THE "PAINTER" IN THE PIG PEN. 233 



THE PANTHEK. 



" I was livin' that year on the coast, purty nigh St. Augustine. 

 It was late in the year and the night was oncommon dark — wall, 

 it was — and the wind roared ugly. Yer could hear the trees 

 smashin' up in the woods every five minutes when it buckled to a 

 little extry, and when yer put yer head out o' the door, as I did 

 once in a bit to see, you couldn't have seen Talyhasse Capitol 

 House ef you had rubbed your nose agin' it. The big breakers 

 were poundin' 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 own wife than a-roosting all night in the open 

 range, as I had bin 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 stayed 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 Eev. Eliakim Smith, M.D. M.D. stood for 

 Medicine 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 rabbin' 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-rubbin' 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 fancied I heerd a painter screech. I was 

 to hum in a minnit. ' Holy Moses ! ' sez I. The Doctor hadn't 

 heerd the painter, so he thought I was getting grace, and he right 

 away buckled into me with all sorts of Bible sayin's, and my wife 

 jined in, but I just riz up and went to the cabin wall, where there 

 was a little winder that I had cut to look out toward the woods. 



