Out Behind The Worm-Tub

Twelve years of my boyhood were spent at the old homestead on Bush Creek. Like other boys, I was fond of sport. During the warm sesason, I spent much time fishing with the bow and arrow and, during the cold season, hunting for birds.

For several years, I was much afflicted with erysipelas, then called St. Anthony's fire. The principal remedy resorted to was blood-letting, which in my case was so frequent that the very thought to my mind was horrifying. I have never been entirely free from this feeling and the use of any surgical instrument to me is still the object of much dread.

An incident occurred that came very near to terminating my life when I was about five or six years old. My mother sent an older brother and me to call my father to breakfast. When we reached the still-house, we found that he was just starting what is called "a doubling" and could not leave.

In the meantime, I got behind the worm-tub and with a spoon I found between the hoop and stave, I commenced catching the liquor, as it issued from the worm, and drinking it.

I loved the taste. I suppose I was like other babies--drenched by means of a teaspoon.

As soon as my father discovered what I was doing, he sent us both home, which was some three or four hundred yards distance. Well did the wise man say, "Wine is a mocker!" It made me believe I was what I was not, and that I could do what I could not. I began to believe that I could pull up any tree in the forest by the root, and so foolish was I that I actually tried it.

After much stumbling and falling, I finally reached within twenty-five or thirty yards of home and there I fell again, and from that time until morning of the next day, I was as unconscious of everything around me as if I were dead.

If mothers were aware of the danger of a drinking habit being formed, they would be extremely cautious in either giving their children ardent spirits as a beverage or as a medicine; for perhaps, in every case of this kind, the remedy is worse than the disease.

At this time, in the year of our Lord, 1876, it may be thought strange that any member of the church should follow the distillation of ardent spirits as a livelihood, but the view entertained by even good people back in those days was very different; drunkenness only was regarded as a sin--even by ministers.

--BRANTLEY YORK

The above passage, written in 1876, is about an incident that occurred around 1810 when enjoying a drink of liquor, even if you were a minister, was no sin. The sin was in getting drunk. The passage is taken with permission from The Autobiography of Brantley York, Amanuensis Two Edition, copyrighted by Charles Mathis 1977 and 2011. All Rights Reserved.