their palm-leaf fans in a steady rhythm. Abashed boys
slunk into the rear pews and giggled, while milky little girls, up front
with their mothers, self-consciously kept from turning around.

The church was half barn and half Gopher Prairie parlor. The streaky
brown wallpaper was broken in its dismal sweep only by framed texts,
"Come unto Me" and "The Lord is My Shepherd," by a list of hymns, and by
a crimson and green diagram, staggeringly drawn upon hemp-colored paper,
indicating the alarming ease with which a young man may descend from
Palaces of Pleasure and the House of Pride to Eternal Damnation. But the
varnished oak pews and the new red carpet and the three large chairs on
the platform, behind the bare reading-stand, were all of a rocking-chair
comfort.

Carol was civic and neighborly and commendable today. She beamed and
bowed. She trolled out with the others the hymn:

How pleasant 'tis on Sabbath morn
To gather in the church
And there I'll have no carnal thoughts,
Nor sin shall me besmirch.

With a rustle of starched linen skirts and stiff shirt-fronts, the
congregation sat down, and gave heed to the Reverend Mr. Zitterel. The
priest was a thin, swart, intense young man with a bang. He wore a
black sack suit and a lilac tie. He smote the enormous Bible on the
reading-stand, vociferated, "Come, let us reason together," delivered a
prayer informing Almighty God of the news of the past week, and began to
reason.

It proved that the only problems which America had to face were
Mormonism and Prohibition:

"Don't let any of these self-conceited fellows that are always trying to
stir up trouble deceive you with the belief that there's anything to
all these smart-aleck movements to let the unions and the Farmers'
Nonpartisan League kill all our initiative and enterprise by fixing
wages and prices. There isn't any movement that amounts to a whoop
without it's got a moral background. And let me tell you that while
folks are fussing about what they call 'economics' and 'socialism'
and 'science' and a lot of things that are nothing in the world but a
disguise for atheism, the Old Satan is busy spreading his secret net
and tentacles out there in Utah, under his guise of Joe Smith or Brigham
Young or whoever their leaders happen to be today, it doesn't make any
difference, and they're making game of the Old Bible that has led this
American people through its manifold trials and tribulations to it