--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 4 number: 10 published: 1901-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Have You Forgotten?," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 10 (August 1901): 759–764.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0410unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0410unse start_page: 759 end_page: 764 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0410unse publication_year: 1901 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Have You Forgotten? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN? 759 "Well, I'm going to see how much he wrote! There! Over seven and a half million words; enough to fill nearly nineteen vol- umes of the Era." Noon found the boys resting on a green spot close to the singing river. David had nine fish; Hugo, none; but the little fel- low was just as happy, for he neither believed in killing life nor in eating meat. He is a little philosopher and argues in this way: "How can you expect the millennium to come, and enmity to cease between man and beast, if man, who stands at the head of the animal creation, does not cease that enmity first?" He believes tliatman should not kill animals nor eat meat, and he strictly lives according to his belief, whatever others may think of it. "Shall we read that story now?" he enquired. "You didn't tell me when Field was born, nor whether he is still writing," said David. "He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, September 3, 1850, and began writing in August, 1883, for the Chicago News, now Record, although he had written considerable for other publications before that, continuing his column for over twelve years, until two days before he died, on November 4, 1895.He went to Europe in 1889, remaining absent until December, 1890. While he was away, he kept up his column of 'Sharps and Flats,' for that was the title he wrote under, and its paragraphs were bristling full of American humor, wit and conceits, concerning people and things across the big water. A book of selections from his column has lately been printed with the same title by Scribner's Sons. "Now let us read from this paper of May 16, 1893, the story of "what transformed damnation bill." The change in Bill was noticed the very day that Bill got back from the east. It surprised and shocked us all. Before he went away Bill was the liveliest and genuinest thoroughbred in the camp. I dare say that in all the Red Hoss Mountain district there wasn't a gentleman who could lay his tongue to stronger oaths and more of 'em than could Bill. That's why he was known far and wide as "Damnation Bill," for the name that a fellow was 760 IMPROVEMENT ERA. known by out in that God's own country in them days was not the name given to him by his sponsors in baptism, but by the other fellows, who, having pardnered with him and studied his idiosyn- crasies, were qualified to give him a name that clearly and directly conveyed a sufficient idea, as the saying goes, of the most salient features of his character. Damnation Bill was a name that fitted Bill to a T. Curiously enough, when Bill got back from the east, he didn't do no more swearing, and it was that circumstance which created the scandal — the first scandal Bill had ever been identified with. Talking it over among ourselves, the rest of us fellows figured it that Bill must have got religious while he was down east, and this seemed all the more likely when we found out, just by chance, one evening that Bill had been down east to see his mother. "Well," says Barber Jim, "if he has got religion and has broken away from the old traditions, supposin' we call him 'Parson Bill.' Just then Bill came in on us. He had overheard what Barber Jim said, although Barber Jim hadn't any idea that Bill was within gunshot of Casey's, where we was all confabulating. "Boys," said Bill, as calm-like as you please, "you can call me the old name if you want to, or you can call me any other name, and I won't kick. I guess the worst name you could give me wouldn't be too good for me. But I want you to know that I hain't got religion, and ther' bein' no objection, I'll tell you somepin' that, bein' pardners of mine, you ought to know. "I wasn't more than a kid," says Bill, "when the war broke out. I lived with the old folks down east —was the countryest boy you ever seen. Readin' the Springfield Republican from day to day as how the flag was insulted, how forts had been fired on, and how — the Union was in danger, I why, of course, my boy blood was up, and I was just everlastin'ly bilin' over to jine the war and go to the front and save the country. So I run away from home. It was hard on the old folks, for I was their only child, and I can under- stand now that their hearts was just sot on me. Well, I walked all the way to Chatham Corners and joined the cavalry they were musterin' there. I was only sixteen then, but I was big enough for twenty. They needed recruits, and they didn't ask too many questions. At Washington I wrote back home, and after that I HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN? 761 got letters from mother or father twice a week, and it wasn't long before father sent me the colt he had raised and broke and had great hopes of for the next country fair trottin'-match, if I hadn't gone and joined the cavalry. They never scolded me for runnin' away; it was always 'God bless you,' and 'Do your duty,' and things of that kind, they wrote, and mother always put in a P. S., say- ing, 'Willie, don't forget to say your prayers.' "Some of you," says Bill, "were in that war, and you know what army life was. Say my prayers! Why, who thought of prayin' in the midst of that wild, hard, excitin' life? Least of all the boys who had known only the quiet and humdrum of country life. Pardners, it does me good to lift the weight off my mind and tell you that I grew to be the toughest of the lot. And swear? Why, they used to sit around and laugh at me, I got so accom- No wonder they called me Damnation Bill. I earned plished at it. that title sure. "The end of the war found me in Kentucky. Some of the boys were goin' to the mountains, for they had no homes to call them back. They meant to get rich quick, and the gold-minin' fever caught 'em. Why shouldn't I go with them? 1 had no hankerin' for the old life in New England, with its quiet folks and humdrum, go-to-meetin' ways —not I. The war had given me a taste of adventure. I wasn't long makin' up my fool boy mind to take my chances with my soldier comrades. So across the plains I come, and with the rest at Pike's Peak I busted. There was harder times after that. I tended bar two years in Denver; then I drove a hack a spell; and after that I dealt in Charley Sampson's bank. Last thing of all, gettin' desperate, I bought an outfit and come up to Red Hoss Mountain, havin' heard Casey and Three-fingered Hoover tell of the prospects in this country. You see, I was too proud to go back home, bein' broke. A good many times I'd have given my skin to be there, eatin' mother's pies and snoozin' in her feather beds, but I was too proud to go back broke. So I stayed right here and done my best with the rest of you fellows. "The home folks kept writin' the same old kind of letters, cheerful and patient-like, sendin' lots of love and tellin' me over and over again about things I had entirely forgotten. They never scolded me about bein' so wayward; it was always, 'God bless you,' 762 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and 'Do your duty,' and, just as she had done when I was a boy in the war, mother always put a P. S., sayin', 'Willie, don't forget to say your prayers.' I used to laugh when I read that; the idea of Damnation Bill sayin' his prayers was comical. "I struck it rich last fall, as you all know. From bein' a grub- staker one week, I was in a fair way to be a bonanza king the next; and was startin' to Denver one mornin' to see about fixin' up I some arrangement with Dave Moffat's bank, when along come a telegraph telling father was dead and would I come at oncet. "Things have shrunk up down east since I was a boy. I found that out when I went back home for the first time in twenty years. The wood lots and home pastures ain't as big as they used to be. The lanes ain't only about half as wide, and they turn oftener. The houses are smaller, and the front stoops and front doors are so low that a fellow like me, that's six feet two, don't have much satisfaction doin' business with 'em. Only mother hadn't changed. She was white-haired, and she was fatter than she used to be, and sometimes, though she didn't complain, I noticed that it hurt her to walk much. But she was the same mother that I had run away from twenty years ago. Seemed funny to be called Willie after being called that other name, you know, so long. But, bless our mothers' hearts, us fellows is always Willie to them. "I went to bed at nine o'clock that night — went to bed in the same room that was mine when I was a little kid. The pictures on the wall came back to me — little Samuel, Uncle William Fosdick that I was named after, the first Sunday school card that I got, and Flora Temple and George N. Patchen, in their great trot (I got that one myself). The bed was high and feathery, and the comfortable smelt good and old-fashioned. It made me sleepy and dreamy-like just to be there. Hadn't more'n got into bed before in come mother, carryin' a candle. 'Willie,' says she, 'maybe you'll laugh at me, but I'm gettin' old and childish-like, maybe, and now that you've come back to me, I want to take up with you just — where I left off when you when you went away at your country's call.' You see, she put it — my runnin' away— she put it tenderly to me. 'Willie,' says she, 'I want to tuck you up in bed just as I used to. I used to worry when you catched cold of nights —you always were such a hand at kickin' off the clothes in your sleep.' HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN? 763 'Why, mother/ says I, 'I don't need tuckin' up. I'm as snug and as warm as a meadow-mouse under a hay-stack.' But mother wouldn't take no for an answer. She just puttered around that bed and kept tuckin' in the clothes, tellin' me ail the time what a com- fort it had always been to her and father, before he died, to feel that I had been a good boy and said my prayers and lived by their teachin', and never done a dishonest thing, nor learned to lie and swear and gamble and race horses, as other boys of the neighbors had. Yes, mother said all of this, and there I lay like a great big baby and let her believe it. And her hands sort of lingered around me and seemed to caress the very blankets that covered me. "When she went to go out she stopped sudden-like and turned as if she had just thought of somethin'. " 'Willie/ says she, 'have you said your prayers?' " 'No, mother, I hain't/ says I. " 'You waited until you got into bed/ says mother. 'That's what you used to do when you was a boy, because it was 'so cold/ you said. Maybe it's foolish of me, Willie, but just to please me, who haven't had my boy with me for twenty years, just to kind of humor me, let me hear you say your prayers tonight as you used to.' "Say my prayers? After twenty years of backslidin' and neg- lect, say my prayers? I just lay there and shivered. How could I tell mother I had forgotten 'em? " 'Say 'em after me, Willie, as you used to/ said mother. " 'Yes, mother/ says I. And so, through it all to the end, mother lined it out to me, and I repeated it. Damnation Bill wasn't there at all; there wasn't any such man as Damnation Bill any more. It was just me — Damnation Bill was done forever. Willie. "I was there a fortnight, and every night mother came and tucked me in and said my prayers with me. She wasn't afeard when I told her I must come back west and settle up business be- fore I went to live with her in the old homestead the rest of her days. She had always had faith in me because she and father had been so careful about bringin' me up in the way I should go, and she allowed that, with him and her a-prayin' for me (and with me a-prayin', too, as she believed), why, it would have been impossible for me to learn to lie and gamble and swear. That's what hurt me 764 IMPROVEMENT ERA. most, boys —what she said about the swearin'. It's all right for — you to call me the old name that's my punishment, and I have brought it on myself. I am not kickin'. I hain't got religion; I hain't no better than anybody else. But may God forever para- lyze my tongue if ever, in heedlessness or jest or anger, I lay that tongue of mine to any word, if she ever heard of it, would open mother's eyes to the truth of my old life and give pain to her confiding heart!" We fellows never called him Damnation Bill after that* No, from that time on it was just plain Bill — out of respect to him and iis mother.