young people. The moody dyspeptics
and lazy rustics of Laurel Spring were stirred as with a new patent
medicine. Dr. Blair went to the first "revival" meeting. Without
undervaluing the man's influence, he was instinctively repelled by
his appearance and methods. The young physician's trained powers of
observation not only saw an overwrought emotionalism in the speaker's
eloquence, but detected the ring of insincerity in his more lucid speech
and acts. Nevertheless, the hysteria of the preacher was communicated to
the congregation, who wept and shouted with him. Tired and discontented
housewives found their vague sorrows and vaguer longings were only the
result of their "unregenerate" state; the lazy country youths felt
that the frustration of their small ambitions lay in their not being
"convicted of sin." The mourners' bench was crowded with wildly
emulating sinners. Dr. Blair turned away with mingled feelings of
amusement and contempt. At the door Jim Slocum tapped him on the
shoulder: "Fetches the wimmin folk every time, don't he, Doctor?" said
Jim.

"So it seems," said Blair dryly.

"You're one o' them scientific fellers that look inter things--what do
YOU allow it is?"

The young doctor restrained the crushing answer that rose to his lips.
He had learned caution in that neighborhood. "I couldn't say," he said
indifferently.

"'Tain't no religion," said Slocum emphatically; "it's jest pure
fas'nation. Did ye look at his eye? It's like a rattlesnake's, and them
wimmin are like birds. They're frightened of him--but they hev to do
jest what he 'wills' 'em. That's how he skeert the widder the other
day."

The doctor was alert and on fire at once. "Scared the widow?" he
repeated indignantly.

"Yes. You know how she swooned away. Well, sir, me and that preacher,
Brown, was the only one in that dinin' room at the time. The widder
opened the door behind me and sorter peeked in, and that thar preacher
give a start and looked up; and then, that sort of queer light come in
his eyes, and she shut the door, and kinder fluttered and flopped down
in the passage outside, like a bird! And he crawled away like a snake,
and never said a word! My belief is that either he hadn't time to turn
on the hull influence, or else she, bein' smart, got the door shut
betwixt her and it in time! Otherwise, sure as you're born, she'd
hev been floppin' and crawlin' and sobbin' arter him--jist like them
critters we've left."

"Better not