Mitch Miller. Edgar Lee MastersЧитать онлайн книгу.
does?" says pa. "You don't know your botany—that bird feeds off of the delicious insects that is on the back of the hippopotamus. So it don't have to get off for food, the same as a woman. And that ain't all," says pa; "men are performers and women is the audience; and women just sit and look and criticize, or maybe applaud if they like the performer; and men have to act their best, write the best books, and make the best speeches, and get the most money so as to please women which is the audience—and a woman can't do nothin' but applaud or criticize, and stir up the men to do their best—just because men, until they know better, want to please the women so as to get them for wives or somethin'."
And so pa went on till ma said: "I've heard enough of this—" and she went into the next room and slept with Little Billie.
And pa called out and said, "You ain't mad, are you?" And ma called back, "Just keep to your own self and shut up."
But as I can't come back to this again, I'll say that Mr. Bennett did fail and lose everything; and in about a year Nellie came back, her husband havin' left her after her pa failed; and she began to clerk in one of the stores, and is yet.
CHAPTER III
After I met Mitch and after we saw the fight and the wedding, we went out to Montgomery's woods a few times in the afternoon when school was over. But we couldn't do much, because first we read "Tom Sawyer" along settin' on stumps and logs. We had to get the idea into our heads better; at least I did, because now we was about to carry out what Tom had done and wrote about—or what Mark Twain had wrote about for him. So we'd no sooner dig a few spadefuls than it would be gettin' dark, and we'd have to go home.
One evening it began to rain and then thunder and lightnin', and we stood in a kind of shed for a bit, when all of a sudden I felt creepy and tingly, and saw a flash, followed by awful thunder; and of course I knew I had got a shock. Perry Strickland had been killed the summer before just this a way; and it seemed like once in a while God just launched out like you'd swat a fly, and took somebody; and of course you couldn't tell who He was goin' to come after next. Things like this, besides lots of other things, my grandpa's prayers and other things, had made me think a lot of religion, so as to be ready if I was to be took by lightnin' or drownin' or anything suddent. And some of the boys said that if you was drowned and didn't have nothin' on, you'd be kept out of heaven, and sent to a place of punishment. So it began to look like they was a lot of things to think about and be careful of.
I hadn't told Mitch because I didn't know just how he'd take it, even if he was a preacher's son; but I'd been goin' at nights sometimes down at a revival or protracted meeting at the church, not Mr. Miller's, but another church, a Baptist, I believe, or maybe Campbellite. And I had listened to the revivalist and heard the singin' and the experience speeches. And heard the revivalist say that you had to be immersed, that baptized meant to be put clear under, and that sprinklin' wouldn't do.
So I got Mitch to go the next night after the wedding, to see what he thought, but also to pay him back a little for takin' me to the fight and to the wedding. We went in together and sat down pretty fur back, and the meeting began. A man got up pretty fat and good natured, with a voice that just went into you like when you push one key of the organ down and keep pumpin'. And he said a long prayer and asked for light and help, and for light to shine in the hearts of the people present, so as to show 'em their sin; and to save people from death, and from sudden death, and if they died, then that they might be ready and be saved. And he asked for power to preach the gospel and for humbleness and understanding to receive the gospel after it was preached. And so on for a good while. And a good many said, "Amen." And then they sang "Angel Voices Ever Singing." Then the revivalist asked for songs and somebody called out, "Away in a Manger, No Crib for a Bed"; and they sang that. He asked for another one—and somebody called out, "There Were Ninety and Nine that Safely Lay." And somebody else wanted "I was a Wandering Sheep." And so it went till you could kind of feel things workin' up like when the lightning made me tingle. Then this revivalist preached a bit and talked about salvation and baptism, and about believin' and being baptized in order to be saved. Then they had another song, "Work, for the Night is Coming"; and then the revivalist called for experience speeches. And old John Doud, the photographer, got up first, right away. He was bald and one of his eyes was out; he was fat and his mouth watered. And he began to tell what religion had done for him; how before he got religion nobody could live with him, he was so selfish and cross; how he was mean to his wife, and how he drank sometimes. And now he was all different; he was happy all the day and agreeable to everybody and had been good to his wife before she died, and generous to everybody and didn't care whether he had a dollar in his pocket or a coat on his back so long as he could help somebody; and how he hated drink now—couldn't bear the sight of it; and he was thankful and ready to die any minute and go to the blest in heaven and meet his wife, who was there. Lots of people talked right out loud while he was speakin' and said, "Yes," "That's it," "That's what it does for you," and such like. And he sat down, but popped right up again and said there was a man in town who needed the prayers of the church and he says, "You all know him—Joe Pink." Of course we all knew Joe Pink, who was the honorariest man in town, and a good deal in jail.
Then Harry Bailey got up. He'd had religion before several times. Every winter he got it if there was a revival; and if somebody had a new way of being baptized, he'd try it. He went on to say that he'd been sprinkled and dipped; that he'd had the double baptism of bein' sprinkled and dipped, but he'd never been really immersed—baptized; and now he knew it was the only thing and he'd been livin' in sin all these years. They said halleluyah to that, and everybody began to shake his hand, and pat him on the back, till pretty soon he keeled over in a fit like he had sometimes, and the revivalist said—"Just stand back—he may have the gift of tongues and begin to prophesy." But Harry just laid there kind a kickin' like a chicken with its head off and finally got up and sat down ready to be received into the church when they had the general baptism. They had a kind of tank under the pulpit, and when they got enough to make it worth while, the revivalist put on rubber boots and stepped down into this here tank and received 'em as they came to him, puttin' 'em clear under and then takin' 'em out.
After Harry Bailey talked, Mrs. Penny talked. She said she could do more washin' since she got into the church than ever, and that it had been the makin' of her. John Cruzan, a fighter, said he hadn't wanted to hurt a livin' soul since he was baptized. And so it went.
Mitch was settin' on the end of the seat next the aisle, and I was on the inside. Pretty soon the revivalist came down and spied Mitch. He just saw him as a boy, and didn't know who he was. Just then they were singin' "Knockin', Knockin', Who is There?" And it was dreadful solemn, some were moaning, others crying out, some were clappin' their hands, and lots were being talked to to bring 'em over. So this revivalist kneeled down and says to Mitch:
"Are you saved, my little friend?"
Mitch says, "Maybe, I don't know."
"Maybe," says he. "Well, don't you want to be certain to escape the condemnation?"
"I'd like to," says Mitch.
"This is the accepted time, and you can't afford to say maybe, you must say I am sure—I know it. What is your name?"
"Mitch