sts
half as much as I did Silas.

"The only person in the church that wasn't the least bit flustered was
Miss Penelope. She was a Marshall on her mother's side, and I always
said that nobody but a born lady could 'a' acted as she did. She sung
right on as if everything was goin' exactly right and she'd been
singin' hymns with Uncle Jim all her life. Two or three times when the
old man kind o' lagged behind, it looked like she waited for him to
ketch up, and when she got through and Uncle Jim was lumberin' on the
last note, she folded her hands and set there lookin' out the winder
where the sun was shinin' on the silver poplar trees, jest as peaceful
as a angel, and the rest of us as mad as hornets. Milly Amos set back
of Uncle Jim, and his red bandanna handkerchief was lyin' over his
shoulders where he'd been shooin' the flies away. She told me the next
day it was all she could do to keep from reachin' over and chokin' the
old man off while Miss Penelope was singin'.

"I said Miss Penelope was the only one that wasn't flustered. I ought
to 'a' said Miss Penelope and Uncle Jim. The old creetur was jest that
simple-minded he didn't know he'd done anything out o' the way, and he
set there lookin' as pleased as a child, and thinkin', I reckon, how
smart he'd been to help Miss Penelope out with the singin'.

"The rest o' the hymns went off all right, and it did me good to see
Uncle Jim's face when they struck up the new tunes. He tried to jine
in, but he had to give it up and wait for the doxology.

"Parson Page preached a powerful good sermon, but I don't reckon it
did some of us much good, we was so put out about Uncle Jim spilin'
our voluntary.

"After meetin' broke and we was goin' home, me and Abram had to pass
by Silas Petty's wagon. He was helpin' Maria in, and I don't know what
she'd been sayin', but he says, 'It's a righteous judgment on you
women, Maria, for profanin' the Lord's house with that there organ.'
And, mad as I was, I had to laugh when I thought of old Uncle Jim
Matthews executin' a judgment of the Lord. Uncle Jim never made more'n
a half-way livin' at the carpenter's trade, and I reckon if the Lord
had wanted anybody to help him execute a judgment, Uncle Jim would 'a'
been the last man he'd 'a' thought of.

"Of course the choir was madder'n ever at Uncle Jim; and when Milly
Amos had fever that summer, she called Sam to her the day she was at
her worst, and pulled his head down and whispered as fe