Some mournful Lombardy poplars stood in front of the unpainted structure, and on one side was the little cemetery, with its serried mounds and conventional epitaphs. A weeping willow wept near the center of the plot, some rabbits hopped about near the broken fence at the farther side of the enclosure, and a stray cow fed peacefully among the leaning slabs.
“There’s a lot o’ people represented in that flock o’ tombstones,” observed Hyatt, as we turned in from the road, “an’ they’s a lot o’ cussedness out there that it’s a good thing to have covered up.”
Both physically and spiritually the old church was a dismal remnant, but it was the regional social center. The building was utilized in many profane ways that saddened the pious heart of the Reverend Butters, but to him, its crowning desecration was the Turkey Club.
The membership of this unique organization comprised practically all of the male population within eight or ten miles up and down the river—and Sophy Perkins, of whom more hereafter. Most of the small politicians of the county were affiliated with the club, and used it for such propaganda as from time to time befitted their objects and petty ambitions. Originally its purpose was to foster and finance the annual “turkey shoot.” This popular event usually just preceded Thanksgiving, and was the occasion of a general holiday.
During the forty odd years of the club’s existence it had gradually broadened the scope of its early activities until it became more or less identified with pretty much everything of a local public character. Its only rival as a social focus was Posey’s store.
Under its auspices the Fourth of July, golden weddings, and other anniversaries, were celebrated. Dances, amateur theatricals, old settlers’ picnics, tax protest meetings, lectures, political “rallies,” “grand raffles,” dog and chicken fights, greased pig contests, quilting bees, ministerial showers and other affairs were “pulled off” during the year. The ministerial showers were about the only functions that the Reverend Butters did not consider unholy.
There were special meetings for discussion of diverse subjects, including the mistakes of congress, advice to the President, the tariff, the oppressions of capital, the tyranny of labor, prohibition, the negro question, restriction of immigration, Shakespeare criticism, the Wrongs of Ireland, and a host of other things that generated heat and lasting acrimony. The meetings sometimes approached turbulency when some over-zealous orator gave vent to unpopular ideas, or made statements that seemed to justify somebody in the audience in calling him a liar. Few participants ever left convinced of anything in particular, except the correctness of the opinions they had brought with them.
We found a gathering of about a hundred club members and numerous small boys in the grove back of the church. We strolled about through the crowd and I was introduced by my companions to a number of their old friends.
Bill was the official head of the club and deservedly popular. To the small boys he was a deified personage. His constitutional title was “Chief Gobbler,” and he bore it with easy grace and a quiet air of noblesse oblige. His opinion prevailed on club matters, except when Sophy Perkins was in contact with the situation, and this was most of the time.
Sophy was the secretary, treasurer, general manager, board of directors, and, to her mind, constituted the greater part of the membership, although her duties were supposed to be merely clerical. All her life she had yearned for something besides her husband to regulate and superintend, and the Turkey Club had been a godsend.