There is always a good deal of preface to singing like his, and he was not above throat-clearing and loud swallowing. The verse he sang had been used at blast rites since the Swedes came first to Soot City. Its refrain was sung softly by every one to an accompaniment of rocking bodies:
“Don’t fret, old wife, nor cry,
For God won’t pass you by;
He may come late, but if you wait,
You’ll get behind the sky.”
Then Quarry rose with some pomp and spoke thus: “Ladies and friends: Some lives is all chair-cars and champagne; some lives is neither. I’m not saying what they are, for this is no time to start more tears. Some feels the whip, some wears the willow, some gets their own way. These last says the skimpiest ‘Glory be to God!’
“This house is a house of mourning. The one ewe lamb went to the pasture, and come home bit by the wolf! Here to-day, there to-morrow! Our God is a very fearful thing!”
Quarry was considered an orator in Soot City. He always spoke at social functions and stirred his audiences.
“This man”—here the blackest Polack snorted like the report of firearms, and every one at the sound burst into weeping—“this man,” screamed Quarry, strengthening his effect, “was a good man! He knew ten at night as well as the town clock. He was a Christian gentleman, and done as well by his friends as he did by the chapel, and what more can a man do? In passing out, those that knowed him good, or any of the men that were pretty common with him, can put their hands on his hand, as some has the feelin’ it’s best.”
Thereupon Quarry made way for himself to the kitchen table, and stood striving against a triumph so strong that it seemed a physical sensation. And Jarlsen lay scorched, inert, and blasted.