so on.  That didn’t seem no cure for me, I went to a revival over at Clifty.  Well, ’twarn’t no use.  First night they was a man that spoke about Jesus Christ in sech a way that I wanted to foller him everywhere.  But I didn’t feel fit.  Next night I come back with my mind made up that I’d try Jesus Christ, and see ef he’d have me.  But laws! they was a big man that night that preached hell.  Not that I don’t believe they’s a hell.  They’s plenty not a thousand miles away as deserves it, and I don’t know as I’m too good for it myself.  But he pitched it at us, and stuck it in our faces in sech a way that I got mad.  And I says, Well, ef God sends me to hell he can’t make me holler ’nough nohow.  You see my dander was up.  And when my dander’s up, I wouldn’t gin up fer the devil his-self.  The preacher was so insultin’ with his way of doin’ it.  He seemed to be kind of glad that we was to be damned, and he preached somethin’ like some folks swears.  It didn’t sound a bit like the Christ the little man preached about the night afore.  So what does me and a lot of fellers do but slip out and cut off the big preacher’s stirrups, and hang ’em on to the rider of the fence, and then set his hoss loose!  And from that day, sometimes I did, and sometimes I didn’t, want to be better.  And to-day it seemed to me that you must know somethin’ as would help me.”

Nothing is worse than a religious experience kept ready to be exposed to the gaze of everybody, whether the time is appropriate or not.  But never was a religious experience more appropriate than the account which Ralph gave to Bud of his Struggle in the Dark.  The confession of his weakness and wicked selfishness was a great comfort to Bud.

“Do you think that Jesus Christ would—­would—­well, do you think he’d help a poor, unlarnt Flat Cricker like me?”

“I think he was a sort of a Flat Creeker himself,” said Ralph, slowly and very earnestly.

“You don’t say?” said Bud, almost getting off his seat.

“Why, you see the town he lived in was a rough place.  It was called Nazareth, which meant ‘Bush-town.’”

“You don’t say?”

“And he was called a Nazarene, which was about the same as ‘backwoodsman.’”

And Ralph read the different passages which he had studied at Sunday-school, illustrating the condescension of Jesus, the stories of the publicans, the harlots, the poor, who came to him.  And he read about Nathanael, who lived only six miles away, saying, ’Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’”

“Jus’ what Clifty folks says about Flat Crick,” broke in Bud.

“Do you think I could begin without being baptized?” he added presently.

“Why not?  Let’s begin now to do the best we can, by his help.”

“You mean, then, that I’m to begin now to put in my best licks for Jesus Christ, and that he’ll help me?”