"No, I ain't a believer in that enthoosiastic sense that fights its
way to the mourner's bench an' manifests itse'f with groans that
daunts hoot-owls into silence. Thar don't appear many preachers out
West in my day. Now an' then one of these yere divines, who's got
strayed or drifted from his proper range, comes buttin' his way into
Wolfville an' puts us up a sermon, or a talkee-talkee. In sech
events we allers listens respcetful, an' when the contreebution box
shows down, we stakes 'em on their windin' way; but it's all as much
for the name of the camp as any belief in them ministrations doin'
local good. Shore! these yere sky-scouts is all right at that. But
Wolfville's a hard, practical outfit, what you might call a heap
obdurate, an' it's goin' to take more than them fitful an'
o'casional sermons I alloodes to, a hour long an' more'n three
months apart on a av'rage, to reach the roots of its soul. When I
looks back on Peets an' Enright, an' Boggs an' Tutt, an' Texas
Thompson an' Moore, an' Cherokee, to say nothin' of Colonel Sterett,
an' recalls their nacheral obstinacy, an' the cheerful conceit
wherewith they adheres to their systems of existence, I realizes
that them ordinary, every-day pulpit utterances of the sort that
saves an' satisfies the East, would have about as much ser'ous
effect on them cimmaron pards of mine as throwin' water on a drowned
rat.
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