They had been holding these meetings at various places throughout the country, and at all of them sprinkled all the children that their parents could be induced to bring. One lady had a bright little boy about eighteen months old, and when the Presiding Elder took him to "baptize" him, he said, "Sister, name this child." She responded, "His name is Vallandigham." He flew into a perfect rage, handed the child to her as if it were burning his fingers, saying, "If you want this child baptized you will have to change its name. I will baptize no child named for a traitor." The mother took the child and departed. We presume that had its name been Jeff. Davis, he would have broken its neck on the spot. Such was the "religion" of that class at that time. The speeches on the day alluded to were nothing but political harangues of the most exciting nature. Previously I had thought they had politics and religion mixed, but I now discovered that there was no mixture about it. On my return, I had a little adventure in crossing the river. The ferry was at New Richmond. The boat was a small affair, propelled by poles and oars. It was just wide enough for a wagon, and had railings on the sides. A two-horse wagon went in before me. When we got some distance out into the river, one of the horses jumped over the railing, and caused the boat to careen so that it was filling rapidly. It was astonishing how those river men, who, perhaps, had been reared on the water, became excited. They seemed almost incapable of any intelligent action, but yelled like so many savages. I decided at once upon my course. I got into the wagon, calculating that the water would probably not come to my head while standing up, should the boat go down. If it should, then I determined to take my horse by the tail and let him tow me ashore. But the owner of the team succeeded in cutting the harness, thus freeing the horse and allowing the boat to right itself so that it did not sink. We moved from Eminence to Alexandria, and boarded with a gentleman by the name of Brown. He had a nice family, a good house, and he was a clever gentleman, and a "hardshell" Baptist of the first water. Our school opened about the first of September, with seventy-eight pupils, and it soon increased to 130. Not expecting so many, I had secured no assistant but my wife; and the result was, we were both over-worked. I had to hear several classes out of school hours, especially in Latin and Greek. There were some young men in these studies, clerks, merchants, etc., who were not otherwise in the school, and these recitations were in the evening after school was dismissed. This, with preaching every Lord's day, worked me very hard. The school paid well, and for the first time since I gave up business for the gospel of Christ, I made some money.