may have been the cause of the excitement, Ralph could not get at it.  When he entered a little knot of people they became embarrassed, the group dissolved, and its component parts joined other companies.  What had the current of conversation to do with him?  He overheard Pete Jones saying that the blamed old wooden leg was in it anyhow.  He’d been seen goin’ home at two in the mornin’.  And he could name somebody else ef he choosed.  But it was best to clean out one at a time.  And just then there was a murmur:  “Meetin’s took up.”  And the masculine element filled the empty half of the “hewed-log” church.

When Ralph saw Hannah looking utterly dejected, his heart smote him, and the great struggle set in again.  Had it not been for the thought of the other battle, and the comforting presence of the Helper, I fear Bud’s interests would have fared badly.  But Ralph, with the spirit of a martyr, resolved to wait until he knew what the result of Bud’s suit should be, and whether, indeed, the young Goliath had prior claims, as he evidently thought he had.  He turned hopefully to the sermon, determined to pick up any crumbs of comfort that might fall from Mr. Bosaw’s meager table.

In reporting a single specimen passage of Mr. Bosaw’s sermon, I shall not take the liberty which Thucydides and other ancient historians did, of making the sermon and putting it into the hero’s mouth, but shall give that which can be vouched for.

“You see, my respective hearers,” he began—­but alas!  I can never picture to you the rich red nose, the see sawing gestures, the nasal resonance, the sniffle, the melancholy minor key, and all that.  “My respective hearers-ah, you see-ah as how-ah as my tex’-ah says that the ox-ah knoweth his owner-ah, and-ah the ass-ah his master’s crib-ah.  A-h-h!  Now, my respective hearers-ah, they’re a mighty sight of resemblance-ah atwext men-ah and oxen-ah” [Ralph could not help reflecting that there was a mighty sight of resemblance between some men and asses.  But the preacher did not see this analogy.  It lay too close to him], “bekase-ah, you see, men-ah is mighty like oxen-ah.  Fer they’s a tremengious defference-ah atwixt defferent oxen-ah, jest as thar is atwext defferent men-ah; fer the ox knoweth-ah his owner-ah, and the ass-ah, his master’s crib-ah.  Now, my respective hearers-ah” [the preacher’s voice here grew mellow, and the succeeding sentences were in the most pathetic and lugubrious tones], “you all know-ah that your humble speaker-ah has got-ah jest the best yoke of steers-ah in this township-ah.” [Here Betsey Short shook the floor with a suppressed titter.] “They a’n’t no sech steers as them air two of mine-ah in this whole kedentry-ah.  Them crack oxen over at Clifty-ah ha’n’t a patchin’ to mine-ah.  Fer the ox knoweth his owner-ah and the ass-ah his master’s crib-ah.