In a religious sense I was annoyed much less by my father and my mother than I was by the busybodies who seemed to be appointed by the Lord to take care of everybody’s business but their own. Most of the religious instruction that I received came from volunteers, either relatives of my parents, or Brothers and Sisters whom I encountered during my pathetic efforts to have a good time. And, of course, from the Preacher. To many of these I put questions; I asked them to explain certain things in the Bible and in the church service that I did not understand, and which seemed to conflict with the little definite knowledge that I had of life and human beings. Invariably I was told that the Bible needed no explaining; I was merely to believe it and have faith.
I was afraid of the Preachers in Farmington, and of the Brothers and Sisters, desperately afraid of them, because they filled my mind with horrible pictures of Hell and the roaring fires of old Nick; their object in talking religion to small boys seemed to be to frighten them into being good. And I think that most of the other boys were afraid of them, too, except such brave souls as my cousin, Barney Blue, who was a “bad boy” and afraid of neither God nor Devil. One of my great moments was when I heard Barney tell a prying old Brother to go to hell. And curiously enough, and incomprehensibly to many of the good old people of Farmington, Barney is to-day exceedingly prosperous and well thought of in his community.
But there were very few like Barney; most of us trembled in our boots, even the red-topped ones we were so proud of, when a Preacher or a Brother or Sister came snooping about, head bowed under its burden of religious horror, and demanded information as to our conduct and the condition of our souls. In the cities the cry of the youngsters was “Cheese it, the cop,” but in Farmington it was “Look out, there’s a Preacher!” We could not start a game of marbles anywhere in town but one of them, or else a Brother or Sister, did not pounce upon us and demand to know if we were playing “for keeps.” And since we invariably were, and did not know enough to tell the Preacher what was politely called a fib, the game stopped then and there while we absorbed a little religion and learned that God abhorred little boys who played for keeps.
We were told that God had His eye on us when we did such things, and that our Guardian Angels put black marks in their little books every time we shot a marble.
“You must give your heart to Jesus,” we were told. “He will not let you dwell in the Heavenly Mansions if you persist in this sinful practice.”
We used to play marbles in a vacant lot behind the Christian church, and it was a very fine playground, with a level stretch on which the marbles rolled beautifully. But we had to give it up, because the lot was near the home of a Sister, who spent most of her waking hours in front of her window, staring out through the curtains in a constant search for sin and scandal. We had no more than drawn the ring and legged for first shot than she came out on her porch and shouted:
“Are you boys playing for keeps?”
And we answered in unison, politely, as we had been taught:
“Yes, ma’am.”
She stopped the game, swooping down upon us with the glint of the Heaven-born fanatic in her eye. She told us that we were wicked and sinful and blasphemous and Heaven knows what else besides to play for keeps in the very shadow of a House of God. She invariably threatened us with punishment ranging from spanking to everlasting torment in Hell, and if we dared to say anything to her other than the conventional “Yes, ma’am,” she said we were saucy and threatened to telephone our mothers. Occasionally she did so, and a marble game behind the Christian church was then followed by the wails of little boys being led into the woodshed. She performed her war dance many times, and finally we went to play near the livery stable. The atmosphere there was not so uplifting, but at least we were in peace, for the hostlers had no interest at all in our immortal souls, although they were very much interested in who won the marbles.