What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the one they called “The Law,” a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic pistol?
“I ’low I just got to talk to them like folks,” he decided at last, and with that comforting decision went to sleep.
The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon the river in all the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere and young birds, he heard a hail:
“Eh, Prophet! What time yo’ all goin’ to hold the meeting?”
“Round 10 or 11 o’clock,” he replied.
Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and he was surprised when Mamie Caope asked him to invoke a blessing on their humble meal of hot-bread, sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught that morning, and some odds and ends of what she called “leavings.”
Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things up, declaring that men folks didn’t 213 know how to keep their own faces clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged to escape.
When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up like a honey-comb. He found that the gambling apparatus had been taken away, except the heavy crap table, which was made over into a pulpit, and that chairs and benches had been arranged into seats for a congregation. A store-boat man climbed to the boat’s roof at 10:30, with a Texas steer’s horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow.
The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed back from the shore opposite; it rolled through the woods and along the sandbars; and the Prophet, listening, recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read in the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun filled his great lungs, pursed his lips, and swelled his cheeks to wind his great horn, and the summons carried for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what the river people were up to, and skiffs sculled over to bring them to the river meeting. The long bend opposite, and up and down stream, where no sign of life had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats of people whose floating homes were hidden in tiny bays, or covered by neutral colours against their backgrounds.
The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to wait the moment of his appearance, and when at last he was permitted to walk out into the pulpit he nearly broke down with emotion. There were more than a hundred men and women, with a few children, waiting eagerly for him. He was a good old fellow; he meant all right; he’d taken care of Jest Prebol, who had 214 deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, but he wanted to learn about them; he hadn’t hurt their feelings, for he minded his own business, saying not a word about their good times, even if he wouldn’t dance himself. They could do no better than let him know that they hadn’t any hard feelings against him, even if he was a parson, for he didn’t let on that they were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him hit it up!