A Monomaniac in Court

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. 

They called him a monomaniac; but I called him a moral hero. Many there were who blessed him, while many others derided him for his folly. I speak of Matthew Croft,—and this is the story.

In the earlier days of our town, and before the time of the railroads, when the sturdy yeomen raised upon their farms nearly everything that was necessary to their living, Ezekiel Croft came from a distant city, and set up a store in the village. The village shoemaker had kept for sale such imported articles as tea, sugar, salt, cotton fabrics, ribbons, etc., and people prophesized that Ezekiel Croft would never make a lining in Downderry, unless he took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went at work; but they did not know their man. With the first load of goods that came to Croft’s new store were two hogsheads and four barrels of peculiar shape, and banded by an extraordinary number of hoops. A few days afterwards the citizens, from far and near, were invited to the new store, to a free entertainment; and it was then discovered that the two hogsheads contained Old Jamaica and New England rum, and that the four barrels contained gin, brandy, and Port and Madeira wine. The citizens came, and many of them went away with the idea that Ezekiel Croft was a glorious fellow.

And Ezekiel Croft grew and flourished. The hogsheads and the barrels were replenished continually; and after the lapse of a few years a change had come over the homes of very many of the honest, hard-working farmers of Downderry. They drank deeply and ran in debt to Ezekiel Croft. Such a free-hearted, easy, genial fellow was Ezekiel, that they deemed it a pleasure to patronize him; and then he was not particular about his pay. At the end of the year he was perfectly willing to take their notes for the amounts due. By and by he took mortgages upon their farms,… Read More