Scotchem
Many years ago, one bitter winter day, there
stepped down from a rocking mail-coach into the
Washington Tavern in a Pennsylvania town, a
dashing young man who swaggered up to the bar and
bawled out for a drink of "Scotchem."
The landlord was running here and there, talking
to a score of people and doing a score of things
at once, and he called to his son, a lubberly,
countrified young fellow, to give the gentleman
his Scotchem. The boy was but a learner in the
taproom, but he was a lad of few words, so he
hesitatingly mixed a glass of hot water and Scotch
whiskey, which the traveller scarcely tasted ere
he roared out: "Don't you know what Scotchem
is? Apple-jack, and boiling water, and a good dash
of ground mustard. Here's a shilling to pay for
it." The boy stared at the uninviting recipe,
but faithfully compounded it, when toot-toot
sounded the horn--the coach waited for no man,
certainly not for a man to sip a scalding
drink--and such a drink, and off in trice went
full coach and empty traveller. The young tapster
looked dubiously at the great mug of steaming
drink; then he called to an old trapper, a town
pauper, who, crippled with rheumatism, sat ever in
the warm chimney corner of the taproom, telling
stories of coons and catamounts and wolverines,
and taking such stray drops of liquid comfort as
old companions or new sympathizers might pityingly
give him. "Here, Ezra," the boy said,
"you take the gentleman's drink. It's paid
for." Ezra was ever thirsty and never
fastidious. He gulped down the Scotchem.
"It's good," he swaggered bravely, with
eyes streaming from the scalding mustard,
"an' it's tasty, too, ef it does favor tomato
ketchup."
Forty years later an aged man was swung
precariously out with a violent jerk from a
rampant trolley car in front of the Washington
Hotel. He wearily entered the gaudy office, and
turned thence to the bar. The barkeeper, a
keen-eyed, lean old fellow of inscrutable
countenance, glanced sharply at him, pondered a
moment, then opened a remote closet, drew forth
from its recess an ancient and dusty demijohn of
apple-jack, and with boiling water and a dash of
mustard compounded a drink which he placed unasked
before the traveller. "Here's your Scotchem,"
he said laconically. The surprised old man looked
sharply around him. Outside the window, in the
stable yard, a single blasted and scaling
buttonwood tree alone remained of the stately
green row whose mottled trunks and glossy leaves
once bordered the avenue. The varying grades of
city streets had entirely cut off the long porch
beloved of old-time tavern loafers. The creaking
sign-board had vanished. Within was no cheerful
chimney corner and no welcoming blazing fire, but
the old taproom still displayed its raftered
ceiling. The ancient traveller solemnly drank his
long-paid-for mug of Scotchem. "It's
good," he said, "and tasty, if it does
favor tomato ketchup."
A ray of memory darted across the brain of the
old barkeeper, and albeit he was not a member of
the Society of Psychical Research and could not
formulate his brain impressions, yet he pondered
on the curious problem of thought transference, of
forced sequence of ideas, of coincidences of
mental action resulting from similar physical
conditions and influences.
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