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!"

She rose sternly, seized his arm and led him a half mile into the woods.
He kept looking back and laughing softly.

She gazed at him sorrowfully:

"I'm ashamed of you, Boy! How could you do such a thing!"

"I just couldn't help it!"

He sat down on a stone and laughed again.

"What makes the fools holler so?" he asked through his tears.

"They are praying God to forgive their sins."

"But why holler so loud? He ain't deaf--is He? You said that God's in
the sun and wind and dew and rain--in the breath we breathe. Ain't He
everywhere then? Why do they holler at Him?"

The mother turned away to hide a smile she couldn't keep back, and a
cloud overspread her dark face. Surely this was an evil sign--this
spirit of irreverent levity i