ick what runs back of the
camp meeting grounds, and put in ten pounds of brown sugar and half a
dozen lemons, and let the Sunday school children drink right out of the
crick, free of charge. Wall, we had right smart difficulty in gittin' a
pulpit fixed up fer the ministers, but finally we sawed down a hemlock
tree and used the stump fer a pulpit. Wall, some of the sarmons preached
at that camp meetin' beat anything I ever heered in my life afore. You
see we'd bin havin' a good many argyments 'bout corporations, monopolies
and trusts, and one minister got up and sed, "Ah, my dear beloved
brethren and sisters, we should not be too severe on the monopolists.
If we read the scripters closely we observe our forefathers wuz all
monopolists. Adam and Eve had a monopoly upon the garden of Eden,
and would have had it 'til this day, no doubt, had not Mother Eve got
squeezed in the apple market. Yea, verily, Lot's wife had a corner
on the salt market. And while Pharoe's daughter was not in the milk
business, yet we observe she took a great proffit out of the water; yea,
verrily." Most on us cum to the conclusion he wuz ridin' on a free pass.

Samantha Hoskins concluded she would have to sing her favorit hymn; it
went something like this:

"Oh you need not cum in the mornin',
And neither in the heat of the day;
But cum along in the evenin', Lord,
And wash my sins away.

Chorus--
Standin' on the walls of Zion,
Lookin' at my ship cum a sailln' ov{er};
Standin' on the walls of Zion,
To see my ship cum in."

Jist about that time Ruben Hendricks skeered a skunk out of a holler
log. Si Pettingill stirred up a hornet's nest, Deacon Witherspoon sot
down in a huckleberry pie and Aunt Nancy Smith got a spider on her, and
she started in to yellin' and jumpin' like she had a fit, and two dogs
got to fitin', and old Jim Lawson he tried to git 'em apart and he
stumped 'round and got his old wooden leg into a post hole and fell
down, and the dogs got on top of him, and you couldn't tell which wuz
Jim nor which wuz dog; and durned if it didn't bust up the camp meetin'.

The Unveiling of the Organ

IT wuz down in Punkin Centre,
I believe in eighty-nine,
We had some doin's at the meetin' house,
That we thought wuz purty fine;

It wuz a great occasion,
The choir, led by Sister Morgan,
Had called us thar to witness