ave fine dresses, because they were in big cities where
they needed them, and in due season, no doubt, we would have much more
than they, because, as May figured it, there would be only a few of us
by that time, so we could have more to spend. That looked sensible,
and I thought it would be that way, too. We were talking it over
coming from school one evening, and when we had settled it, we began to
play "Dip and Fade." That was a game we made up from being at church,
and fall and spring were the only times we could play it, because then
the rains filled all the ditches beside the road where the dirt was
plowed up to make the bed higher, and we had to have the water to dip
in and fade over.

We played it like that, because it was as near as we could come to
working out a song Isaac Thomas sang every time he got happy. He had a
lot of children at home, and more who had died, from being half-fed and
frozen, mother thought; and he was always talking about meeting the
"pore innocents" in Heaven, and singing that one song. Every time he
made exactly the same speech in meeting. It began like reciting
poetry, only it didn't rhyme, but it sort of cut off in lines, and
Isaac waved back and forth on his feet, and half sung it, and the rags
waved too, but you just couldn't feel any thrills of earnestness about
what he said, because he needed washing, and to go to work and get him
some clothes and food to fill out his frame. He only looked funny, and
made you want to laugh. It took Emanuel Ripley to raise your hair. I
don't know why men like my father, and the minister, and John Dover
stood it; they talked over asking Isaac to keep quiet numbers of times,
but the minister said there were people like that in every church, they
always came among the Lord's anointed, and it was better to pluck out
your right eye than to offend one of them, and he was doubtful about
doing it. So we children all knew that the grown people scarcely could
stand Isaac's speech, and prayer, and song, and that they were afraid
to tell him plain out that he did more harm than good. Every meeting
about the third man up was Isaac, and we had to watch him wave, and
rant, and go sing-songy:

"Oh brethering and sistering--ah,
It delights my heart--ah to gather with you,
In this holy house of worship--ah.
In his sacred word--ah,
The Lord--ah tells us,
That we are all his childring--ah.
And now, lemme exhort you to-night--ah,
As one t