“_That’s_ the talk, Grover Cleveland!” the old man brought down upon his knee a big emphatic hand covering there two little wincing ones; “your ma’d have thought of that, too.” “And I don’t want to pass any boy’s or girl’s house without stoppin’, gran’daddy, even if they’s Pistopals; I ain’t mad at ary one of ’em but Williebelle Greenlee, and now I done forgot what I’m mad at her for.” “I don’t aim to ’lowance you, Grover Cleveland. I aim to let you get a stick of peppermint or horehoun’ for every boy and girl in Junaluska. I aim to let you show Old Sandy how the thing ought to be did. And I don’t reckon I’ll pass by any old woman, either, jes’ ’cause she’s been misled and jined the wrong church; it’s bad enough to lose your way without bein’ hounded for it besides.” “What makes Baptises and Methdises an’ Presaterians an’ all them, gran’daddy? Was they borned that way?” “You an’ me was, Grover Cleveland; our kinfolks was Methdises from way back before the flood I reckon; but the rest of ’em they’re mostly jes’ mixin’s.” “When I come acrost the cattle on the mountings, I can tell by the slits in their ears who owns ’em; but I can’t tell what church owns the people round yer ’thout it’s meetin’-Sunday and I can see what meetin’-house they’re headin’ for. Have they got any ear-marks that _you_ know ’em by, gran’daddy?” “No they ain’t Grover Cleveland; they ain’t none of ’em branded that-a-way.” “What makes ’em diff’rent, gran’daddy?” “It’s the way they b’lieve, gran’son. The Methdises they b’lieve in free grace and sprinklin’, and the Baptises they b’lieve in sousin’, and the Presaterians—they’re right mean, they are—they b’lieve in ’lection.” “Mighty nigh every somebody round yer went to ’lection and voted that Tuesday, gran’daddy.” “So we did gran’son, so we did; but this yer Presaterian ’lection is somehow diff’rent. It’s a powerful low-down kind of ’lection—I reckon it’s favourin’ niggers votin’.” After waiting a few seconds for this theological seed to sink deep the old man went on. “An’ them Pistopals—I’m feared I’m a little in the dark as to their belief—but they must be mighty good scholars, for they kin read like lightnin’. They kin read a psa’m so fast that common folks can’t take in the sense of what they’re sayin’. And there’s another good thing about ’em: they do rev’rence the name of the Lord in the Sunday sarvice; they bow considdable low when they come to it. Only it does look like they don’t all of ’em carry their rev’rence ’round with ’em a-week-days; there’s Cap’n Campbell, he can cuss considdable and he don’t do no bowin’ when he calls on the name of the Lord a-week-days.” “Hi, gran’daddy! the storekeeper’s wife she’s a Pistopal—and Monday, when she was scoopin’ up a pound of crackers for me, some mice run out of the cracker box and she jes’ hollered out, ‘For the Lord’s sake!’ and she didn’t bow and she didn’t look solemn, ary one.”