BALLAD OF DEACON PEASLEE
There was Uncle Ezry Cyphers and Uncle
Jonas Goff,
And Deacon Simon Peaslee, with his solemn
vestry cough;
Mis’ Ann Matilda Bellows and Aunt Almiry
Hunt,
—At all the social meetings they performed
their earnest stunt.
They were strong in exhortation, and pro-
foundly entertained
The belief that talking did it if a Heavenly
Home were gained.
So they rose on Tuesday evening, at Friday
meeting, too,
And informed their friends and neighbors what
the sinners ought to do;
They explained the route to Heaven and ex-
horted all to go
In the straight and narrow pathway through
the blandishments below;
They were good and they were earnest, but,
alas, a little tame,
For month by month and year by year their
talks were just the same,
Until the folks who’d listened all those many
years could start
And declaim those exhortations, for they had
’em all by heart.
And those old folks talked so constant there
was scarcely time to sing,
For they just let in regardless and monopolized
the thing.
Now, benign old Parson Johnson died at last.
There’s scarcely doubt
That those prosy dissertations sort of wore
the old man out.
And he promptly was succeeded ere the church
had dried its tears
By a cocky, youthful pastor, who was full of
new ideas.
Now, he sized the situation ere he’d been in
town a week,
And he set to work to fix it by a plan that was
unique,
For he saw unless he did so—and the Lord
allowed them breath,
Those devoted saints would surely talk that
wearied church to death.
So he came to Tuesday meeting and upon his
desk he placed
A nickeled teacher’s call-bell and blandly then
he faced
An astonished congregation and explained he
thought it best
To condense the exhortations so as not to
crowd the rest;
For he said that in the worship all the members
ought to share,
And monopoly of talking by the elders wasn’t
fair;
Therefore, each could have five minutes, and
he’d ring to let each know
When ’twas time to cut the discourse and give
t’other one a show.
There were scowls from Uncle Ezry—there
were grunts from Uncle Goff,
And Deacon Simon Peaslee gave a scornful
vestry cough.
Then he laid his cane beside him and he strug-
gled to his feet
And commenced his regular discourse in re-
gard to tares and wheat.
He was scarcely fairly going on the punish-
ments of hell
When the pastor smiled and nodded and ding-
clink-ling went the bell!
All the old folks gasped in horror and a titter
soft and low
Ran along the youthful sinners who were back
on Devil’s Row;
And for just a thrilling instant Deacon Simon
lost his force,
With astonished jaws a-gaping—then continued
on his course.
To the pastor’s youthful visage swept a sudden
flush of wrath,
As the obstinate old deacon brushed him calmly
from his path,
And with all the college muscle that he had at
his command
The parson cuffed the call-bell with a swift
and steady hand.
There was riot in the vestry—deacon vieing
with the bell,
As he strove to paint the terrors of the hot,
John Wesley hell,
Till at last he balked and stuttered, gasped a
while and tried to speak,
Then sat down with tears a-dropping through
the furrows on his cheek.
There he bent in voiceless anguish with his old
gray head bowed low,
While the hushed and pitying people mourned
to see him grieving so;
And the parson left the platform and contritely
crept across
To the side of Deacon Simon and expressed his
deep remorse.
But the deacon raised his visage, and, with tears
still streaming down,
Glared upon his trembling pastor with a fierce
and scornful frown.
“Drat yer hide,” roared Deacon Simon, “do
ye think that leetle bell
Scart a warrior sech as I am out of talking
truths on hell?
’Tain’t no passon sets me down, sah! ’Tain’t
no bell ye ever saw,
But ye went and got me narvous and ye’ve
made me eat my chaw.”
Then the deacon, stern and angry, arm in arm
with Jonas Goff,
And with Uncle Cyphers trailing, stalked in
righteous dudgeon off,
And the sympathizing parish held a meeting
there and then,
And extolled the absent deacon as the most
abused of men;
And the parson’s walking papers hit his neck
below the jaw
In about the same location that the deacon lost
his chaw.