“Jes’ the same way ’tis with our preacher”—the women were speaking now—“he shakes hands friendly like but I don’t guess, if all the folks in the diff’rent places where he preaches was stood up together, he’d know me and my children from the lot.”
“Them was good old times”—the deacon’s wife took off her sunbonnet and straightened up its crown as she spoke—“when we had one meetin’-house and preachin’ every Sunday and Preacher Carr was right here on the ground ready for marryin’ or buryin’ or any sich like.”
“And Mis’ Carr—she was a mother to all of us.”
“Our preacher’s got a right big family and they do say that he don’t make enough to keep ’em all comf’table; but I don’t know how ’tis. Our church agreed to give him thirty dollars this year and we done raised fo’teen of it cash down and we reckoned we’d about make up the balance of it in apples and potatoes; there was some corn give besides. To be sure there was no way for him to haul it home, for he don’t own a wagon; but seem like, if his other churches done as well by him as we do, he wouldn’t be so peaked looking. They say he ain’t nary top coat to wear, but we-all give him nine pair of mittens and five pair of wristers, and Callerstown give him seven pair of mittens and four comforters for his neck and some wristers besides, and it do seem like his other churches ought to give him a overcoat.”
A few minutes of thoughtful silence ensued; then a philosopher spoke.
“It’s a heap easier to ’stablish churches than ’tis to support ’em after they’re sot goin’.”
With a deeply drawn breath Colonel Ledbetter stretched out his legs, set his soles upright before the fire, folded his arms and squared himself. He waited respectfully for the old bench to complete its squeaking preface, then, singling out one fork of a blazing log, addressed it earnestly.
“Grover Cleveland, he don’t believe in beliefs and I’ve been a-studyin’ whether he ain’t right. I reason this a-way:
“You-all know how ’tis with the gris’-mills round yer; some of ’em is run by a turbine wheel and some by a overshot wheel and Captain Campbell he’s jes’ sot up a undershot wheel. But if the day of meracles wasn’t past and some of us should stop on our way home from the mill and leave ole Mis’ Jimson a bag of meal, it would keep her and her ole cow from starvin’ plumb to death and she’d never ask which mill ground that ar grist. And in my opinion that’s the way ’tis with these yer diff’rent religious secks we’ve got in Junaluska; they each turn their crank in their own way but there ain’t much choice in the grist they turn out; that is to say, neighbours, if you judge a man from his outgoin’s and his incomin’s it would take more than human jedgment to tell whether he’s been ground by the Piscopals or the Methdises or the Presaterians or the Baptises.
“When we git riled, Presaterian cussin’ don’t sound noways diff’rent from Methdis’ cussin’ and a wayfarin’ man in Junaluska could never tell by lookin’ at the children’s frocks and faces whether their mothers believe that sprinklin’ or duckin’ is the tellin’est means of grace; and Baptis’ hogs and cattle left out on the mountings all winter without fodder and shelter looks jes’ as gaunted-up when spring comes as the Piscopals’ does. I’m beginnin’ to think, neighbours, that there’s right much more religion in doin’ then there is in fussin’ about beliefs.”