CHAPTER VII

"SIC 'EM, KITTY"

The afternoon following his rather unwelcome visit to Clary Grove, Abe Lincoln was invited by Kit Parsons to attend religious services that night. From the manner of the invitation, the storekeeper gathered that there might be something interesting on foot, and he decided to go.

Some changes had been made in the meeting-place since the gathering of the year before. At the former time Satan had moved the dogs, so the elder explained, to crowd under the exhorter's stand and engage in riotous disagreement. In an endeavor to chew each others ears and gnaw holes in each others hides, they had bumped their backs onto the rude floor underneath the preacher's feet, and in other ways raised a disturbance.

To prevent a repetition of this disorderly conduct on the part of the dogs, the hiding-place under the stand had been made proof against all intruders by the use of stobs driven so close that not even a shadow could creep between.

It was in this long-time rendezvous of dogs that a couple of the Clary Grove gang seemed interested, as between services they strolled several times past the pulpit end of the arbor.

That evening, in the shadowy gloom cast by the arbor roof, a couple of men might have been seen, had the dark been closely scrutinized, moving softly about.

Just what they were doing was not apparent. They seemed to have a barrel close by and a long trough of some kind.

But nobody paid any attention to these quiet two. All interest was centered in Windy Batts, who in a trumpet voice was giving out the words of a song which all who knew him were certain would be sung with great unction and fervor.

He was reading the lines from a hymn-book. At the end of every second line he gave the pitch, whereupon all sang in many keys, but with united fervor.

Into a world of ruffians sent, I walk on hostile ground; While human bears, on slaughter bent, And raving wolves surround.

Between each two lines he shouted, "God have mercy on them Clary Grove sinners! Them ravening wolves! Strike them human bears down!"

Then the hymn went on:

The lion seeks my soul to slay, In some unguarded hour; And waits to tear his sleeping prey, And watches to devour.

"God save us from them Clary Grove lions that seek to devour."

The movements in the shadows just outside the arbor continued, but nobody noticed. The exhorter, calling on God and all the holy angels to witness the truth of his sayings, was drawing a graphic comparison between the righteous and the sinner, especially of that most fallen and hopeless sinner, the Clary Grove sinner.

After the discourse, which was thundered out with tremendous force, the first altar-song was announced,

If you get there before I do, I'm bound for the land of Ca-na-yan; Look out for me, I'm coming, too, I'm bound for the land of Ca-na-yan;

When this popular song got well underway, the woods for miles around rang with the refrain. The altar filled with sinners who fell in the dust, and with saints who whispered in their ears full directions for planting their feet firmly on the old ship Zion, and with shouters, among whom was Phoebe Jane Benson.

Ann Rutledge and Nance Cameron on one side of the arbor, and Abe Lincoln and Jo Kelsy on the other, had watched Phoebe Jane taking her combs out and in other ways preparing for the shouting. Ann, remembering what Mrs. Benson had said about hugging, was prepared to watch for developments as Phoebe Jane, with arms flying, began her religious exercise.

When the mourners were prostrating themselves in the dust, one of the dark figures in the shadowy background whispered, "Tickle her up and then run"; and as he reached a long pole into the enclosure under the exhorter's feet he said, "Sic 'em, kitty!" and the two were off.

Just as the first sinner was saved and the shouters were getting well warmed up, a heavy and most unreligious odor suddenly pervaded the air.

The front row of mourners, with their faces in the dust, nearest the exhorter's stand, noticed it first as it came like a puff from the infernal regions just pictured by Windy Batts. Lifting their heads, these mourners looked about, with facial expressions none too pious, to see what had smitten them. Next the shouters got the full force of the growing odor. Immediately their shouts turned to groans, and they put their hands over their noses. By this time the mourners were on their feet. This sudden change from the dust of humiliation to the erect poise of saved souls, ordinarily denoted a conversion. At this time, however, the eye of suspicion cast on every man by every other man, together with the sudden and violent outbreak of snorting and spewing, gave evidence of something different from spiritual birth.

When Windy Batts, who at this first moment was engaged in holding Phoebe Jane in the close embrace of brotherly love, was struck by the force of the permeating odor, he pushed Phoebe Jane from him, giving her a look both questioning and unsanctified.

A moment, and he understood. Springing onto his high platform, he cried in trumpet tones, "The devil is at his old game! A burning, fiery trial is about to test our faith. Sometimes afflictions come like lice, mites, boils, fits. But the worst has been reserved for these later days, and now doth God afflict his people with a skunk. Satan abounds on every hand. The most eternal and ding-blasted stink ever turned loose on the sanctuary of the Lord is now in our midst. Let a committee of fearless men with good noses volunteer to locate the spot where this varmint of the pit is hiding."

The source of the odor was soon located. About this time, out in the darkness of the woods, was heard a man's voice shouting:

The devil's dead. Oh! smell his stink; Killed by the power of Windy.

Then a rooster was heard crowing--the crow repeating the words. Then a cat yowled--and a dog growled--and a goose quacked, all sending out the same message about the devil's death, and the manner thereof.

Here was insult added to injury, for while the exhorter might have forgiven God and the angels for the horrible ordeal they were passing through, he could never forgive the Clary Grove crowd.

During the excitement John McNeil had joined Ann Rutledge and Nance Cameron.

"It's those Clary Grove rowdies," John McNeil said. "They're a bad lot, and there will be murderers in the bunch if they do not change their ways. For this they should be put in jail."

"Windy Batts said very unkind things about them," Ann observed.

"And didn't say half bad enough. I'm sorry Abe Lincoln joined in with them. He was in their camp last night. Like as not he hatched this whole plot."

"I can't see why he should want to do a thing like that," Ann said.

"You don't? Don't you know the whole Clary Grove gang is opposed to religion? Do you suppose this railsplitter would choose their kind if he wasn't an opposer, too?"

"But he's not a railsplitter now--he's Offutt's clerk."

"He's no real clerk and never will be. Once a railsplitter, always a railsplitter."

"Maybe so, but even then, John, it's no disgrace to be an honest railsplitter--and I'm going to ask Nance if he's an opposer."

"What difference does it make to you whether he's an opposer or not?"

"I always like to think the best of everybody, John," Ann answered, "and it's an awful sin to be an opposer of religion."