On a certain Friday morning I was to leave for my second quarterly on Littles Mills charge, a circuit with which the reader is already familiar because of the happenings I have related in connection with it. The distance was some thirty-five miles. The day brought with it a fearful snow-storm, which seemed to make it unwise for me to attempt the trip on horseback; but I meant to hold the meeting. Wife and children said, “Don’t go this time.” Others interjected: “You are foolish. Nobody will expect you.” But they were mistaken. The people did look for me. Taking the train in the evening I went to Parkersburg, forty miles, and the next day to New Martinsville, fifty-seven miles, and then walked sixteen miles, partly Saturday evening, and the balance of the way the next morning, arriving in time for the 10:30 services. I was glad I went The pastor needed me, and anxiously awaited my coming. I should never have felt right over the matter if I had disappointed him. CHAPTER VII. In the days of which I write, a quarterly meeting was a great event, and to many it was a rare privilege to see and hear the “elder.” During the summer and fall, especially, the attendance in many instances would be immense. Not unfrequently the women and children present would more than fill the house, which made it necessary to seek a “shady bower,” if one could be found. If convenient, the seats were removed from the church and used in the grove, but often this could not be done. More than once I have backed up against a tree, or mounted a log, and preached to a crowd scattered over a quarter acre of ground. On one of these occasions a young girl, of fifteen summers, perhaps, but large for her age, went to a house nearby and got a bucket of fresh water, and bringing it to me in the midst of my discourse, asked me if I would have a drink. I paused long enough to accept the courtesy, and, after thanking her for her thoughtfulness and kindness, continued my talk. Such an infraction of the rules governing divine worship to-day in many sections would greatly amuse the people, no doubt, and perhaps greatly annoy the preacher; but it was seldom noticed by speaker or congregation a third of a century ago among the mountains. When there was no grove near, or the atmosphere was too chilly, or the ground too damp to hold out-door services, we were sometimes sorely defeated by the crowds that came. I here give in full an article which I furnished the _Telescope_ on the peculiar provocations of the elder: “To be a presiding elder in the Parkersburg Conference means to travel over a large territory, and to do a vast amount of hard work on small pay; but all this is nothing compared with some other things that we have to endure. It is no uncommon thing in this country for a presiding elder to make a failure in the pulpit because of some circumstance, or a combination of circumstances over which he can have but little or no control.