Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-20
THE HEALING SPRINGS
Continued to~pz
Continued from, page 4

walked slowly over and stood looking at his
victim for sometime without speaking. The
evangelist eyes dropped and gTaynesS stole
over his features. This steely calm even
more frightening than the ferocity which had
been in his captor's face. At length the tense
silence was broken.
Wasn't the old game good enough, Was
it PLAYED out Why did you take to this?
Why did you do it, Scranton
The voice quavered a little in reply Il
don't know. Something sort of pushed me
into it.
How did you come to start it
There was long silence; then the husky
reply came, 81 got sickener last time
Yes | remember, at Waywing.
sc got into the desert and had hard times.
awful for awhile. hadn't enough to eat, and
didn't know whether d die by hunger or fever
or Indians snakes.
'Oh, you were seeing snakes" said Tim
grimly.
Not the kind YOU mean; hadn't anything
to drink"
No, you never did drink, I remember
just was crooked and stopped over women.
Well, about the snakes!
g | caught them to eat, and they were poison
snakes often. And | wasn't quick at first to
get them safe by the neck-they're quick too,
Tim laughed inwardly Getting your food
by the sweat of your brow-and a snake in it
too same as Adam. Well, was it in the desert
you got your taste for honey too, same as John
the Baptist that was his name if recomem-
ground.
mot in the desert. but when I got to the
grass country
How long Were you in the DESERT"
CLOSE to a year.
Tins eyes opened wider He saw that the
man was speaking the truth. Got to thinking
in the desert. and sort of willing things to come
to pass, and incoming along. you and the sky
and the vultures and the hot hills and the
snakes and the flowers, EN-?
There weren't any flowers till | got to the
grass country.
oh cuss me if you aren't simple for your
kind l know all about that And when you
got to the grass country, you Just picked up the
honey and the flowers and a calf and lamb
and mule here and there. without money and
without price, and walked on. That it?
The other shrank before the steel in the
voice and nodded his head.
But YOU kept thinking in the grass country
of what YOU felt and said and done and willed
in the desert, / suppose?
Again the other nodded.
1T seemed to you in the desert as If you'd
saved YOUR own life hundred times, as if you'd
just willed food and drink and safety to come,
as if Providence had been at your elbow!"
1T was like a dream; and it stayed with
me, and had to think in the desert things I'd
never thought before was the half distracted
answer.
You felt good in the desert1"
The other hung his head in shame
Makes you seem pretty small doesn't it!
You didn't stay long enough, guess, to get
what you were feeling for; you started in on
the new racket too soon. You never got really
possessed that you was sinner. expect
that it,
The other made no reply.
well, l don't know much about such
things | was loose brought up: but I've a
friend" Laura swan before his eyes, that
says religions all right, and long ago as can
remember my mother used to pray three times
day, with grace at meals too. know there's
a lot in it for those that need it. and there
seems to be lot of folks needing it, if I'm to
judge by them down there at Jansen, specially
when there's the laying of hands and the
Healing Springs. Oh. that was pig sty game,
Scranton, that about God giving you the
Healing Springs, like Moses and the rock!
Why, I discovered them springs myself two
years before l went South, and l guess God
wasn't helping me any, not after I've kept out
of His way as have. But anyhow religion s
real, that S my sense of it. And you can get it,
l bet, if you try. I've seen it got. A friend of
mine got it, got it under your preaching-not
from you-but you was the accident that
brought it about, | expect. It's funny, it's
merakious, but it's so. Kneel DOWN. he
added with peremptory suddenness. "Kneel,
Scranton!'
In fear the other knelt.
You're going to get religion nowhere.
You're going to pray for what you didn't get
and almost got in the desert. You're going
to ask forgiveness for all your damn tricks and