getting ready to go to church, and I cut off a piece of cheese and put
it in the inside pocket of Pa's vest, and I put another in the lining of
Ma's muff, and they went to church. I went down to church, too, and
sat on a back seat with my chum, looking just as pious as though I was
taking up a collection. The church was pretty warm, and by the time they
got up to sing the first hymn Pa's cheese began to smell a match against
Ma's cheese."

[Illustration: Just as I am p131]

"Pa held one side of the hymn book and Ma held the other, and Pa he
always sings for all that is out, and when he braced himself and sang
"Just as I am," Ma thought Pa's voice was tinctured a little with
biliousness and she looked at him, and hunched him and told him to stop
singing and breathe through his nose, cause his breath was enough to
stop a clock. Pa stopped singing and turned around kind of cross towards
Ma, and then he smelled Ma's cheese, and He turned his head the other
way and said, 'whew,' and they didn't sing any more, but they looked at
each other as though they smelled frowy. When they sat down they sat as
far apart as they could get, and Pa sat next to a woman who used to be a
nurse in a hospital, and when she smelled Pa's cheese she looked at
him as though she thought he had the small pox, and she held her
handkerchief to her nose. The man in the other end of the pew, that Ma
sat near, he was a stranger from Racine, who belongs to our church, and
he looked at Ma sort of queer, and after the minister prayed, and they
got up to sing again, the man took his hat and went out, and when he
came by me he said something in a whisper about a female glue factory.

"Well, sir, before the sermon was over everybody in that part of the
church had their handkerchiefs to their noses, and they looked at Pa and
Ma scandalous, and the two ushers they come around in the pews looking
for a dog, and when the minister got over his sermon, and wiped the
perspiration off his face, he said he would like to have the trustees of
the church stay after meeting, as there was some business of importance
to transact. He said the question of proper ventilation and sewerage for
the church would be brought up, and that he presumed the congregation
had noticed this morning that the church was unusually full of sewer
gas. He said he had spoken of the matter before, and expected it would
be attended to before this. He said he was a meek and humble follower of
the l