There were but two long streets in the village, denominated the Front Street and the Back Street.
Upon the Front Street stood the two churches, facing each other, being, however, only in physical juxtaposition, for spiritually they were as far as the poles apart. The one was a Methodist Church, and bore high above its door the inscription, Eva Methodist Church, A.D. 1860. This legend must once have been very glaring, seemingly jet black upon a white surface, but some painter, well disposed to mankind evidently, had swept his brush laden with white paint over this inscription. The result was grateful to the eye, even if it did give rise to some uncertainty as to what the words actually were. Great truths often come home to one intuitively; perhaps that is how every one knew what was writ above that door.
The Baptist Church was stone, and bore only a date, 1854 A.D., but it rejoiced in a tin-clad spire that glimmered gayly in the sunlight or shone cold and chill beneath the wintry moon.
Between these two churches and the members thereof there was no animosity, but there was a "feeling." A "feeling" is one of those intangible, elusive things, of which no acceptable definition can be given; but every new-comer to Ovid grew into that "feeling" before he had been there a week. Perhaps some perception of this peculiar condition may be gathered by considering the various improvements which took place in the two churches during one autumn in Ovid.
They were inaugurated by Hiram Green, who presented a stone tie-post to the Methodist Church. Hiram kept the village grocery store, and had accepted six stone tie-posts in lieu of certain goods supplied to the boarding-house at the stone quarries. The boarding-house keeper had taken them in default of cash from his quarryman boarders. Hiram erected three of the posts before his shop door, at such short distances from each other that it precluded the tying up of more than two horses at a time, and then only to the end posts and facing each other. Having adorned the path before his house with two others, he, at the instigation of his wife, presented the sixth to the Methodist Church. This post was adorned with an iron ring at the top and a somewhat frisky damsel in rude carving on the side.
It was a matter of grave consideration whether this carving should be turned to the street or towards the sidewalk, it being debatable in which position she would do the most harm. She was finally turned towards the street, upon the reasonable supposition that persons driving past would pass more swiftly than persons walking; hence, their exposure to evil would be briefer. To further mitigate the demoralizing effect of this bit of stonework, Solomon Ware took a chisel and carefully obliterated the outlines of the figure, missing only one foot, which, in terpsichorean fashion, pointed skyward in a meaningless, disjointed way from a chaos of chisel marks.
The week following, the Baptists put up two wooden tie-posts, each surmounted by an iron horse's head.
Two weeks later a block of wooden steps appeared beside the stone tie-post, to facilitate those driving to church in alighting from, or mounting to, their conveyances. This was on Wednesday. By the Sunday following, its duplicate stood between the wooden tie-posts, with the additional glory of drab paint.
A month later a new fence encircled the Methodist temple, and the Baptist sanctuary was re-shingled.
As the autumn advanced the Methodist Church had sheds for its horses erected in the rear of the church. Ere the first snow flew, the Baptist Church was similarly adorned, and its shed rejoiced in elaborate scroll work brackets at the dividing posts.