When I was ten years old, my life changed dramatically, and a small part of my innocence disappeared forever. I acquired a taste for Prince Albert tobacco. This was also the year that my family first experienced the joys of indoor plumbing; in fact, the indoor toilet and my new love for tobacco contributed to my first encounter with dishonesty and the guilt which was destined to follow.
My brother Bill, then twelve, had gotten his first job at Beck�s general mercantile store that sold everything from mule collars to groceries to smoking tobacco. As long as I agreed to take most of his chores at home, Bill agreed to supply me with Prince Albert tobacco. I had also noticed, with the new indoor toilet, how much more time the whole family could devote to other pressing issues once we didn�t have to brave the elements or the mean sow who loved to terrorize anybody on his way to the toilet after dark, not to mention the wasps and spiders that loved building nests and webs in the outhouse.
When the craving for a hand-rolled cigarette came, I would take my Prince Albert tin into the bathroom, latch the door, roll the tobacco in toilet tissue, lick it like I�d seen my granddaddy do, and light up. I would smoke it until it almost burned my fingers and then flush it down the commode. I learned to love that gurgling, whooshing sound because the evidence of my sin was washed away.
Then the inevitable happened! Mama found a hand-rolled cigarette butt, still unflushed, in the toilet bowl. Fortunately, Bill was the prime suspect, being older and all and more a man of the world, and I reinforced her suspicions when I assured her that I knew nothing about it and that I, too, was pretty sure Bill had done it. I steadfastly disavowed any knowledge of the soggy butt, primarily because I was afraid that my own ten-year-old butt would suffer a fate far worse than sogginess. Bill was presumed guilty on the circumstantial evidence. He knew, of course, that I was the culprit, but he didn�t give me away. The incident was soon forgotten � for everyone but me.
Guilt-ridden days turned into endless nights where sleep was a long time coming. My schoolwork suffered, and Bill became very distant. Sitting in the chinaberry tree for hours, I contemplated my sin as the incident weighed more and more heavily on my conscience. My Sunday School teacher had, on several occasions, extolled the virtue of honesty and had made us memorize the passage which said �The wages of sin is death.� I was too young to worry about dying, but old enough to sense that my anxiety and pain were direct results of lying to my mother and allowing Bill to shoulder the blame.
Finally, almost a year later, absolution came. After months of worry, shame, and fretful, sleepless nights, I confessed to my mother my transgression. She hugged me, lectured me about the dangers of smoking (and lying), and took my guilt away. That night I slept like an infant, untroubled by the minor demons that so often haunt ten-year-olds.
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