Cold and damp crept into the cells at the old state prison in Columbus, Ohio.  Wrapped in a blanket Roscoe Bellridge, shivered and hugged himself.   It would be another twenty minutes before the wake-up bell, but he was already dressed.  Having served two years of a three-year sentence for grand theft auto, and with one third off for good behavior, he would be released today.  The bell sounded, and thirty minutes later the cell doors opened to let the prisoners out for breakfast.  After the meal a guard pulled Roscoe out of line and took him back to his cell.

        "Get whatever you want to take with you," he said. "You won't be coming back."

        "There ain't nothing here that I want,"  Roscoe answered.  "The only thing I want out of this place is me."  The guard led him to a room where the box of belongings he turned in two years ago sat on a table.  Roscoe looked through it for his wallet, and found it contained nothing but one five-dollar bill.

        "What happened to my money?  There was thirty-five dollars in here."

        "Let me see," the guard said, looking over the list written on the top of the box.  "Sure enough it says thirty-five dollars.  Well, if you sign the release you get out today.   If you challenge it, there will have to be an investigation that might take weeks--even months and you'll have to remain here until it's over."

        "Okay I get your meaning. I'll sign it."

        "I thought you would," the guard sneered, handing him an envelope containing three dollars and eighty-two cents, the last of the money he had earned working in the laundry.   Dressed in the clothes that he had been wearing when they locked him up, he walked through the prison gates.  The thin denim jacket gave little protection from the bitter cold winter of 1931.  At the Salvation Army he bought an old coat for a dollar and a half and a pair of gloves for thirty cents.  They gave him a hot meal of beans and potatoes.

        With all his earthly belongings on his back, he started south to find his brother, Ernie, who lived with his in-laws, just north of Cincinnati.  A trucker, gave him a ride to Sharonville from which it was a teeth-chattering three-mile walk up the railroad tracks to Cresentville.   The little village looked deserted. The house where Ernie lived with the Wagners stood empty.  He went next door to find out what happened to everyone.

        "Roscoe, how are you?" Charley Lake greeted him.

        "Can I come in and get warm?"

        "Sure you can.   Annie, put some coffee on.  Come into the kitchen the cook-stove is the only heat we have right now.  When did they let you out?  I thought you were gone for three years."

        "I got out early.   Where are the Wagners and Ernie?  What's happened around here?"

        Being locked up, I guess you didn't know.  We're in what they call a depression.  The mill closed in '29.   Most everyone moved away.  The Wagners bought a farm up near Blanchester.   The boy and I are working at Fox Paper in Lockland.  We get two, maybe three, days' work a week, sometimes none at all.  We're just getting by.  You can stay here tonight."

        "I don't want to put you out."

        "It's no trouble. In the morning we'll take you as far as Sharonville.  You can take the bus to Blanchester."

        Roscoe couldn't afford the fare, so he walked and hitched rides.  By asking at several places he found the way to the Wagner farm.  Ella May, Ernie's wife, and her mother, Alice, were just clearing the supper dishes when Joseph, the oldest of the Wagner boys, answered the door.

        "Ernie," he called. "It's Roscoe.  When did they let you out?"

        "Two days ago.  I was over in Cresentville but there's no one left there but the Lakes.  Charley said the mill closed.  Let me in-- I'm near froze to death."

        They welcomed Roscoe and gave him a chair by the stove, where he could get warm.  Alice brought coffee and some leftovers from supper.  Roscoe ate while he told them all that had happened to him in the last two days.  Ernie asked his father-in-law, if Roscoe could stay for a while until he got himself straight.  Jason wouldn't have turned a dog out on a night like that, with the temperature already below freezing and sure to be near zero by morning.  Matthew, his second son, said that Roscoe could sleep in his room.  They'd set up the old army cot for him.

        Roscoe stayed on and helped with the farm.  Ernie told him that they only rented it because Jason and Alice had lost all their money when the banks failed in 1930.  Right now they were barely making it.  They hunted rabbits and fished a lot.  Sometimes they found work at neighboring farms in exchange for commodities.  Jason, Matthew and Ernie had traded labor for ten bushels of wheat, which exchanged for a barrel of flour at the mill.   Matt worked for a hog that they had butchered last fall, but it was about gone.   One day Roscoe found a sheep wandering on the road, caught it, and brought it home.   Jason looked it over, and saw the ear notches indicated that the animal belonged to George Denver who owned the next farm and told Roscoe to take it back.

        "As hard up as we are for food and you want me to give it back?"

        "You heard me," Jason said.  "We're poor white, but we ain't poor white trash; we don't steal livestock.  Now take it back."  The animal was returned and nothing more was said.

        Just after that the cow went dry, and there was no milk for the baby.  Mr. Denver said that he had more milk than he could use and gave them half a gallon a day.  The job of fetching it fell to Martha and Emma the third and fourth daughters.  Lora the second girl had gone to take a job as a maid in Cincinnati, and except for occasional visits, was never home.

        February came and went and by the middle of March the cold weather heralded a late spring.  By then they were burning corn in the stove.  Roscoe took Ernie and Joseph aside to talk with them.

        "You shouldn't bum that corn we can make money with it," he said.

        "How?" Joseph asked.  "It's selling for ten cents a bushel-- if you can get that much.   We just brought two unsold loads back from market."

        "We could make it into corn liquor and take to Cincinnati.  It'll bring two dollars a gallon no questions asked," Roscoe claimed.

        "No," Joseph said.   "Pop would never go along with that."

        "We can ask, and the worst he can do is say no,"  Roscoe quipped.

        "Okay," Joseph agreed.  "Ernie you bring it up."

        That night while the men lingered at the table, smoking their homegrown tobacco, Ernie spoke. "Jason, Roscoe has come up with an idea that you should think about.  We've been burning corn because it's cheaper than coal."  He went on to make his pitch.  "Now a bushel of corn yields three to five gallons of liquor.  That'll give us six to eight dollars a bushel.  We're so desperate for money, I believe we should at least think about it."

        "No," Jason snorted.  "No, no, no!  I told you we don't steal live stock and we don't make illegal whiskey.  We ain't so hard up we have to stoop so low."  That closed the subject and everyone knew better than to bring it up again.

        A week later little Jason Jr. came down with a bad cold.  The baby got steadily worse until it began to look like pneumonia.  Matt went for a doctor, but returned alone.  He wouldn't come with out being paid in advance.  They scurried around looking for money they didn't have.  Roscoe came forward with a dollar and thirty cents, the last of his money.   Alice had seventy-five cents in her sewing box.  Matt took the two dollars walked to town and this time returned with the doctor.  There really wasn't much he could do.  He gave them some pills to hold the fever down and told them to keep him in bed.  The only thing he had going for him was rest.

        "Will you be coming back?" Alice asked.

        "If you can pay now," he answered.

        "Wait a minute and I'll walk out with you,"  Roscoe said.  When they were well away from the house where no one could see them, he seized the doctor by the lapels of his coat, slammed him against the car, and stuck a hunting knife with a six-inch blade to his throat.

        "You will be back tomorrow to check on that boy-" he said.  "Because if he dies I will bury you right along side of him.  Do I make myself clear."  The doctor took one look in Roscoe's eyes and saw he was closer to death than be had ever been in his whole life.

        The doctor returned the next day and the next and every day after that until the child started improving.  Little Jason's recovery was slow, and the doctor's bills were stacking up with no way for Jason to pay them.  Roscoe knew that Jason was up against the wall and brought up the subject of the still again.

        "You really should think about it, Jason. The boy needs better care than that no-account doctor is giving him.  The three girls need clothes for school, and Alice should see a doctor, too.   She's been feeling poorly lately."

        "Do you think we can pull it off?"  Jason asked.

        "You will have to build the still, since you are the only one who knows how,"  Roscoe said, "I'll make the stuff and sell it."

        They searched the city dump for a fifty-gallon drum to use for a boiler.  They dammed the creek and constructed a spillway to run water over the distilling coils, which were made from gas lines salvaged from scrapped automobiles.  Matt borrowed a welding torch when they were ready to assemble the still.  Joseph traded several bags of flower for a hundred pounds of sugar, and they set up two rain barrels in which to ferment the mash.  Soon it was ready and went into operation.

        The pressure built as the fire heated the contents of the fifty-gallon drum.  With the temperature above the boiling point for alcohol but less than water, only the alcohol would come out.  The five men watched and waited, until at last a few drops of clear liquid dripped from the copper tube followed by a fine stream.  They had their first run of liquor.  By the end of the day they had jugged twenty-five gallons ready to sell.

        Early the next morning they loaded them into the Ford and drove to the city.  On a side street they stopped in front of a building that could have been a garage.  Roscoe got out and rang the bell. The door opened, and he signaled Matthew to drive in.  They placed their wares on a workbench.  A bearded man with greasy hands checked each jug for authenticity and paid them fifty dollars.

        "We need more jugs,"  Roscoe told him.

        "Help yourself," he answered pointing to a pile of two gallon jugs over in the comer.  They took enough jugs for another fifty-gallon batch and left.  Once again they fired up the still.  With what they ran off this time their take would be a hundred of the bootlegger's dollars.  Jason and Matt couldn't make the trip to Cincey.  They had a job repairing a tobacco barn for Mr. Denver.

        "There ain't no need for me to go," Roscoe said to Ernie and Joseph.  "You do it while I start another run.  There's plenty of mash and I'll have another twenty gallons ready before you get back." That seemed like a reasonable proposition.

        Roscoe watched the first jug fill, then removed it and put an another empty jug under the coil.  Some of the hot liquid dripped on his hand.  He instinctively put it to his mouth.  The taste of the whiskey was rich and good.  Roscoe licked his fingers and thought of how it had been over two years since he'd had a drink.  He let about an ounce drip into a cup, and sipped it slowly, savoring every swallow.  The liquor lay warm in his stomach, making him feel good all over.  In just a short time his mouth felt dry, and the desire for one more drink grew stronger with every passing minute.  Before he replaced the second jug with the third, he held the cup under the coil and filled it nearly half full.  This time he enjoyed it so much that he let the fire under the boiler die down.  He built it up again -- a little more than necessary and changed jugs.  For his third drink he filled the cup to the brim, and once again sat back to enjoy himself.  That's when he fell asleep.

        A terrible noise woke Roscoe.  He was on fire!  The exploding boiler sent burning embers flying all over.  With his clothes ablaze he dove into the creek.  Scrambling up the bank, he tried to put out the fire crackling in the tinder dry brush and threatening the woods.   Alice came tearing out to see what had happened.  She ran to the dinner bell and rang it as hard as she could.

        Over on the next farm Jason and Matt heard it and returned at once.  Neighbors responded to the distress signal and came to help.  Armed with wet feed sacks and buckets they fought the fire for an hour before the last spark was doused and the woods were saved.  Two of the volunteers helped  Roscoe to the house, where Alice put ointment on his burns.

        Joe and Ernie arrived home shortly before dark and joined the family gathered around the supper table to discuss the day's events.  There really wasn't much discussion; because Jason did most of the talking.

        "There will be no more whiskey made on this farm.  I was against it from the start, and someone could have been killed.  Not to speak of the law if we got caught.  I want all the bits and pieces of that still buried tonight, and I don't want to hear any more about it."

        "I'm real sorry about all this,"  Roscoe said.

        It is not your fault," Jason said.  "It's mine.  I listened to you;  I left you alone with a jug of liquor, and the biggest mistake of all was letting you stay here in the first place."

        As soon as Roscoe's burns healed, he left for Kentucky.  A few years later when the depression eased a bit, Ernie got a job in the city.  Joseph went to work on the railroad.  Jason was rehired at the paper mill, and Matt joined the army.  Roscoe turned up from time to time, but they always had two things ready for him a--good meal and a bus ticket out of town.

End