Finished: Ten Nights in a Bar Room (Arthur). Well, that was depressing. For some reason I thought this was going to be a lighthearted piece. I don't know why. I know it was a play that my brother was in during high school, but I was off at college and didn't see it. It was very much a story that was preaching the evils of drinking and drinking establishments in towns across American in the late 1800's. Simon Slade was a well-known, successful, good man who was the miller of the town the first time the traveling narrator of the story stops in the town of Cedarville. Simon has just sold his mill for a profit and opened a tavern and rooming house where the narrator stays. From there, each chapter is one of ten nights in the bar room. I thought at first they'd all be different years, but some nights all spanned the same year. Of course, the very first year, the narrator expresses his concerns to the friendly Simon that his sixteen year old daughter, and especially his twelve year old son, who Simon lets help out behind the bar, will be negatively influenced by living and working in a tavern. Simon pooh poohs those concerns. However, the very next year things have become worse. Many horrible things happen as a result of the evils of alcohol, including the accidental death of a ten year old girl who has come to take her drunken father home from the tavern. Things go from worse to worse as drinking leads to gambling and almost all of the "promising young men" of the town are led down the evil path of destruction. More alcoholics are formed, more debts are incurred, more deaths ensue. There is some pontificating about the temperance movement, which I believe must have been a movement to prohibit alcohol use. And, of course, by the end of the story, the son, Frank, who is now about 21, is such a drunkard and so far beyond saving that he gets in a fight with his equally drunken father, Simon, and accidentally kills him as well. The few remaining "good" citizens of the town get together and decide to close down the tavern and establish some no alcohol laws in their town. As I said...rather depressing. OK, on to something more lighthearted I hope! :-)