a conversational tone until
it rang penetratingly through the hall, and he would emphasize his words
with a startling resound from his open palm upon the altar-rail.

The mountaineers had brought their entire families, and during the
service the smaller children would fall asleep, to awaken with a cry at
the changing vibrations. Up and down the sounding, carpetless aisles the
parents would pass, carrying out some child to comfort it.

But the incidents were unnoticed by the minister, nor did they break the
chant of amens or the growing number of repetitions of the minister's
words by the devout worshipers. When the eyes of the auditors were
turned from the evangelist they reverently sought the face of some
expected convert. In the service, in the feelings of the people there
was real religion.

Sundays pass when there is no preaching in the church. Pastor Pile, the
local minister, has several charges and can conduct the services at Pall
Mall but once a month. But each Sunday morning there is Sunday School,
and in the afternoon a singing-class. Some one of the York boys leads
the unaccompanied songs, and Alvin's leadership and interest in these
services caused the catchy phrase, "a singing Elder," to be a part of
nearly every newspaper story of him that went over the country.

The singing-class draws to the church on Sunday afternoon the younger
element of the community. When the service is over, some go for a swim
in the Wolf River which runs along the foot of the grove, or on a
grassless space under a giant oak on the schoolhouse-yard there will be
a game of marbles. It is the old-fashioned "ring men" that they play,
where five large marbles are placed in a small square marked in the
dust, one marble on each corner and one in the middle.

Over in France when the officers of Sergeant York's regiment were trying
to obtain all the facts of his wonderful exploit, they asked him what he
did with the German officers he had captured when he started to bring in
his line of prisoners. His reply was a simile from his boyhood in the
mountains:

"I jes made a middler out of myself."

Among all the American officers present there was but one who
recognized his reference to the old marble game.

The death of his father when Alvin was twenty-one, relaxed a hand that
had protected and guided him more than he realized. His two older
brothers were married and he became the head of the family of ten that
remained. He left to