But tenny rate, the first six months one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims visited the spot and partook of the healin’ water of the spring that flowed out of the grotto.
And pretty soon a lofty meetin’-house riz up over that grotto. The grounds round it are laid out like a immense waterin’-place that must prepare for the comin’ of a multitude without number. In the season of pilgrimage the meetin’-house is crowded all day and way into the night, and round it the way is blocked with the pilgrims, and way up onto the hillside their kneelin’ forms are massed.
What a seen it must be in still nights, that immense kneelin’ throng and vast procession a-movin’ up the hill and a-carryin’ torches and a-singin’ thrillin’ hymns!
Inside, the meetin’-house wuz richly decorated, its high arches festooned with banners, and the walls covered with memorials of gratitude for cures performed there.
Martin walked round with his hands in his pockets and his head up. I don’t believe he sensed anything of the sperit of the place, nor Josiah.
Nor down in the grotto either, as we stood by that miracolous fountain and see a-hangin’ all round us the crutches of the paryaletics and cripples who had been cured here and walked off with no use for ’em any more.
I don’t believe them two men took any more realizin’ sense of what they wuz a-seein’.
Josiah drinked a cup of the water, and sez he in a pert tone—
“That is the best water I’ve drinked sence I left Jonesville. I wish I could take a kag with me—it tastes like the spring down by the Beaver Medder in Jonesville.”
And Martin drinked his cupful, and sed he preferred Apollinaris water.