Page:The Family Album.pdf/26

18 crumbs or other knick-knacks in his beard. That naturally was a harvest for the little fish.

Finally, grandpop’s heart got tired of trying to catch up with his breath, and—yes, those burned holes in the pages are marks of grandpop’s thumb. He loved to look through the album and used to wet his thumb on his tongue so he could turn the pages. We don’t know what he drank, but his wet thumb used to scorch the paper.

He was an earnest student of the Scriptures and loved to argue with the village minister of his pew and interrupted the sermon which was on alcohol in all its ramifications and grandpop started quoting but got a little mixed up.

The minister says, “He who drinks shall be damned.” That was when grandpop woke up and said, “You’ve got to stop swearing at me.” The minister wasn’t swearing at him, because there was lots of other folks in the church. But grandpop started quoting authority and said that drink was sanctioned by the prophets and the minister told him he was wrong.

So grandpop quoted, “Wine is a mocker and