Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

by James Dabney McCabe

"That's the easiest thing in the world to do," said Cartwright. "Would you like to see it?"

The man hesitated for awhile, and then expressed his readiness to witness the performance.

"Very well," said Cartwright; "take your stand by your wife, and don't move or speak. I'll let the door open to give him a chance to get out, or he may carry the roof away."

So saying, he opened the door, and, taking a handful of cotton, held it in the fire and lighted it. Then plunging it into the barrel of raw cotton, he shouted lustily, "Devil, rise!" In an instant the barrel was wrapped in flames, and the lover, in utter dismay, leaped out and rushed from the house. The husband was greatly terrified, and ever afterward avowed himself a believer in Cartwright's intimacy with "Old Scratch," for had he not had ocular proof of it?

Riding out of Springfield one day, he saw a wagon some distance ahead of him containing a young lady and two young men. As he came near them they recognized him, though he was totally unacquainted with them, and began to sing camp-meeting hymns with great animation. In a little while the young lady began to shout, and said, "Glory to God! Glory to God!" and the driver cried out, "Amen! Glory to God!"

"My first impressions," says Mr. Cartwright, "were, that they had been across the Sangamon River to a camp meeting that I knew was in progress there, and had obtained religion, and were happy. As I drew a little nearer, the young lady began to sing and shout again. The young man who was not driving fell down, and cried aloud for mercy; the other two, shouting at the top of their voices, cried out, 'Glory to God! another sinner down.' Then they fell to exhorting the young man that was down, saying, 'Pray on, brother; pray on, brother; you'll soon get religion.' Presently up jumped the young man that was down, and shouted aloud, saying, 'God has blessed my soul. Halleluiah! halleluiah! Glory to God!'"

Thinking that these were genuine penitents, Cartwright rode rapidly toward them, intending to join in their rejoicings; but as he drew near them, he detected certain unmistakable evidences that they were shamming religious fervor merely for the purpose of annoying him. He then endeavored to get rid of them, but as they were all going the same direction, the party in the wagon managed to remain near him by driving fast when he tried to pass them, and falling back when he drew up to let them go ahead. "I thought," says our preacher, "I would ride up and horsewhip both of these young men; and if the woman had not been in company, I think I should have done so; but I forebore."

In a little while the road plunged into a troublesome morass. Around the worst part of this swamp wound a bridle path, by which Mr. Cartwright determined to escape his tormentors, who would be compelled to take the road straight through the swamp. The party in the wagon saw his object, and forgetting prudence in their eagerness to keep up with him, whipped their horses violently. The horses bounded off at full speed, and the wagon was whirled through the swamp at a furious rate. When nearly across, one of the wheels struck a large stump, and over went the wagon. "Fearing it would turn entirely over and catch them under," says Mr. Cartwright, "the two young men took a leap into the mud, and when they lighted they sunk up to the middle. The young lady was dressed in white, and as the wagon went over, she sprang as far as she could, and lighted on all fours; her hands sunk into the mud up to her arm-pits, her mouth and the whole of her face immersed in the muddy water, and she certainly would have strangled if the young men had not relieved her. As they helped her up and out, I had wheeled my horse to see the fun. I rode up to the edge of the mud, stopped my horse, reared in my stirrups, and shouted, at the top of my voice, 'Glory to God! Glory to God! Halleluiah! another sinner down! Glory to God! Halleluiah! Glory! Halleluiah!'

"If ever mortals felt mean, these youngsters did; and well they might, for they had carried on all this sport to make light of religion, and to insult a minister, a total stranger to them. When I became tired of shouting over them, I said to them:

"'Now, you poor, dirty, mean sinners, take this as a just judgment of God upon you for your meanness, and repent of your dreadful wickedness; and let this be the last time that you attempt to insult a preacher; for if you repeat your abominable sport and persecutions, the next time God will serve you worse, and the devil will get you.'