to find him, tremblin' at every little heap of snow that wus tumbled up in
the path in front of 'em; tremblin' and sick at heart with the agony and
dread that wus rackin' their souls, as they would look over the cold
fields of snow stretching on each side of the road, and thinkin' how that
face would look if it wus lying there staring with lifeless eyes up
towards the cold moonlight,--the face they had kissed, the face they had
loved,--and thinkin', too, that the change that had come to it--was
comin' to it all the time--was more cruel and hopeless than the change of
death.

So they went on, clear to the saloon; and there they found him,--there he
lay, perfectly stupid, and dead with liquor.

And they both, the broken-hearted mother and the broken-hearted wife, with
the tears running down their white cheeks, besought the saloon-keeper to
let him alone from that night.

The mother says, "Paul is so good, that if you did not tempt him, entice
him here, he would, out of pity to us, stop his evil ways."

And the saloon-keeper was jest as polite as any man wus ever seen to be,--
took his hat off while he told 'em, so I hearn, "that he couldn't go
against his own interests: if Paul chose to spend his money there, he
should take it."

"Will you break our hearts?" cried the mother.

"Will you ruin my husband, the father of my boy?" sobbed out Cicely, her
big, sorrowful eyes lookin' right through his soul--if he _had_ a
soul.