The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-05-30
Select Storp.
How the Church was Built at KGhOG'S Bar.
BY JOHN BENNETT.

hoes Bar-and such men with cold,
unrecking eyes, brown, tough, creased and
year-singed faces; hard as stone through
their matted boards, and harder still with
out those tangled screens, in many cases
grown to shield from eyes that never came,
but which dare not be met.
There were two hundred woman at ke-
hoes Bar-and such women of them the
least said, soonest forgiven.
In usual communities the better half
looks askance at the worse, fears, shudders
and condemns.
But things were different at Kehoes.
The rough, bluff and tough little Sodom
never had better half, but brawled and
cursed within itself, and grubbed and
fought the gritty sands without, year after
year, in all the pristine wickedness of its
bachelorhood of vice.
There was no church at Kehoe's Bar.
No Westinghouse but "Pursell's Chap
el"-mining-town sarcasm, that-Pursell's s,
where none but heather gods might claim
their devotees; drunken Bacchus, tinseled
Venus, and blear-eyed god of war, to end
the drunken orgies ofthe waning night and
add one more sunken spot to the struggling
row on the hill beyond the bar.
And there was no church at Kehoe's.
A tall, spare man, with deeply earnest
eyes and long black coat had once sternly
denounced the sins of the Kehoites, right
under their sharp or ruby noses, as the
case might be, and in their wolfsh faces
had warned the yelling citizens of the wrath
to come, and to flee while yet there was
time.
Punishment condign had no fears for
them. They floutcd him and secuted him.
They laughed the gray-haired man to scorn,
and drove him from the town with curses.
The "Vigilance Committee" cut off the
tails of his long black coat, daubed him
with mud, and warned him with worse.
Bewildered and bruised, he went away.
Bacchus, Venus and Mars resumed their
mutual sway, and Kehoe's was its strag-
Cling, wolish self once more.
Yet here again "the diggins" were in an
uproar and dumbfounded with sheer amaze.
Another gospel sharp" had dared show
himself at Kehoe's
And, what was more and "tarnally wuss,
between the pines, by Pursell's, tapped and
tautened broad, white sheet announcing
in bold capitals a religious service there
that evening.
They all came down to see the fun.
Tall, stumpy, fat and hungry. Grim in
their likeness to the wilderness from which
they tore their livelihood Fearless and
contemptuous alike of God, or man, OF
devil. A swearing, roaring mob, stained
with clay, tobacco, rum and sin-the last
thicker and more palpable than all the
rest.
Across the stumps was nailed plank,
and upon this whip-sawed platform before
them, stood the gospel sharp" young,
slender, steady y-eyed, his yellow hair thrown
carelessly back.
A short blue coat and flannel shirt, a
belt and faded trousers-a disappearing
growl showed how unwillingly the crowd
were balked of their expected ridicule OF
dingy sacerdotal sable and long cloth tails.
There was a moment or so of anticipa-
tory calm. The frank blue eyes of the
young missionary gauged the homogeneous
ly motley crowd; then turned upon the
hanging sign and read, in silent emphasis
of its declaration; then turned calmly to
the elbowing crowd A pair of hands
rested carelessly upon flexible hips. The
silence was complete He spoke, low but
firmly:
81 have come to build church at Ke
hoes Bar p
No minstrel premier ever more convulsed
an appreciatiye audience with comic
yarn. Such screams of laughter and hoarse
wheops of mirth. OF all ridiculous things
they had dreamed, this was the richest. A
church at Kehoe's Kehoe's children
roared amain. Out of it all arose cleal
tenor voice. With unfincling gaze and
earnest smile, the young minister was sing,
ing, singing until the wild, derisive how
died down through exhaustion and they
listened again. This was novelty. Sweet
and strong rang out the young, clear voice
The ursine crowd almost forgot they came
to revile, in the unexpected
''Sweet By-and-By' was a Eew song to
them, and good voice precious rarity in
their bacchanals; but ''sweet" and "beau,
tiful' were too effeminate words for the
crude vocabulary of Kehoe's Bar. They
struck no sympathetic chord The "by-
and-by" had no sweets for those warped
natures-their sieved, Graded, greed
washed, blood-splashed shores were all but
beautiful, and the murmur Of adverse
intent bubbled up anew. The singer paused
a moment, irresoiute, his eyes wandering
above the passion-tossed human waves be-
fore and around him, with their ironical
murmurs, aggressive front and nervous
movement. He had thought to speak, but
words failed him, now, at his need. Stretch
ing out his hands almost appealingly, the
silence became as that before storm.
He gazed out over the muddy stream
into the last radiance of the dying day,
lighting his pleading face and golden hair,
and sung with thrill of yearning that
wondrous prayer-song:
"Jesns, lover ofmy soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is nigh.
There was a sharp, agonized cry in the
crowd-a struggle fight ?-no-an her
culean gold-washer, wild and unkempt,
,yrancbad his vav tbrouob the svavino