A Little Rum

How did Clarence do with his temperance promise? “We had a little ‘Rum’ in Lathe’s room last evening,” Clarence tells his journal. None of  the Bowen children except for John who drank “only for medicinal purposes” lived up to Henry’s high standards. It was, he  wrote, “a total and wanton disrespect of my wishes,” and left him “a broken hearted father.”