The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1905-12-29

erS, CAME In, 6N1cker1ng, ana sat DOWN
on the reserved seats in front of the
little pulpit, improvised from the bar
rels the elephants stand on, and some
of them laughed and said: Hello,
Bill" and "Ah, there!" and Get on to
his collar" and a lot of other thiEgs.
The little husky preacher had Sal
walton Army girl to play the melodeon,
and he didn't take any notice of the
remarks the boys made, except to set
his jaws together and moisten his lips.
Finally they were all seated, and he
got up to open the services, when a
big canvasman, regular Smart Aleck,
got up on seat and said: "Pardner,
how you going to open this jack pot?"
The crowd laughed and the preacher
pulled his long blue gun up out OF his
pocket, and laid it on the barrel, and
then picked it up and pointed it at the
big canvasman and said: This game
is going to oe opened with this hand,
seven of a Kind, all As caliber, dunn
dunn bullets, and unless you sit down
quick l will send mess of bullets into
your carcass right where your heart
ought to be. If you open your mouth
again before say 'amen!' real loud at
the close of the services, l will shoot
all your front teeth out. Do you COM
prehend? If so, be seated"
The big fellow dropped on to the
blue seat, as though he had been hit
with a piledriver, and the crowd was
so tickled to have the bully's bluff
called, that they cheered the preacher.
Then he said: I'VE will now open this
jack pot with singing and I shall keep
one eye on the gentleman who was
last up, but who is now seated pretty
low down."
You could have heard a pin drop.
The preacher wiped his face calmly,
and said: 1--WE will now sing and ex-
pect every man will sing, and to that
end will appoint Big Ike, who asked
me how l was going to open this jack
pot, to come down in front of the seats
and lead in the singing, for 1 know
by his voice, which 1 heard in debate,
that he is a crackerjack," and the
preacher took hold of the handle of the
blue gun and Big Ike walked down
through the rows of seats, and as the
melodeon began to squawk, Ike got
down in front of the audience, and
some of the boys said: Bully for you,
Ike" and after scratching his head a
minute Ike turned and walked to-
wards the preacher, at the edge of
the ring, and thought there was 60
70 hn fho foh noC
as the preacher reached for the gun /
crawled under the seat, and neeked out
between the legs of fat man, but Ike
walked up to the minister and said,
as the melodeon began to cough.
Boys, this tune is on Ike" He started
it and every man sang.
When it was ended the boys clapped
and stamped for an encore, and they
sang it through again, and the face of
the preached beamed with JOY, and I
saw there was not going to be any
fight and crawled out from under the
seats.
Pa came in the tent just then, with
a new suit Of clothes on, having been
discharged from the hospital as cured
of yellow fever, and 1 gave him my
seat, and he held me in his lap.
The preacher then preached sermon
that did them all good. He dwelt upon
the hard life of the Snowman, and gave
them such good advice that when it
was all over and he said he wanted to
shake hands with every man in the
bunch, Ike marshaled them all up to
the ring and introduced them, and no
minister ever was more cordially con-
graduated, and they wanted him to
go along with the show, and preach ev-
cry Sunday.
The preacher said he couldn't join
the show, but he travelled around a
good deal and he would probably be
in the same town with the show sew
eral times during the summer and he
would drop in on them occasionally
and keep them straight.
Pa was watching the crowd for
the sailor who prescribes cayenne
pepper for yellow fever, and when
he saw the sailor come up to the
minister, with tears in his eyes, and say
''Parson, l has been a bad man and
killed man once, but he was Portu-
guese sailor, and he had the drop on me,
the same as you did on Big Ike at the
opening of these proceedings, and had
to kill him. And I begs the pardon of
this old gentleman for lying to him.
And then pa shook hands with the
sailor and the parson, and the parson
put his blue gun down his trousers leg,
and said: "By the way, the bulldog
you were going to let take lunch off
me, is he all right?"
Then the parson and the girl went
away, and the boys carried out the
melodeon, and the quarantine was de-
clared off. After dinner the boys
took down the tents and put them on
the train that Sunday afternoon, sing
ing decent songs as they pulled up the
stakes and rolled up the canvas, and
on the train, late in the night, we
could hear "Old Hundred" being sung
as the cars ran through the pennyrial
district Of Indiana.