The Leatherwood God

om mind to mind in the neighborhood, and catching like fire in dry grass. The rumor came in different voices, some piously meant to shake him with fear in the scorn

who had been the first to follow Dylks, but the poorer and lowlier sort who wavered before the exam

me he rode his claybank so hesitantly toward the Squire's cabin that his desire to stop and talk was plain, and Braile called to hi

rin at any form of joke, and his belief that when the Squire indulged such flagrant irreverence as th

; about the next thing on the docket.

old me the first thing when I got home. You

ation that he had been at the Temple all the other

s up over his head and he says, 'This shell will fall off'; and Jim he says, 'I've got half a mind to crack your shell,' and the believers they got round, and begun to h

ssly. "I'm almost afraid to think, Abel. Som

es

anybody." He looked at Abel, and Sally's husband jo

rs he's been teachun' round all sorts of things i

wild honey for him in this settlement. Might try grasshoppers, but the last be

that's what Sally hearn tell-that when he was off with Enraghty and Hingston on so

to know just wha

they was doun's to deceive the

nd Enraghty both are-the ver

s just a Bible sayin'. You see, Brother Briggs was sick and Brother Enra

ks have done

er Enraghty preached in the Temple at Seneca, and then at Brother Christhaven's house off south of that, and then at David Mason's, t

ee.

common, but what Dylks done to the De

get out? D

y she got it putty straight from the

said. "I can har

ned his horse and stretched out his hands, and says he, 'How ignorant them people is of my true natur'. But time will show 'em.' Well, not just them words, you know; more dictionary; and they preached with a great outpourun' at Seneca. They didn't go to bed that night at all, accordun' to the woman's tell that Enraghty

effect, but Braile onl

n' when they started Brother Enraghty felt kind o' cold all over, and his teeth chattered, and Dylks looked at him hard in t

Apostle say? Did he o

! I don't feel just right, havun' you say such

You go right ahead, Abel. I'll take

work is done,' and he went towards Satan and Satan he raised his burnun' wings and bristled his scales, and stuck out his forked tongue and dropped melted fire from it; and he rolled his eyes in his head, hissun' and bubblun' like sinners boilun' in hell's kittles. Then Dylks he got down on his knees and prayed, and got up and give his shout of Salvation, and the devil's wings fell, and he took in his tongue, and his eyes stood still, and Dylks he blowed his breath at him, and Satan he turned and jumped, and every jump he give the ground shook, and Dylks and the balance of 'em follered him till the devil come to Brother Mason's house, and then he jumped through t

mes, before he said, "Well, Abel, I don't wonder Sally is excit

aid, daunted between his natural bent and his wish to

If Dylks did it, and Enraghty says he did it, why there

ntment. Then he sighed out, "Well, I must be goun', I reckon," a

it solely to the doctrine of the prophet who came teaching that neither he nor they should ever die, but should enter in the flesh into the New Jerusalem which should come down to them at Leatherwood. His steps in passing from teacher to prophet and to Messiah were contested by a few with bitter and strenuous dissent, but on the night when Dylks proclaimed before the thronging assembly in the stolen Temple, "I am God and there is none else," they pressed round him, men and women and children, and worshiped him. "I am God and the Christ in one," he proclaimed. "In me, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are met. There is no salvation except by faith in me. They who

tumult in dismay, and made no attempt to reclaim the sanctuary. One man, not of any church, but of standing in the community, tried to incite the sectarians to assert their rights, but found no following among them. They left the Temple to

not come up the night before, and Abel had not found her in the woods-pasture when he went to look. "An' I couldn't wait all day, an' I just slipped over to git some milk of Mis' Braile," she explained

er for the full personal detail of the last night's event at the Temple. She en

hat your cow didn't come up last night, and Abel couldn't find her in the woods-pasture this morning is m

lly assented, overborne f

you all be

ut look here, Squire Braile, what

elieve it! Well, I suppose nothing less than

m from the first; and there was old George Nixon, and there wa

on did they give for the faith that wasn't in them? When a man stood up and snorted like a horse and said he was God, why

at a joke, but the Squire's blasphemous irony had its force with her too, though she felt it righ

d they just look ashamed of you, down there on your knees before a man that you worshiped for a God because he snorted like a horse

let the scorn which his irony had hidden blaze out. "Wasn't a

lk-bucket from her right hand to her left. "Where everybody is goun' one way, you don't

Gill

floor where she was kneelun' and stoopun' her forehead over to the ground, and pulled her out through the crowd. 'You come home with me!' says he, kind o' harsh like; and if it hadn't ha' been for Nanc

l, though; he stayed with Dylks. Di

un' with the unbelievers, and he says, 'Oh, don't, Mr. Gillespie!'-like that-and Jane she said, 'It's my father, Hu

do anything-

t when we all got out, and they was sayun' he said, 'Go with your earthly father; your heavenly

lespie say a

ly broke off, "some of us believers was talkun' it over, when we started home, and wonderun' what ought we to call him. Jest Dylks don

I should call him Beelzebub, myself; but then I'm not a believer. That n

that was for the

n himself an

ll,

uld let it

do; or Brother Dylks, wouldn't. Fath

is pipe-stem, and now Sally perceived that it was in v

ewise from the porch, and flopped away on the road. Then she stopped,

good o

e. That's what most of

name for them that l

us the Lit

ll! Geese

to the Herd of the Lost, anyway. Th

Well, now I will be

ally now flopped definit

but when his wife, after waiting for her to be q

u of the goings on at

t had to come to something like that. It

arrel much about doctrine. Now with the Dylksites driving the old-fashioned believers out of the sanctuary and dedicating it to the exclusive worship of Dylks, the other denominations are going to fight among themselves; and there'll be no living with them. And that isn't the worst of it. This new d

make 'em," Mrs.

f theirs is a handsome devil, and some poor fool of a girl, or some bigg

Well, you can't help it by

r girl? Which bigger fool? And nothing can be done to prevent it! The Real God put it into human nature, and all Hell couldn't stop it