The big fellow dropped on to the blue seat, as though he had been hit with a piledriver, and the crowd was so tickled to have the bully’s bluff called, that they cheered the preacher.  Then he said, “We will now open this jack pot with singing and I shall keep one eye on the gentleman who was last up, but who is now seated pretty low down.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

The preacher wiped his face calmly, and said:  “We will now sing and I expect every man will sing, and to that end I will appoint Big Ike, who asked me how I was going to open this jack pot, to come down in front of the seats and lead in the singing, for I know by his voice, which I heard in debate, that he is a crackerjack,” and the preacher took hold of the handle of the blue gun and Big Ike walked down through the rows of seats, and as the melodeon began to squawk, Ike got down in front of the audience, and some of the boys said:  “Bully for you, Ike,” and after scratching his head a minute Ike turned and walked towards the preacher, at the edge of the ring, and I thought there was going to be the worst fight ever was, and as the preacher reached for the gun I crawled under the seat, and peeked out between the legs of a fat man, but Ike walked up to the minister and said, as the melodeon began to cough:  “Boys, this tune is on Ike.”  He started it and every man sang.

[Illustration:  After Scratching His Head a Minute, Ike Turned and Walked Toward the Preacher.]

When it was ended the boys clapped and stamped for an encore, and they sang it through again, and the face of the preacher beamed with joy, and I saw there was not going to be any fight and I crawled out from under the seats.

Pa came in the tent just then, with a new suit of clothes on, having been discharged from the hospital as cured of yellow fever, and I gave him my seat, and he held me in his lap.

The preacher then preached a sermon that did them all good.  He dwelt upon the hard life of the showman, and gave them such good advice that when it was all over and he said he wanted to shake hands with every man in the bunch, Ike marshaled them all up to the ring and introduced them, and no minister ever was more cordially congratulated, and they wanted him to go along with the show, and preach every Sunday.

The preacher said he couldn’t join the show, but he traveled around a good deal and he would probably be in the same town with the show several times during the summer and he would drop in on them occasionally and keep them straight.

Pa was watching the crowd for the sailor who prescribed cayenne pepper for yellow fever, and when he saw the sailor come up to the minister, with tears in his eyes, and say:  “Parson, I has been a bad man and killed a man once, but he was a Portuguese sailor, and he had the drop on me, the same as you did on Big Ike at the opening of these proceedings, and I had to kill him.  And I begs the pardon of this old gentleman for lying to him.”  And then pa shook hands with the sailor and the parson, and the parson put his blue gun down his trousers leg, and said:  “By the way, the bulldog you were going to let take a lunch off me, is he all right?”