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BATTLE CREEK BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
And since that day I have been honest to myself and let alcoholic drinks alone. "
Meeting some of his old associates at Battle Creek, sometime after he had made this resolve, they urged him to drink with them. He refused. They as usual, coaxed him to take a glass; but it was of no avail. Whereupon one of them called him a coward, and said he dare not drink with them. Graham turned around to them, and giving the man one of his piercing looks, replied: "You have guessed it the first time; I dare not do it: if I drink one glass I am. gone. " They did not urge him any more. They saw that that look, and those earnest words meant temperance with their old friend Graham. He ever kept that pledge, and in so doing he gave to his old pioneer associates and friends one of the brightest examples of moral courage, one of the noblest resolves of true manhood.
Seeing a crowd one day, gathered in the streets of Battle Creek, about a new agricultural machine, he elbowed his way through a knot of well-dressed citizens, saying: "Here, you stand aside, and let some of these men of toil who made way for the use of this machine, let them come up and see it. " He afterwards remarked: "When I see those men of fine clothes who have come here to reap what those hard-working settlers have sown, passing them by without even a notice, I feel indignant. I think they can afford to give them a good hearty greeting, instead of cold indifference. "
The farm house of one of his old pioneer friends burned down, and when Steve Graham heard of it he cried like a child. "I tell you, " said he to the writer, "when I heard of my old friend's misfortune, I thought of all his hard work, how long he had toiled, how many hard blows he had given, to accumulate what property he has, and then to see his house burn down in one hour, I could not keep from crying.
Michigan
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