330 WILD SPOETS IN THE SOUTH. 



yer put yer head out o' the door, as I did once in a hit to 

 see, you couldn't have seen Talyhasse Capitol House ef 

 you had rubhed your nose agin it. The big breakers 

 were poundm' on the bar, and yer could see 'em one by 

 one whare they struck, for the phosper lit 'em up like 

 blue paint. We had a screechin' fire in the chimney, 

 and it was right good to look at. The old woman was 

 a-mending clothes in the corner, and I thought it war a 

 cussed sight better bein' a home body and turnin' in by 

 the side of one's o^ai wife than a-roosting all night in the 

 open range, as I had bein' a-doin' for a month back. 



" Parson Smith war thar, too ; he had dropped in goin' 

 up to Pelatky on a revival trip, and seein' the blow 

 comin' on staid all night, and he was talkin' religion to 

 Marthy by the fire, drying himself and convartin' a soul 

 both ter once. Parson Smith was a likely man and a 

 rael talker. They called him Doctor, and he wrote his 

 name Pev. Eliakim Smith, M.D. M.D. stood for Medi- 

 cine Doctor, though that war somethin' of a lie, for he 

 war a horse-doctor before he took to religion, and he had 

 a kind of oily way of rubbin' his hands down his legs as 

 he sat by the fire and talked away that would take the 

 spavin right out of a woman, and convart her in two- 

 forty. 



" Wall, there he sat a-rubbm away and watchin' the 

 taters roastin' in the ashes and the bacon frying in the 

 pan, and talkin' of Election and Delilah, and them other 

 holy women folks in the Bible, till I begun to feel holy 

 myself, and thought I was in the land o» Canaan, when I 



