“Mary Alice Welden was one of the first to take up with Kate’s notions—I’ve always believed it was because Dick Welden scoffed at them. If Dick had been a quick man, he never would have done it, knowing well that the only way to get Mary Alice to do like he wanted her to was for him to come out strong on the opposite side. But it takes a hundred years to learn some men anything; and what did Dick do that Sunday but laugh at Kate’s notions on healing. Ever since Mary Alice had shook the red rag at Satan by getting up and shouting in church one time when Dick had told her point-blank she shouldn’t, she had enjoyed a heap of liberty, and Dick he had been diminished, like the Bible says. So when Dick laughed at Kate, Mary Alice fired right up and told Dick Welden that never another doctor or bottle of medicine should ever step over her door-sill, and that the next time any of her household got sick, prayer or nothing should cure them.
“So the next time her little Philury had spasms, Mary Alice sent over for Kate; and when Dick come home for dinner, he found all the doors locked, and looked in at a window, and there was Philury in fits on the bed, and Kate and Mary Alice praying loud and long on both sides. Dick was just crazy, and he ran up the street for the doctor, and they come back and broke in the window, and there was Philury laying quiet and peaceful and breathing regular, and Kate and Mary Alice shouting and glorifying God for casting a devil out of Philury. That gave Kate a big reputation, and stirred the Station to the dregs. And even the doctor said it was only by the grace of God that Philury pulled through under the circumstances.
“Sister Sally Barnes had been laying up for nearly a year with a misery in her back, and the doctor had give her physic, and she had took up all the patent medicines she could borrow or raise money to buy, but there she laid, and expected to lay the rest of her days. Kate went up there one day and expounded Bible to her and anointed her with that oil, and prayed over her for about two hours, and then told her to rise and cook dinner, that the Lord had healed her. And up Sister Sally got, and has been up ever since. Of course everybody was excited and talking about it. Ma asked Dr. Negley one day what he thought about it, and he said it was a mighty fine thing for Sister Sally’s family, and that Kate’s medicine was certainly better for some folks than his.
“That healing gave Kate a big name, and folks begun to send for her right and left. Some would send for her and the doctor both, thinking it just as well to be on the safe side and not neglect either faith or works. I reckon it did the sick good just to lay eyes on Kate, she was such a fine, healthy, rosy-checked woman, and never had had a day’s sickness to pull her down.
“Then come along the time for Sister Nickins’ shingles. For seven years old Sister Nickins, Tommy T.’s ma, had took down regular, every Washington’s Birthday, at ten o’clock in the morning, with the shingles. Everybody thought a duck could as soon get along without water as Sister Nickins without her shingles; and she never dreamt of such a thing as not having them. They never got to the breaking-out stage with her but once, but she was scared to death every time for fear they would break out, and run all around her and meet, and of course that will kill anybody dead. So she used to make her will and give away her gray mule every year, beforehand.
“This time Kate sent Sister Nickins word not to make no will or give away the mule; that she was going to cast them shingles into the bottomless pit by prayer. So, at sun-up on the 22d, Kate went up to Sister Nickins’s house, and set into praying and anointing, and by ten o’clock she had Sister Nickins so full of grace and glory that the devil or the shingles couldn’t get within a mile of her, and she never felt a single pain. And of all the halleluiah times, that was one. You could hear the shouting all over town, and nearly all the Station went up there. I went myself, and saw Sister Nickins with my own eyes, up and about, and full of rejoicings, and not a shingle to her name. I thought it was wonderful. It seemed just like Bible times over again. And Sister Nickins was so lifted up over it that she mounted her gray mule after dinner and started out on a three months’ visitation through the county, to spread the news abroad amongst her kin and friends.
“That was the winter I felt the inward call to preach, but never got no outward invitations. So, while I was having that trial of patience, I thought I might as well help Kate some, though I knew my call was to preach, and not to heal. And I would go around a good deal with Kate, though I never was just as rampant as she was, or as Mary Alice Welden, and always allowed that doctors might have their uses.
“One day Kate came by for me to go up with her to pray over old Mis’ Gerton’s rheumatism. So up we went, and Kate told old Mis’ Gerton what we come for, and Mis’ Gerton said she never had no objections, that prayer certainly couldn’t do no harm, and oil was good for the joints. So I poured on the oil, and Kate did the praying. In about an hour Kate jumped up and told old Mis’ Gerton to get up and walk, that the prayer of faith had healed her. ‘No such a thing,’ old Mis’ Gerton says; ‘them knees is worse than when you commenced.’ Kate got red in the face, and said of course the grace was thrown away on them that wouldn’t accept of it. Old Mis’ Gerton said she couldn’t tell no lies; that she felt worse instead of better; that pain was pain, and rheumatism was rheumatism, as well they knew that had it. She said she never meant no disrespect, but that in her opinion prayer couldn’t hold a candle to Dr. Hayhurst’s Wildcat Liniment as a pain-killer. Of course Kate was horror-struck, and she wiped the dust of old Mis’ Gerton’s house off of her feet when we went out.
“Then what should pa do about that time but take down with the yellow janders. You know, and everybody knows, that pa never did have a bit of religion. I would hate to say such a thing about an own relation, but pa being my stepfather, and the second one at that, I feel like he’s kind of far-removed. Well, ma would have been a mighty religious woman if she hadn’t been unequally yoked together with unbelievers three times. That’s enough to wear a woman’s religion to a frazzle, goodness knows; and I have always made excuses for ma. So when pa got sick and told ma to send for the doctor, ma, being one of those women that is always trying to serve two masters, her husband and her religion, sent for the doctor and Kate both. And when I got there, a few minutes later, there set the doctor by pa’s bed, and Kate and ma back in the kitchen, and every time Kate would start over the door-sill into pa’s room, to pour the oil on him and pray over him, pa would set up in bed and shake his fist at her, and swear a blue streak, and tell her not to come another step. Ma and me we nearly went through the earth for shame at pa; and of course he never would have done it if his liver had been right, for I will say this for pa, he is a polite, mild-mannered man, and slow to wrath, when he hasn’t got the janders. Then Kate would flop down on the kitchen floor and thank the Lord she was being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. And a good many people dropped in, hearing the noise; and everybody was plumb scandalized at pa, and said he was a downright infidel, and all their sympathies was roused for Kate.