"SIC 'EM, KITTY"
The afternoon following his rather unwelcome visit to Clary Grove, Abe
Lincoln was invited by Kit Parsons to attend religious services that
night. From the manner of the invitation, the storekeeper gathered that
there might be something interesting on foot, and he decided to go.
Some changes had been made in the meeting-place since the gathering
of the year before. At the former time Satan had moved the dogs, so
the elder explained, to crowd under the exhorter's stand and engage
in riotous disagreement. In an endeavor to chew each others ears and
gnaw holes in each others hides, they had bumped their backs onto the
rude floor underneath the preacher's feet, and in other ways raised a
disturbance.
To prevent a repetition of this disorderly conduct on the part of the
dogs, the hiding-place under the stand had been made proof against all
intruders by the use of stobs driven so close that not even a shadow
could creep between.
It was in this long-time rendezvous of dogs that a couple of the Clary
Grove gang seemed interested, as between services they strolled several
times past the pulpit end of the arbor.
That evening, in the shadowy gloom cast by the arbor roof, a couple of
men might have been seen, had the dark been closely scrutinized, moving
softly about.
Just what they were doing was not apparent. They seemed to have a
barrel close by and a long trough of some kind.
But nobody paid any attention to these quiet two. All interest was
centered in Windy Batts, who in a trumpet voice was giving out the
words of a song which all who knew him were certain would be sung with
great unction and fervor.
He was reading the lines from a hymn-book. At the end of every second
line he gave the pitch, whereupon all sang in many keys, but with
united fervor.
Into a world of ruffians sent,
I walk on hostile ground;
While human bears, on slaughter bent,
And raving wolves surround.
Between each two lines he shouted, "God have mercy on them Clary Grove
sinners! Them ravening wolves! Strike them human bears down!"
Then the hymn went on:
The lion seeks my soul to slay,
In some unguarded hour;
And waits to tear his sleeping prey,
And watches to devour.
"God save us from them Clary Grove lions that seek to devour."
The movements in the shadows just outside the arbor continued, but
nobody noticed. The exhorter, calling on God and all the holy angels
to witness the truth of his sayings, was drawing a graphic comparison
between the righteous and the sinner, especially of that most fallen
and hopeless sinner, the Clary Grove sinner.
After the discourse, which was thundered out with tremendous force, the
first altar-song was announced,
If you get there before I do,
I'm bound for the land of Ca-na-yan;
Look out for me, I'm coming, too,
I'm bound for the land of Ca-na-yan;
When this popular song got well underway, the woods for miles around
rang with the refrain. The altar filled with sinners who fell in the
dust, and with saints who whispered in their ears full directions for
planting their feet firmly on the old ship Zion, and with shouters,
among whom was Phoebe Jane Benson.
Ann Rutledge and Nance Cameron on one side of the arbor, and Abe
Lincoln and Jo Kelsy on the other, had watched Phoebe Jane taking
her combs out and in other ways preparing for the shouting. Ann,
remembering what Mrs. Benson had said about hugging, was prepared to
watch for developments as Phoebe Jane, with arms flying, began her
religious exercise.
When the mourners were prostrating themselves in the dust, one of the
dark figures in the shadowy background whispered, "Tickle her up and
then run"; and as he reached a long pole into the enclosure under the
exhorter's feet he said, "Sic 'em, kitty!" and the two were off.
Just as the first sinner was saved and the shouters were getting well
warmed up, a heavy and most unreligious odor suddenly pervaded the air.
The front row of mourners, with their faces in the dust, nearest the
exhorter's stand, noticed it first as it came like a puff from the
infernal regions just pictured by Windy Batts. Lifting their heads,
these mourners looked about, with facial expressions none too pious,
to see what had smitten them. Next the shouters got the full force of
the growing odor. Immediately their shouts turned to groans, and they
put their hands over their noses. By this time the mourners were on
their feet. This sudden change from the dust of humiliation to the
erect poise of saved souls, ordinarily denoted a conversion. At this
time, however, the eye of suspicion cast on every man by every other
man, together with the sudden and violent outbreak of snorting and
spewing, gave evidence of something different from spiritual birth.
When Windy Batts, who at this first moment was engaged in holding
Phoebe Jane in the close embrace of brotherly love, was struck by the
force of the permeating odor, he pushed Phoebe Jane from him, giving
her a look both questioning and unsanctified.
A moment, and he understood. Springing onto his high platform, he cried
in trumpet tones, "The devil is at his old game! A burning, fiery trial
is about to test our faith. Sometimes afflictions come like lice,
mites, boils, fits. But the worst has been reserved for these later
days, and now doth God afflict his people with a skunk. Satan abounds
on every hand. The most eternal and ding-blasted stink ever turned
loose on the sanctuary of the Lord is now in our midst. Let a committee
of fearless men with good noses volunteer to locate the spot where this
varmint of the pit is hiding."
The source of the odor was soon located. About this time, out in the
darkness of the woods, was heard a man's voice shouting:
The devil's dead.
Oh! smell his stink;
Killed by the power of Windy.
Then a rooster was heard crowing--the crow repeating the words. Then a
cat yowled--and a dog growled--and a goose quacked, all sending out the
same message about the devil's death, and the manner thereof.
Here was insult added to injury, for while the exhorter might have
forgiven God and the angels for the horrible ordeal they were passing
through, he could never forgive the Clary Grove crowd.
During the excitement John McNeil had joined Ann Rutledge and Nance
Cameron.
"It's those Clary Grove rowdies," John McNeil said. "They're a bad lot,
and there will be murderers in the bunch if they do not change their
ways. For this they should be put in jail."
"Windy Batts said very unkind things about them," Ann observed.
"And didn't say half bad enough. I'm sorry Abe Lincoln joined in with
them. He was in their camp last night. Like as not he hatched this
whole plot."
"I can't see why he should want to do a thing like that," Ann said.
"You don't? Don't you know the whole Clary Grove gang is opposed to
religion? Do you suppose this railsplitter would choose their kind if
he wasn't an opposer, too?"
"But he's not a railsplitter now--he's Offutt's clerk."
"He's no real clerk and never will be. Once a railsplitter, always a
railsplitter."
"Maybe so, but even then, John, it's no disgrace to be an honest
railsplitter--and I'm going to ask Nance if he's an opposer."
"What difference does it make to you whether he's an opposer or not?"
"I always like to think the best of everybody, John," Ann answered,
"and it's an awful sin to be an opposer of religion."