s, only they was
bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside
slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into
for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms to
stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun-bonnets; and some
had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones
had on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the
children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt. Some of
the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on
the sly.

The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined
out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it,
there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then he
lined out two more for them to sing--and so on. The people woke up more
and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some begun to
groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach, and
begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of the platform
and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front of it, with
his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with
all his might; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and
spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting,
"It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon it and live!" And
people would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-MEN!" And so he went on, and the
people groaning and crying and saying amen:

"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (AMEN!) come,
sick and sore! (AMEN!) come, lame and halt and blind! (AMEN!) come, pore
and needy, sunk in shame! (A-A-MEN!) come, all that's worn and soiled and
suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite heart! come
in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse is free, the door
of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!" (A-A-MEN! GLORY,
GLORY HALLELUJAH!)

And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on
account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the
crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' bench,
with the tears running down their faces; and when all the mourners had
got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and shouted and
flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.

We