Dylks, Joseph C. -- Fiction; Frontier and pioneer life -- Ohio -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction
The believers were in such force that none of the Hounds, veteran
disturbers of camp-meetings and revivals, who were there, dared molest
them; the few members of the sects expelled from the Temple of their
common worship held aloof from the tumult in dismay, and made no attempt
to reclaim the sanctuary. One man, not of any church, but of standing in
the community, tried to incite the sectarians to assert their rights, but
found no following among them. They left the Temple together with certain
others who had been trembling toward belief in Dylks, but whom the
profanation repelled; when they were gone the tumult sank enough to let
Enraghty announce another meeting a week hence, and then dismiss the
congregation.
“An' afore that we're goin' to have a murricle,” Sally Reverdy told
Squire Braile, sitting early the next morning at the receipt of gossip on
his cabin porch with his pipe between his teeth; her cow had not come up
the night before, and Abel had not found her in the woods-pasture when he
went to look. “An' I couldn't wait all day, an' I just slipped over to git
some milk of Mis' Braile,” she explained to the Squire as she paused with
the bucket in her hand. “I told her I'd bring it back the first chance't I
git at our cow; I reckon Abel will find her some time or 'nuther; and I
'lowed you had plenty.”
Braile had already heard her explaining all this to his wife, but now he
kept her for the full personal detail of the last night's event at the
Temple. She ended an unsparing report of the wonders seen with a prophecy
of wonders to come.
“Why,” Braile said, “I don't see what you want of a miracle more than
what you've had already. The fact that your cow didn't come up last night,
and Abel couldn't find her in the woods-pasture this morning is miracle
enough to prove that Dylks is God. Besides, didn't he say it himself, and
didn't Enraghty say it?”
“Well, yes, they did,” Sally assented, overborne for the moment by his
logic.
“And didn't you all believe them?”
“Well, _we_ all did,” Sally said. “But look here, Squire Braile,
what about them that didn't believe it?”
“Oh, then there were some there that didn't believe it! Well, I suppose
nothing less than more miracles will do for _them_. Who were they?”
“Well, of course, there was Jim Redfield; he's been ag'inst him from the
first; and there was old George Nixon, and there was Hughey Blake, and a
passel of the Hounds that I don't count.”
“Why, certainly not; the Hounds would doubt anything. But I'm surprised
at Redfield and Nixon and Hughey Blake. What reason did they give for the
faith that wasn't in them? When a man stood up and snorted like a horse
and said he was God, why didn't they believe him? Or the other fellows
that didn't snort, but said they knew it was God from a sound that he
made?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account