out, fer the Lord knows, while Brother Tim’s folks has had some few ordinary reverses, an’ did lose a few head o’ stock in the war, an’ one o’ the gals married a no-’count Yankee carpenter an’ never would write back home, an’ Brother Mitchell’s ma an’ pa died uv ripe old age—­but, as I say, nobody ever thought they wus particular unfortunate.  Howsomever, she thought they wus from his tale an’ his sad, mournful way o’ talkin’.  Job an’ all he went through, b’iles an’ all, wasn’t a circumstance, an’ it was all the Lord’s doin’s, Brother Tim said, to show him the true light.  I seed she was listenin’ an’ that he had hold uv ’er some, but I kinder thought she wusn’t as easy prey as he ’lowed, fer he broke down once in awhile an’ had a sort o’ sickly, quivery look about the mouth.  All at once he turned to me as mad as a hornet.  Sez he:  ’It’s that dern bonnet,’—­no, he didn’t say that exactly.  I heer Luke say them things so much ‘at his words slip in when I’m in a hurry—­’it’s that bonnet o’ her’n, Sister Bradley,’ sez he.  ’I’ll never git ‘er in a wearin’ way as long as that poke keeps bobbin’ up an’ down twixt me ’n her eyes.  Cayn’t you manage to git it off?’

“Well, you kin imagine that wus a difficult thing to do, but I reckon the Lord o’ Hosts must ‘a’ been with us, fer all at once a idee come to me an’ I jest leaned over to her.  ‘Sister Dawson,’ sez I, ’I beg yore pardon, but the skirt o’ yore bonnet is ripped, le’me see it a minute,’ an’, la me!  Brother Mitchell’s eyes fairly danced in his head.  I heerd him laugh out sudden an’ then he kivered his mouth ’ith his long, bony hand an’ coughed as I snatched the bonnet frum ‘er head an’ begun to tear a seam open.  She made a grab over his spindlin’ legs fer it, but I paid no attention to ‘er, pretendin’ to be fixin’ it.  Then the fun begun.  I seed ’im lay hold of ‘er wrists an’ look ’er spank, dab in the eyes, an’ ’en he begun to rant.  Purty soon I seed her back limberin’ up an’ I knowed, as the sayin’ is, that she was our meat.  All at once, still a-hold o’ ‘er hands, he turned to me, an’ sez he:  ’Go ax Brother Quagmire to sing “How firm a foundation” three times, with the second an’ last verse left out, an’ tell ’im to foller that up with “Jesus, Lover.”  Git ‘im to walk up an’ down this aisle—­this un, remember.  Tell ’im I’ve got a case heer wuth more ’n a whole bench full o’ them scrubs ‘at’ll backslide as soon as meetin’ ’s over; tell ’im to whoop ’em up.  Sister Bradley, you are addin’ more feathers to yore wings right now ‘an you ever sprouted in one day o’ the Lord’s labor.  But, for all you do, hold on to that blasted devil’s contraption.’  He meant the bonnet.