As soon as one party got done, they raised a shout, and hoisting their captain on their shoulders, carried him over to the other side with general cheering. Then would come a little bantering talk and explanation why the defeated party lost, and all would turn to and husk up the remnants of the heap. All hands would then join to carry the husks into the fodder-house. The shout at hoisting the captain was the signal for bringing the supper on the table, and the huskers and the supper met soon after. These gatherings often embraced forty or fifty men. If the farmhouse was small it would be crowded, and the supper would be managed by repeated sittings at the table. At a large house there was less crowding and more fun, and if, as was often the case, some occasion had been given for an assemblage of the girls of the neighborhood, and particularly if the man that played the fiddle should attend, after the older men had gone, there was very apt to be a good time. There was a tradition that the boys who accidentally husked a red ear and saved it would be entitled to a kiss from somebody. But I never knew it to be necessary to produce a red ear to secure a kiss where there was a disposition to give or take one. Religion in Tennessee Religion played an important part in the lives of frontier settlers. Instead of the stern Puritanism of colonial New England, the religion of the West in the early years of the last century was highly evangelistic. By this time, the Methodist movement had made a large number of converts and was particularly strong on the frontier. One tireless Methodist preacher was Lorenzo Dow, often known as “Crazy Dow,” who traveled throughout the United States during a long ministry. Though he lived until 1834, the selection that follows comes from his journal of 1804, when he visited Tennessee at the age of 27. He was then traveling about ten thousand miles a year by horse and on foot over trails and primitive roads. This selection is particularly interesting for its account of a backwoods religious fervor, almost a physical affliction, described by Dow as the _jerks_. Next day I rode forty-five miles in company with Dr. Nelson across the dismal Allegheny mountains by the warm springs, and on the way a young man, a traveller, came in (where I breakfasted gratis at an inn) and said that he had but three sixteenths of a dollar left, having been robbed of seventy-one dollars on the way; and he being far from home, I gave him half of what I had with me.