The old man’s story had reminded his listeners of others, and it was quite late when Posey remarked that he was going upstairs to bed, and “to keep things from bein’ carried off” he was “goin’ to lock up.” At ten the next morning five of us started up stream in three of the small boats that were usually attached to stakes under the bridge. Hyatt and I were in his duck canoe, which he skilfully propelled with his long paddle. Posey and Pop Wilkins followed, in a leaky green craft with squeaky oars. Far in the rear Bill Stiles stemmed the gentle current in his “push boat,” which he declared was never intended for anybody but him. This idea had been generally accepted along the river, for Bill’s boat was the only one for many miles up and down stream that had never been borrowed or stolen. The fact that it was so “tippy” that nobody but Bill seemed to be able to sit in it without being spilled into the river accounted for its immunity. [Illustration: “BILL” STILES ] “Some day,” remarked Bill, “a cold wet stranger’ll come to the store to git warm, an’ tell some kind of a story about fallin’ offen the bridge into the river, but ev’rybody’ll know what’s happened. Nobody that’s acquainted ’round ’ere’ll ever try to navigate with my push boat.” He called the craft “The Flapjack.” The roughly lettered name appeared in yellow paint on each side of the bow, and to his subtle mind, it was a sufficient warning to the unwary. He said that the name was also lettered along the bottom of the boat underneath, “an’ anybody that wants to c’n take e’r out’n the river an’ read it. She won’t keep ’im wait’n more’n a few minutes.” The river was low and we scraped gently over a few sand bars on the way up. After proceeding about two miles we came to a wobbly and much patched bridge, on which were several figures. A fringe of cane fish poles drooped idly from its sides. The figures were motionless and would remain so until the Turkey Club activities began. “Here’s where we git off,” said Hyatt, as we turned in near the bridge. We waited for the rest of the flotilla to come up. When our party had all arrived we climbed a zig-zag path and walked along the road to the little gray church a few hundred feet away. It was here that the Reverend Daniel Butters—“The Javelin of the Lord”—was wont to expound the gospels, formulate dreary doctrines, and to depict the frightfulness of damnation to his superannuated and docile flock. So far as human faith and opinion could influence the destinies of any of these aged and serene believers, their spiritual safety had been assured for many years. They went regularly to church, principally because they wanted to be seen there, and because they had nothing else particularly to do or think about Sundays. Alas, how the ranks of worldly worshipers would dwindle were it not for these things!