"Ann Rutledge is always happy," Dr. Allen answered, "but look up in front."
"Hope she don't catch it," he said with a last glance at Ann as he turned his attention to a woman who had just shaken her apron off.
"Don't fear," Dr. Allen replied smiling. "Book learning and this sort of thing don't go together."
Dr. Allen and Abe Lincoln pushed nearer the front. According to Cartwright the jerks were useful to call attention to the power of God or the devil, whichever caused the peculiar demonstration. At any rate it affected them powerfully, and soon many about the altar were in different stages of the mysterious visitation of the supernatural. The heads of some jerked from side to side. Others bent back and forth. Sometimes the whole body jerked so violently it soon fell exhausted, and many bodies that fell into the straw lay for days before returning to consciousness.
As Dr. Allen and Abe Lincoln watched, they saw one man, who stood near a support, beat against it until the skin was scraped from his forehead. Dr. Allen felt moved with professional pity, but Abe Lincoln said, "He's getting religion, let him alone."
It was four o'clock in the morning, when those who had breath enough left sang, "Blest be the tie that binds," and repaired to their tents to rest until the trumpet should summon them to early morning prayers.
The next morning, as Abe Lincoln and Dr. Allen were crossing the arbor grounds, they saw Ann Rutledge and John McNeil laughing together as she fried eggs over an open fire. For a moment Lincoln felt the same sensation he experienced when once before he would have destroyed McNeil from the face of the earth.
Dr. Allen noted the momentary expression on his face and involuntarily compared it with what he had seen there the night before. He did not stop now to make any deductions, but he did not forget.