!" she said, advancing into the-room. Her face shone in the pallid, flickering light of the intermittent flashes, and the loafers at the bar shrank away from her advance. "I told ye how 'twould be, Lem Parraday!" cried the tavern keeper's wife. "This is the end!
He says I'm a-tryin' ter pray the bread-and-butter right aout'n aour mouths. He's so mad at me he won't sleep in the same room an' has gone off inter the west wing ter sleep by hisself. But I don't keer," cried Mrs. Parraday wildly. "Woe ter him that putteth the cup to his neighbor's lips! That's what I tell him. 'Wine is a mocker strong drink is ragin'. That's what the Bible says.
But you ain't worked a mite harder nor me; and you ain't made the Inn what it is no more than I have." "Not so much, Marm not so much," admitted her husband evidently anxious to placate her, for Marm Parraday was her old forceful self again. "I'd never oughter let rum sellin' be begun here; an' now I'm a-goin' ter end it!" "My mercy, Marm!
You have done wonders this Spring. I hope you will have a prosperous season." Mrs. Parraday clutched the girl's arm tightly. Janice saw that her eyes seemed quite wild in their expression as she pointed a trembling finger at the gilt sign at the corner of the house, lettered with the single word: "Bar." "With that sign a-swingin' there, Janice Day?" she whispered.
Suddenly the flickering lightning seemed less threatening. As quickly as it had burst, the tempest passed away. "My jimminy! She's fainted," Lem Parraday murmured, lifting the woman in his strong arms. As the Summer advanced visitors flocked to Polktown.
"An' Lem a perfessin' member of Mr. Middler's church an' me attendin' the same for goin' on thutty-seven years " "But surely, Mrs. Parraday, you are not to blame because your husband sells liquor," put in Janice, sorry for the poor woman and trying to comfort her. "Why ain't I?" sharply demanded the tavern-keeper's wife. "I've been Lem's partner for endurin' all that time, too thutty-seven years.
"Meaning me?" he drawled, eyeing the indignant young girl just as he would look at an angry kitten. "Yes, Mr. Moore," said Janice, with dignity. "A word from you, and Lem Parraday would stop selling liquor. He would have to. And without your encouragement he would never have entered into the nefarious traffic.
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