“I hadn't never took much stock in poetry readin' since I got out of 'Mother Goose,' but I begun to read Shakespeare a little jist to see what kind of poetry Doc thought he had writ when he was Shakespeare. Well, I wouldn't want to see sich books in the Sunday School Lib'ry, that's all I've got to say. Some I couldn't make sense out of, but there was one long poem about Venus and some young feller—well, I shouldn't thing the gov'ment would allow sich things printed! I jist knowed Doc couldn't ever have writ such stuff. There ain't so much meanness in him. But I couldn't see clear how to make Doc see it that way.
“I'd about given up hopes of ever curing Doc, when one day a feller come to town and give a lecture in the dance room over the grocery. He was one of these spiritualism fellers, and as soon as it was noised around that he was comin', I knowed Doc would be the first man to go and the last to come away, and he was. Thinks I, 'Let him go. If Doc jines in with spiritualists, it will be better'n what he believes in now, and if he begins changin' religions, mebby I can keep him changin', and change him into a churchgoer.” And so, jist to see what Doc was like to be, I coaxed ma to go, an' I went, too. It wasn't near so sinful as I expected.
“The feller's name was Gilson, an' he was as pale as a picked chicken, but real common lookin', otherwise. He was a right-down good talker and seemed real earnest. He wasn't the ghost-raisin' kind of spiritualist, and them that went to see a show, come away dissap'inted, for all he did was to talk and take up a collection. He said he was a new beginner and used to be a Presbyterian minister. Doc stayed after it was over and had a talk with Gilson, and of course he got converted, like he always did. He told ma so.
“I hadn't been havin' much talk with Doc one way or another, but when ma told me he had jined the spiritualists I eased up a litt, and one day I made bold to say, 'Well, Doc, I s'pose now you have give up that Shakespeare foolishness, ain't you?'
“'No, Loreny,' he says, 'I ain't.'
“'Land's sakes!' I says, 'do you mean to say you can be two things at once in religion, as well as bein' Shakespeare and Doc Weaver?'
“'Yes, Loreny,' he says. 'The spirit has got to be somewheres between the times it has got a body,' he says, 'That stands to reason. It's always puzzled me where I was between the time I died two or three hundred years ago and the time I entered this body,' he says, 'and spiritualism makes it all clear. I was floatin' in space.'
“That's jist how fool-crazy Doc was them days. There he was believin' with all his might that r'inca'nation business and that spirit business at the same time.
“I says, 'Well, Doc, some day you'll see how deep in error you are,' and I didn't say no more.
“Of course Doc wouldn't let well-enough alone. There was a big spiritualist over to Peory, Illinoy, a reg'lar ghost-raisin' feller, and what did Doc do but write over and git him to come to Kilo and give a séance. That is a meetin' where they raise up ghosts. Doc wanted the feller to stop at our house, but I wouldn't have it, so he had to put up at the hotel. Doc said it was a shame, but as soon as I seen the man I said it served him right, and that he was a fraud, but Doc swallered him right down, hide an' hoof.