The Boy noticed curiously that it seemed to be the rule for them to completely cover their streaming eyes with a handkerchief or with the bare hands and go it blindly for the mourners' benches. If they missed the way and butted into anything, a church member kindly took them by the arm and guided them to a vacant place where they dropped on their knees. The Boy had leaped on the bench and stood beside his mother to get a better view of the turmoil. He couldn't keep his eyes off a tall, red-headed, thick-bearded man just across the aisle three rows behind who kept twitching his face, looking toward the door and struggling against the impulse to follow the mourners. Presently he broke down with a loud cry: "Lord, have mercy!" He placed his hands over his face and started on a run to the front. The Boy giggled, and his mother pinched him. "Did ye see that red-headed feller, Ma," he whispered. "He didn't do fair. He peeked through his fingers--I saw his eyes!" "Sh!" The preachers had come down from the pulpit now and stood over the wailing prostrated mourners and exhorted them to repent and believe before it was forever and eternally too late. Three of them were talking at the same time to different groups of mourners. The louder they exhorted the louder the sinners cried. The fourth preacher walked down the aisle searching for those who were yet hardening their hearts and stiffening their necks. He paused beside a prim little old maid who had lately arrived from Tidewater Virginia. Her bright eyes were dry. "Dear lady, are you a child of God?" the preacher cried. The prim figured stiffened indignantly: "No, sir! I'm an Episcopalian!" The preacher groaned and passed on and the Boy stuffed his fist in his mouth. For half an hour the roar of the conflict was incessant, and its violence indescribable. It was broken now and then by a kindly soul among the elderly women raising a sweet old-fashioned hymn. Suddenly an exhorter threw his hands above his head and, in a voice that soared above the roar of mourners and their attendants, cried: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world!" Quick as a flash came an answering shout from the red-headed man who leaped to his feet and with wide staring eyes looked up at the roof. "I see him! I see Jesus up a tree!" A fat woman lifted her head and shouted: "Hold him till I get there!" And she started for the red-headed man. There was a single moment of strange silence and the Boy laughed aloud. His mother caught and shook him violently. He crammed his little fist again into his mouth, but the stopper wouldn't hold. He dropped to his seat to keep the people from seeing him, buried his face in his hands and laughed in smothered giggles in spite of all his mother could do. At last he whispered: "Take me out quick! I'm goin' to bust--I'll bust wide open I tell ye!"