"Everybody give a jump when he first started, and he'd got nearly
through the verse before we took in what was happenin'. Even the
Babtists jest looked surprised like the rest of us. But when Miss
Penelope begun the third time and Uncle Jim jined in with his
hollerin', I saw Bush Elrod grin, and that grin spread all over the
Babtist crowd in no time. The Presbyterian young folks was gigglin'
behind their fans, and Bush got to laughin' till he had to git up and
leave the church. They said he went up the road to Sam Amos' pasture
and laid down on the ground and rolled over and over and laughed till
he couldn't laugh any more.
"I was so mad I started to git up, though goodness knows what I could
'a' done. Abram he grabbed my dress and says, 'Steady, Jane!' jest
like he was talkin' to the old mare. The thing that made me maddest
was Silas Petty a-leanin' back in his pew and smilin' as satisfied as
if he'd seen the salvation of the Lord. I didn't mind the Babtists
half as much as I did Silas.
"The only person in the church that wasn't the least bit flustered was
Miss Penelope. She was a Marshall on her mother's side, and I always
said that nobody but a born lady could 'a' acted as she did. She sung
right on as if everything was goin' exactly right and she'd been
singin' hymns with Uncle Jim all her life. Two or three times when the
old man kind o' lagged behind, it looked like she waited for him to
ketch up, and when she got through and Uncle Jim was lumberin' on the
last note, she folded her hands and set there lookin' out the winder
where the sun was shinin' on the silver poplar trees, jest as peaceful
as a angel, and the rest of us as mad as hornets. Milly Amos set back
of Uncle Jim, and his red bandanna handkerchief was lyin' over his
shoulders where he'd been shooin' the flies away. She told me the next
day it was all she could do to keep from reachin' over and chokin' the
old man off while Miss Penelope was singin'.
"I said Miss Penelope was the only one that wasn't flustered. I ought
to 'a' said Miss Penelope and Uncle Jim. The old creetur was jest that
simple-minded he didn't know he'd done anything out o' the way, and he
set there lookin' as pleased as a child, and thinkin', I reckon, how
smart he'd been to help Miss Penelope out with the singin'.
"The rest o' the hymns went off all right, and it did me good to see
Uncle Jim's face when they struck up the new tunes. He tried to jine
in, but he had to give it up and wait for the doxology.
"Parson Page preached a powerful good sermon, but I don't reckon it
did some of us much good, we was so put out about Uncle Jim spilin'
our voluntary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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