Jesus Christ -- Fiction; Religious fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
The hack rattled down the road and into the camp in a cloud of dust. It
was about noon and many of the people were eating their mid-day meal.
Everywhere there were clusters of men and women, sitting in farm wagons
or carts munching their food and talking among themselves.
The driver drove for some little distance into the camp, checking his
horses every now and then and hallooing to the men and women in his
road, who scattered right and left to make way for the rather headlong
rate at which he drove. At last he stopped in front of a big frame shed
with a rude sign above the doorway, informing the passers that there
refreshment was to be had at a cheap and popular price. The shed was
open at one end, and within you could see rows of benches and long deal
tables. Here the committee got out, one by one, and stood looking about
them.
Along the wide, street-like space there fronted a long, disjointed
line of huts and tents of all sorts and kinds. The air was full of an
indescribable odor as of raw boards and crushed grass. The street was
full of a restless, passing stream of men and women and boys, and
everywhere was the ceaseless buzz of talking, now and then dominated by
the call of some one hallooing to a distant comrade.
The visiting clergymen had no doubt whither to bend their steps. All
the crowd seemed to drift and centre in one direction, and they knew
that thither they would find him whom they sought. As they passed down
along the front of the different tents and huts and shanties, they
heard everywhere the clatter of dishes and smelt the odor of cooking.
Here and there a hut bore a sign indicating that there lodging was to
be had. At one place they passed by where a man, evidently stupefied
with drink, lay in the sun by the side of a little frame hut with a
canvas cover. A thin, bony woman was cooking a meal of food at a stove
behind the hut, and the combined smell of the smoke and frying food
filled the air. Two little children came around the side of the hut and
stood looking at the committee as it passed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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