I stayed all night with Mrs. Hoffman
and next morning, I went down to a dive kept by a man named Stillings.
He had closed to go out to a baseball game. The door was locked, so I
broke the front glass and climbed in. Several ladies were on the outside,
and were friendly to my smashing. I broke the place up. There were
twelve cases of beer and I destroyed them and piled them up in the center
of the room on the floor. At the close, the marshal came in, took me out
and would not let me break up the other dive near by. Neither did he
arrest me.
I came down on the corner of the street that night, to tell the people
why I did this, when Stillings passed, cursing and shaking his fist at me,
saying: "My wife will settle you." Just then a furious woman came
around the corner, rushed up to me and struck me a fearful blow in the
eye, then ran to her husband, Stillings, and in a frantic manner said:
"I have done what you asked me, now let us go home." I stopped speaking
long enough to go into a meat shop and have a piece of fresh meat
bound on my eye, which was already very dark and painful. Then I
finished my address on the street, and went up to a meeting in the church,
gave an address, and we organized a society to smash saloons, if they did
not close. Next morning we went down the street in a body, Mrs. Hoffman
and other women, and the other dive keeper talked to us and promised
to go out of business.
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