Prairie Folks | Page 8

her hands on her apron. "I declare, I don't see how "----
"Some preachers, not all preachers," laughed Pill, in his mellow nasal.
"There are preachers, and then again preachers. I'm one o' the t'other
kind."
"I sh'd think y' was," laughed the girl.
"Now, Merry Etty, you run right t' the pig-pen with that milk, whilst I
go in an' set the tea on."
Mr. Pill seized the can of milk, saying, with a twang: "Show me the
way that I may walk therein," and, accompanied by the laughing girl,
made rapid way to the pig-pen just as the old man set up a ferocious
shout to call the hired hand out of the cornfield.

"How'd y' come to send him here?" asked Mrs. Bacon, nodding toward
Pill.
"Damfino! I kind o' liked him--no nonsense about him," answered
Bacon, going into temporary eclipse behind his hands as he washed his
face at the cistern.
At the supper table Pill was "easy as an old shoe," ate with his knife,
talked on fatting hogs, suggested a few points on raising clover, told of
pioneer experiences in Michigan, and soon won them--hired man and
all--to a most favorable opinion of himself. But he did not trench on
religious matters at all.
The hired man in his shirt-sleeves, and smelling frightfully of tobacco
and sweat (as did Bacon), sat with open month, at times forgetting to
eat, in his absorbing interest in the minister's yarns.
"Yes, I've got a family, too much of a family, in fact--that is, I think so
sometimes when I'm pinched. Our Western people are so indigent--in
plain terms, poor--they can't do any better than they do. But we pull
through--we pull through! John, you look like a stout fellow, but I'll bet
a hat I can down you three out of five."
"I bet you can't," grinned the hired man. It was the climax of all, that
bet.
"I'll take y' in hand an' flop y' both," roared Bacon from his lion-like
throat, his eyes glistening with rare good-nature from the shadow of his
gray brows. But he admired the minister's broad shoulders at the same
time. If this fellow panned out as he promised, he was a rare specimen.
After supper the Elder played a masterly game of croquet with Marietta,
beating her with ease; then he wandered out to the barn and talked
horses with the hired man, and finished by stripping off his coat and
putting on one of Mrs. Bacon's aprons to help milk the cows.
* * * * *

But at breakfast the next morning, when the family were about pitching
into their food as usual without ceremony, "Wait!" said the visitor, in
an imperious tone and with lifted hand. "Let us look to the Lord for His
blessing."
They waited till the grace was said, but it threw a depressing
atmosphere over the meal; evidently they considered the trouble begun.
At the end of the meal the minister asked:
"Have you a Bible in the house?"
"I reckon there's one in the house somewhere. Merry, go 'n see 'f y'
can't raise one," said Mrs. Bacon, indifferently.
"Have you any objection to family devotion?" asked Pill, as the book
was placed in his hands by the girl.
"No; have all you want," said Bacon, as he rose from the table and
passed out the door.
"I guess I'll see the thing through," said the hand. "It ain't just square to
leave the women folks to bear the brunt of it."
It was shortly after breakfast that the Elder concluded he'd walk up to
Brother Jennings' and see about church matters.
"I shall expect you, Brother Bacon, to be at the service at 2:30."
"All right, go ahead expectun'," responded Bacon, with an inscrutable
sidewise glance.
"You promised, you remember?"
"The--devil--I did!" the old man snarled.
The Elder looked back with a smile, and went off whistling in the warm,
bright morning.

II.
The school-house down on the creek was known as "Hell's Corners" all
through the county, because of the frequent rows that took place therein
at "corkuses" and the like, and also because of the number of teachers
that had been "ousted" by the boys. In fact, it was one of those places
still to be found occasionally in the West, far from railroads and
schools, where the primitive ignorance and ferocity of men still prowl,
like the panthers which are also found sometimes in the deeps of the
Iowa timber lands.
The most of this ignorance and ferocity, however, was centered in the
family of Dixons, a dark-skinned, unsavory group of Missourians. It
consisted of old man Dixon and wife, and six sons, all man-grown,
great, gaunt, sinewy fellows, with no education, but superstitious as
savages. If anything went wrong in