Kilo : being the love story of Eliph' Hewlitt, book agentButler, Ellis Parker
General
Kilo : being the love story of Eliph' Hewlitt, book agent
Butler, Ellis Parker
Book industries and trade -- Fiction; Love stories
“I was sorry because I couldn't see my way clear to marry an outsider,
bein' a good Methodist myself; but I didn't dream but that he was jist
one of these lazy Christians that don't attend church lest they're
dragged. There is plenty sich. I thought mebby I could bring him round
all right once he was married; so I jist asked him right out if he would
jine church.
“Well, you'd have thought I'd asked him to take poison! He didn't flare
up like some would, but jist sat down and explained how he couldn't. I
guess he must have explained, off an' on, for three weeks before I got
a good hang of his idea. Seems like he was believing some Hindoo stuff
jist then. I don't know as you ever heart tell of it. It's about souls.
When a person dies his soul goes into another person, and so on, until
kingdom come. R'inca'nation's what they call it.”
“Yes,” said Eliph' Hewlitt, “it is all given in 'India, Its Religions
and Its History,' in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of
Literature, Science and Art.”
“Jist so!” said Mrs. Weaver. “Well, I guess by the time Doc got done
explainin' I knew more about r'inca'nation than what your Encyclopedia
of Compendium does, because night after night Doc would sit up and
explain till I'd drop off asleep.
“But it wasn't no use. So far as I could see, r'inca'nation was jist
plain error and follerin' after false gods, and I told Doc so. Anyhow,
I knowed there wan't nothin' like it in the Methodist Church, an' I jist
up and let Doc know I wouldn't marry anybody that believed such stuff.
Doc reckoned to change my mind, but my argument was jist plain 'I
won't!' and that settled it. I believe a man and wife ought to belong to
the same church,--'thy God shall be my God'--and I wasn't goin' to give
up what I'd been taught for any crazy notions Doc had got into his head.
I told him so, plain.
“Then Doc took a poetry-writing spell, but he wasn't no great hand at
it. I told him in plain words he would be better off rollin' allopathy
pills. I used to git right put out with Doc sometimes, foolin' away good
time that way, sittin' round by the hour spoilin' good paper. I reckon
he started close onto a thousand poems, but he didn't git along very
good. 'Bout the their line he'd stop and tear up what he'd wrote. When
I wasn't mad I used to feel real sorry for Doc, he tried so hard;
but feelin' sorry for him didn't help him none, and it was kind of
ridiculous to see him.
“One day I asked Doc why he didn't tell ma and the rest of Kilo what
he believed in, and he said that Kilo folks couldn't understand sich
things, bein' mostly born and bred in the Methodist Church, and not
lib'ral like he was. I seen he was payin' me a compliment, because he
had told me, but I couldn't swaller r'inca'nation, for all that. And so
we didn't seem to git no further.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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