Sundays pass when there is no preaching in the church. Pastor Pile, the local minister, has several charges and can conduct the services at Pall Mall but once a month. But each Sunday morning there is Sunday School, and in the afternoon a singing-class. Some one of the York boys leads the unaccompanied songs, and Alvin's leadership and interest in these services caused the catchy phrase, "a singing Elder," to be a part of nearly every newspaper story of him that went over the country. The singing-class draws to the church on Sunday afternoon the younger element of the community. When the service is over, some go for a swim in the Wolf River which runs along the foot of the grove, or on a grassless space under a giant oak on the schoolhouse-yard there will be a game of marbles. It is the old-fashioned "ring men" that they play, where five large marbles are placed in a small square marked in the dust, one marble on each corner and one in the middle. Over in France when the officers of Sergeant York's regiment were trying to obtain all the facts of his wonderful exploit, they asked him what he did with the German officers he had captured when he started to bring in his line of prisoners. His reply was a simile from his boyhood in the mountains: "I jes made a middler out of myself." Among all the American officers present there was but one who recognized his reference to the old marble game. The death of his father when Alvin was twenty-one, relaxed a hand that had protected and guided him more than he realized. His two older brothers were married and he became the head of the family of ten that remained. He left to his younger brothers the care of the crops upon the farm and he hired out on any job that brought an extra revenue. In summer he worked on neighboring farms, and in winter hauled staves and merchandise when the roads could be traveled, or logged in the lumber camps. He formed new associates and under the new influences began to drink and gamble. With his companions on Saturday and Sunday he would "go to the Kentucky line."