Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches.

by George P. Goff.

NICK BABA'S LAST DRINK.

It was Christmas Eve, and the one narrow main street of a small country town was ablaze. Extra lights were glowing in all the little shops; yet all this illumination served only to make more apparent the untidy condition of the six-by-nine window panes, as well as the goods therein. Men and women were hastening homeward with well-filled baskets which they had provided for the festive morrow. All the ragged, dirty urchins of the village were gathered about the dingy shop windows admiring, with distended eyes and gaping mouths, the several displays of toys and sweetmeats.

Their arms buried quite to their elbows in capacious but empty pockets, they cast longing looks and wondered, as they had no stockings, where Santa Claus could put their presents when he had brought them. To all this show and preparation there was one exception: one place shrouded in total darkness--it was the shop of Nick Baba, the village shoemaker. That was for the time deserted; left to its dust, its collection of worn-out soles, its curtains of cobwebs, and its compound of bad, unwholesome odors. This darkness and neglect was about to end, however, and give place to a glimmer of light.

Nick now came hurrying in and, quickly striking a light, placed between himself and a flickering oil lamp a small gla.s.s globe filled with water. He sat down upon his bench and commenced work in earnest on an unfinished pair of shoes. He hammered, and pulled, and stretched, and pegged, and sewed, and all this time, had there been any one present, they might have observed that, though Nick worked so diligently, he was unhappy, and a prey to the bitterest reflections.

All in the village had commenced their merry-making, while he sat there alone, forgotten, and in despair. His neighbors had plenty--he was penniless, and could take nothing to his home but regrets for the past. The rickety old door now creaked on its rusty, worn-out hinges, and admitted a creature as strange looking as it was unexpected. It moved straight toward Nick, and perched itself upon a three-legged stool close beside him. This mysterious thing could not be p.r.o.nounced supernatural, and yet it was as unlike anything human as is possible to imagine. It was more like some fantastic figure seen in a dream--the creation of a disordered brain. It may be that it was a goblin--Nick thought it one. It was only about two feet high; a ma.s.s of dark-brown hair streamed down its back, partially concealing a great hump, and thence flowed down to its heels. Its head was round as a ball and topped out by a velvet cap of curious shape and workmanship, with a broad projecting front which shaded a pair of l.u.s.trous red eyes, set far back beneath the forehead--almost lost there. Its breast was sunken, and the head settled down between the shoulders, created an impression of weakness, as if, for example, it should speak, that a small piping voice would come struggling up from below. Baba looked up with alarm, but the goblin greeted him with a smile, and said, "Merry Christmas, Nick," in a deep, strong and not unmusical voice, which came boldly up and out from its parted lips.

"How do you know my name?" inquired the cobbler, "and why do you mock me by such a greeting?"

"Baba, my friend," replied the Goblin, "I was just thinking that if all the acts of your life had been as good and as humane as your mechanical skill is perfect, you would not now be floundering in the meshes of vice and dissipation. You are making a good pair of shoes there."

The shoemaker worked away without raising his head, but responded spitefully, "Where is the use of making them good?--I get no pay for them."

"Why, who," inquired the occupant of the three-legged stool, "is so ungenerous as to want such shoes without paying for them?"

"They are," answered the busy workman, "for the owner of this miserable shanty, and he complains because I am only six months behind with my rent--a most unreasonable man. If he does not get his shoes to-morrow, he will turn me out; I must have some place to work, and so am forced to do the bidding of this grasping landlord."

"Ah, it is you who are unreasoning," exclaimed Baba's visitor, sorrowfully; "it is you who are in fault. If you would but remain away from the tavern and the vile a.s.sociates whom you meet there, all would be well with you, you might redeem yourself."

Nick felt this rebuke so very keenly that he turned savagely toward the one who had dared to tell him so plainly of his degradation, and demanded. "Who are you, and why have you disturbed the quiet of this mean hovel to insult me in my misery?"

"Because I wish to serve you," answered it of the waving brown hair.

"You cannot serve me. I will drive you out," threatened the now infuriated cobbler; "I will throw you from the window--I will kill you."

The red eyes of the Goblin danced and twinkled in their caverns; a merry, careless laugh came bubbling forth as it answered, "I will not leave your shop, nor will you throw me from the window, nor yet kill me, Nick Baba. Why, you silly fellow, the sharpest tool on your bench cannot draw blood from me, and that blackened lapstone, if driven with all the force of your great arm through my seeming substance, would leave me sitting here still, not to mock, but to try and save you."

The baffled and stricken shoemaker looked up and muttered. "Then you are not human, you are a demon. But, after all," added Nick, softening, "whether you are of this world or of some other, you are right in what you say."

The Goblin made no reply, and Nick continued, "I have sunk very low, indeed, but I cannot shake this habit; it clings to me so firmly, that I have not only forfeited the regard of my neighbors and friends, but I even loathe myself."

"Why not make an effort, Nick? You can if you will."

"Yes, yes," responded Nick, "it is easy enough to say give it up, but you have never felt this accursed appet.i.te for strong drink; this constant craving for more; this inward sinking sensation, as if the parts of the body were about to separate, impelling the victim on in a career of sin and shame. You know nothing of all this."

"No, I confess I do not," acknowledged the Goblin, "but I think any man may resist it, if he will make the trial."

"Ah, you might as soon expect," pursued Nick, "to see the starving man cast bread from him, as to hope for the drunkard to resist liquor when the frenzy of this appet.i.te is on him."

"But you have not tried, Nick."

"Yes, I have tried and failed, and tried again and then failed."

"Keep on trying," said velvet cap.

"A gla.s.s of liquor," resumed Baba, "is a trifling thing, and it is very easy, you think, to cast it into the gutter. But I tell you, whoever and whatever you are, that this sparkling and seductive drink is the pygmy that binds the giant to the post with a thread, and lashes him with thongs of fire.

"Try again," urged the Goblin, "I am sure you can regain all that you have lost."

"No, no," moaned Nick, "I am too low down; I am an absolute slave to rum."

"Baba," commanded the Goblin, "take up the shoe you have nearly finished, look into the sole and tell me what you see there. It is a mirror of the past."

Nick took the shoe from the floor and gazed at it intently for a few seconds. He was agitated, and his powerful breast heaved as only a strong man may be moved--he wept.

"What do you see? Speak!" said his tormentor.

"I see," responded Nick, mechanically, "a scene of seven years ago. It is the image of a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl before the altar in her wedding garments. I am there also, vowing to protect her; to stand up and battle with the world for her; to be a barrier between her and want. But I have not done it--I have been recreant to every principle of honor or manhood, G.o.d help me."

"Now, Nick," said the conjuror, persuasively, "pick up the other shoe and tell me what you see there. That is a mirror of the present."

"I see," groaned Nick, "in place of that fair-haired girl at the church, then all happiness, a prematurely old woman, faded and disheartened. Three ragged children cling to her scanty clothing. They beg of her mere bread to keep off hunger. She has none to give them--she draws them closer to her, and folding them in her emaciated arms, kisses them. She gives them all she has--a mother's love."

"What more do you see," demanded the magician: "tell it all."

"Oh! maddening sight," sobbed Nick; "I see myself staggering from the ale-house and reeling into what should be a home, where gaunt starvation stalks the floor; where the hearth is fireless, and where a starving family die upon a pallet of straw."

"You have seen it all," said the wizard. "It is bad."

"Yes, and the picture is as true as it is terrible. What demon prompted you to come here to-night with your diabolical machinery, to show me to myself so much blacker than I thought I was?"

Nick's queer little companion peered through the misty, uncertain light of the cobbler's workshop with his sharp restless red eyes, but remained quiet.

Nick, his head in a whirl of excitement, then placed his face in his open palms, and resting his elbows upon his knees, looked down at the floor covered with sc.r.a.ps of soiled leather. Soon these sc.r.a.ps commenced to move and a.s.sume weird shapes. They changed to hundreds of little red, blue and green devils, no more than a few inches high, which capered over the floor in troops. They ran up Nick's back, and hiding in the ma.s.s of black hair, twisted and knotted it until their victim winced, and then with hilarious shouts dropped to the floor and went clattering away. Returning, they played hide and seek in and out of the old worn boots and shoes which littered the floor. Then the tub wherein the shoemaker wet his leather, burst its hoops and the water ran out over the floor in streams of fire. The light was out and darkness enveloped Nick and his companion. The wind went howling by, and flung gusts of hail against the cracked and broken windows. Baba, shivering from the cold, straightened himself up and looked for his patron.

He could not see him, but he did perceive two b.a.l.l.s of fire close to him--the red eyes were still upon him.

Nick was thankful even for this, as any companionship at that moment was better than none. The silence was at length broken by the Goblin remarking, "You must have pa.s.sed a fearful ordeal during the last few moments."

"Has the time been so short?" inquired Nick; "it seemed almost an age to me. This is not the first occasion, however, that I have pa.s.sed through it, and I fear the time may come when nature will break down, and then I shall either do myself an injury or harm some one else--I know it."

"I hope not," said the wizard. "Good-bye, I must go."

"Do not leave," implored the half-frightened Baba, "but remain with me until I have quite finished my work. I believe I am growing to be a coward, for I dare not be alone to-night. You are such an odd-looking manikin," continued Nick, "and have spoken so fearlessly to me, that I am beginning to like you. Do stay."

"Well," consented the Goblin, "I will remain as long as you wish; my time is of no value; beside, if I can persuade you to reform and be a sober man, it will be worth an eternity of waiting."

Nick said, "Thank you, I will try," and went on with his work.

Neither spoke for some time, when Baba suddenly exclaimed, "There, they are finished at last, and are as good a pair of shoes as man ever trod in. I suppose now that I may occupy this den for a while longer."

"Baba, my good man," solicited Nick's friend, "as we are about to part, will you give me your promise never to drink rum again? You will then be happy, I am sure."