SEEl-Tfl$E AND HARVEST. 
snake a good bar-keeper. He thoroughly un¬ 
derstands his business,” said Lambert. “He 
has assured me that I can clear off my debts 
in less than two years, and make enough to 
live on, besides.”-A fine way to make it,’ 
said Heckles, ironically. “You’ll send fifty 
souls to ruin for every debt.”-“Come, 
come Heckles; that’s going too far.”-“Not 
a bit of it. If anything it isn’t going far 
enough. But I see it is of no use to argue 
with you, so I’ll be off. I’ve always want¬ 
ed sons, but I’m thankful now that I have 
only daughters. Your saloon won’t trouble 
them, unless they happen to marry men 
who call upon Butler too often. And I 
think there is little likelihood of that. 
They have had a horror of intemperance 
instilled into them from babyhood. I’m 
sorry you’re in debt, Lambert, and sorry 
your farm pays vou so poorly; but I am 
sorrier still that your new business is one 
that can have neither the blessing of God, 
nor the approval of any good man.” 
He touched his old grey horse with his 
whip and rode away, leaving Lambert with 
a very troubled look on his face.-“He’s 
an old friend, and I suppose on that account 
he felt that he could talk pretty freely,” he 
muttered, “but he goes too far—he’s almost 
foolish on the subject.” He walked up the 
neat box-bordered path that led to the 
house. His little daughter, a child of nine 
years of age, ran out to meet him.-“Sup¬ 
per’s ready, papa,” she said. Lambert bent 
and kissed her tenderly. She was his favor¬ 
ite child, and he petted and spoiled her to 
the last degree. In the kitchen his wife 
and eldest daughter were moving briskly 
about from the stove and pantry to the 
table. 
“Mr. Butler called while you were talk¬ 
ing to Mr. Heckles, father,” Susan said. 
“He is down at the barn with the boys.” 
-“What is he doing down there?” ex¬ 
claimed Mr. Lambert, irritably. “He’s not 
the man I care to have the boys intimate 
with ”-“You had better tell him not to 
come here so often, then,” said Mrs. Lam¬ 
bert, “for Arthur was saying only yester¬ 
day that Butler had more fun in him than 
any other man he had ever met. And Joe 
follows him like his shadow.” 
The father’s brow grew dark.-“He 
won’t have time to come around here after 
to-morrow,” he said. “There’ll be enough 
to keep him busy at the saloon. Blow the 
horn, Cora.” The little girl took the horn 
down from the wall, where it hung by a 
cord, and blew a shrill blast, which brought 
the two boys and Butler in at once. Arthur 
and Joe were fine, manly looking young 
fellows of seventeen and nineteen, and their 
father was justly proud of them. But as 
he looked at them now, he remembered 
Heckles’s prophecy, and was silent and 
gloomy throughout the meal. 
There were others besides. Mr. Heckles 
who disapproved of Lambert’s project, and 
he was urged and advised on every side 
to give it up. But neither argument nor 
persuasion had any effect upon his determi¬ 
nation, and the saloon opened with a fine 
array of bottles, glasses and liquors. It 
was the first venture of the kind in Cold- 
brook, and consequently excited a great 
deal of curiosity and comment. The saloon 
was crowded the first eveniag it opened. 
Men who did not take a glass of liquor once 
a year came to “see how the place looked,” 
and they found it so cheerful, and met so 
many acquaintances, that they dropped in 
again and again, and Butler was well sat¬ 
isfied with the contents of the money- 
drawer at the end of the first week. As 
Mr. Lambert had said, the bar-keeper un¬ 
derstood his business thoroughly, and his 
fund of wit and humor, coarse as it often 
was, lured many a young man within the 
charmed circle about the bar. 
Among these was Arthur Lambert, who 
had been very much attracted to Butler 
from the first, and who frequented the 
saloon unknown to his father. He was en¬ 
couraged in this course by Butler, who 
thought Mr. Lambert too strict, and who 
saw no harm in a social glass. He always 
met Arthur with a smile, and with a friend¬ 
ly slap on the back would tell him “the old 
man would soon learn that his boy was 
out of long clothes.” 
Arthur was not the only son whose father 
was unaware of his visits to the saloon. 
There was a very convenient back door to 
the place, and an easy little back parlor, 
and here from six to ten young men, none 
of them over twenty years of age, met 
