Then things got started. McSween give a nod to the virtues and brung his hands down to make a big swelling ripple of sound that builds and builds then turns into a tune which is “Three Kings of Eastern Lands.” The virtues opened their mouths and out come the song, clear and true, and everyone drunk it in it’s so lovely to hear, and when it’s done they slid right into “Shining Star of Bethlehem,” then followed up with “The Old Rugged Cross.” It ain’t like other meetings where folks join in and sing along. Here they just stood and listened all openmouthed at the beautifulness of it, not wanting to drown out the virtues with their own voices, but I reckon that’ll change later on when they get loosened up. They done a couple more hymns then finished up with “The Walls of Jericho.”
There’s silence after the calliope dies away, then the flap got lifted and in come Mordecai and started up the pulpit steps. He’s all in black as usual and his hand is chalk white against the Bible he’s carrying. His jaw is smooth and white from shaving and his hair’s all slicked back over his collar. He took up his place and laid his Bible down slow and deliberate, then he looks out at the congregation, just boring into them with his eyes. They was all atremble with eagerness waiting for him to start, but he let them wait till you could of heard a mouse break wind.
Then he lifted his hand up slow till it’s high as he can reach, then clenches it and bang! down it comes onto the Book, and I learned where that name Bible-puncher comes from.
“Who among you is without sin!” he roars.
No one owned up and he leaned forward and glared at them, swinging his head left and right, then he hollers:
“Nay, not one, for you are all accursed in the sight of the Lord! Each and every miserable sinner here is vile and corrupt and putrid with transgression and digression from the paths of righteousness! Let no man deny it lest he bring the wrath of God down upon his shameful head!”
“Amen!” shouts someone in the crowd, and Mordecai goes on:
“You that are tillers of the earth! You that are dwellers in the town! You that are travelers-by! You are each and every one without exception bound for the flames of Hell! Not one will escape Satan’s fiery grasp unless …” and he stops with a finger raised, “unless ye do repent! Repent of your sins! Repent of your godless ways! Repent of the times without number you have turned your head from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Almighty!”
“Amen!” from the crowd, this time louder.
Mordecai points his finger and sweeps his hand across them.
“You are all fallen from virtue! Lost to the sight of the Lord! Loathsome and vile! Rudderless ships upon a sea of Satanic darkness! Blind worms writhing in torment of your own making! You have chosen to ignore the teachings of Jesus! Turned your backs upon His divine message! Fallen into the arms of imps and demons! You have wallowed in the mire of greed and corruption and fleshly lusts! You have embraced the doctrine of the devil! You have tarnished your immortal souls and followed the left-hand path away from the shining light of the Lord! You tremble at the very brink of the fiery pit! Before you is pain everlasting lest you turn back to Jesus!”
“Amen!” they shout, and there’s a woman whimpering somewhere, getting in the mood. Mordecai lifts both arms and stares at the roof.
“But all is not lost! For if you turn away from darkness and heed the light that beckons, ye shall yet be saved!”
“Amen!” they howl, and there’s a sprinkling of “Hallelujahs!” in there too. Their heads was bobbing around and their shoulders twitching, and Mordecai knowed he’s got them on the hook.
“Reach into your hearts and cast out the demon that lurketh within! Turn upon Satan and smite him with all your strength! Pray for salvation! Beg the Lord’s forgiveness for your sins! He will take you unto His bosom and bathe you in the blood of the Lamb! He will heal you! He will give you strength to resist the odious gifts of Satan! He will bind your wounds and make you whole! He will forgive your godlessness and take you under his mighty wing! He will deliver you from the hopeless torment and misery in which you dwell! He will render you as newborn babes if you will accept His divine will and repent! Now is the time! Now, while Satan’s grasp is weakened! Come to the Lord! Let Him wash away your sin and transgressions! Come out of the darkness and into the light! Come, you that have drained the jug of alcoholic indulgence and found only sorrow therein! Come, you who have blighted the Lord’s name with profanity! Come, you that have lusted after another man’s wife! Come, you who have lain with the beasts of the field! Come to Jesus and be saved!”
McSween starts in with the calliope and him and the virtues flung theirselfs into “Promised Land of Jordan.” This time the whole congregation joined in, and you never heard such a braying and bellowing, but the virtues held their own, jacking their voices up a couple of notches, and McSween near jammed his fingers through the keys he’s so caught up in the music. Mordecai waved his arms around in time with the tune and when the song was done he went right back tonguelashing the flock, kind of grinding them down to mush so’s to scoop them up again into the arms of Jesus. It was a powerful sight to see. He done things with his eyes and voice that would of took an army otherwise. He could make them shout and sing and weep and wail. He could make them howl like dogs. I reckon if he told them to go set fire to their homes for the glory of the Lord they would of stampeded to do it without no hesitation. Finally he tells anyone that truly wants to be saved to come on out front and get it done here and now, and they just swarmed to the pulpit, on their knees mostly and trampling over each other in the rush to get there first, screeching and crying for salvation and forgiveness. McSween and the virtues kept on pumping out hymn after hymn while Mordecai come down from the pulpit and took hold of the nearest sinner by the hair.
“Do you repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your savior?”
“I do!” shouts a farmer, and Mordecai draws back his hand and slaps him hard across the cheek and hollers:
“Out with you, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ!”
He flung the saved sinner to one side and went on to the next and done the exact same thing then moved on again. He even done it to the women, slapped them just as hard as the men, and they never flinched. There’s one lady I seen come back three times just to make sure Satan’s well and truly cast out of her. Mordecai slapped and hollered his way across the tent and back again. He slapped all of them and it took some considerable time, and when he’s near done and his slaps was getting weakish the virtues brung the last hymn to a close and snuck out under the flap, but McSween played on. There’s wisps of steam coming out of the pipes and drifting across all them redeemed sinners on their knees till there’s a regular fog in there, with all the music and screaming running through it jumbled up and making you feel like the end of the world is come at last like the Book says it will.
Then I seen the men was leaving in ones and twos, but not the women; they’re singing along with McSween as he lets fly with “Shall We Gather at the River,” all of them redfaced from slapping and walking on their knees. The men kept on leaving and pretty soon the tent was only half full, all of them women. It was mighty peculiar and I got a burning curiousness on it. No one seen me whip around outside the tent to the front, where I’m just in time to see the last man leave. I followed him around the field to where there’s a bunch of men stood between the wagons tilting a bottle, maybe looking for the sorrow that lurketh within.
“Are them first few done yet?” says one.
“They’re gettin’ done fast as they can,” says another.
“I’m the impatient kind,” says the first.
“Well there’s a knothole in this here wagon you kin put it to.”
They all laughed and tilted the bottle some more, then someone says:
“Which one you wanter have, Ray?”
“I reckon any one ’cept for that peabrain,” says Ray.
“Whyn’t you just cover her head with a sack,” says another, and they laughed some more. None of it made
sense but it give me a notion the virtues is part of it, so I legged it over to the McSween wagons. There’s at least fifty men stood around and Ma’s kind of standing guard over the wagons and taking money off anyone that come near. Then I seen a man come out of one wagon and a second or three later another man come out of another wagon and they both walked away. Then a man come out of Ma and Pa’s wagon, and three men that just give Ma their money strolled over and went one apiece into the wagons, and a minute later other men come out and others went in, just like you see them do in public relief places where there’s three and more holes to use, only they can’t be going in the wagons for that on account of there’s a whole field to get reliefed in.
I circled around cautious and come up on the wagons from the other side, and this close I can hear noises and voices inside. More men come down the little steps at the end of each wagon and their places got took inside by them that’s waiting. I never did hear good enough to know what they done in there; McSween was still playing hymns and the women in the tent still singing along, but whatever it was it never took very long because here’s more stepping down and stepping up, and I wonder where the virtues are, seeing as there ain’t hardly enough room in there for all of them men and the virtues too.
There’s a rustling beside me and it’s the pinhead. She’s spying too, with a big idiot grin on her face. Then she giggled and it give me the feeling we was doing something wrong, so I went back to the tent where Jim is still tending the calliope’s firebox and told him what I seen. He wiped his brow and put his hand on my shoulder and says:
“Huck, you looks up to dem girls, ain’t it so?”
“I reckon I do. They’re friendly as can be.”
“Das it, Huck. Dey real friendly, an’ not jest wid you. I heard men talkin’ das walkin’ by an’ I knows how come dey goin’ insider de wagons.”
“Well, why?”
“De girls is in dere too, Huck.”
“They can’t be. There ain’t room enough.”
“If’n you stacks cordwood one on topper de nex’ you kin make room.”
“I just wish I knowed what it is you’re saying, Jim.”
“Dey whores, Huck, all ’cept de pinhead chile.”
“Whores?”
“Ain’t nothin’ else to call ’em, Huck. Dey jest whores.”
“But they’re real religious, Jim,” says I, and he shakes his head.
“Fac’s is fac’s, Huck. De men payin’ money an’ goin in de wagons to do fornicaterin’. Ain’t no way you kin get aroun’ it.”
“But Reverend Mordecai’s in there preaching about how big a sin it is to lust after the flesh and such, and he’s down hard on drinking too, and them that’s waiting is all liquored up. And don’t them women wonder where their husbands got to? It don’t make no kind of sense, Jim.”
“I cain’t hardly figure it neither, Huck. I only knows we workin’ for a cathouse on wheels.”
I never wanted to believe it so I snuck back over to the wagons and watched some more, and now Jim’s explanated it to me I can see he’s right. The McSweens treated me and Jim fair and was generally fine company, but now I know the true way of it, and it’s like reaching into one of them fancy ribboned candy boxes to pull out something sweet and your fingers wrap around a dead rat full of maggots.
I went over to the trees and lit my pipe to give the matter consideration, and by and by I got to smiling on it, one of them crooked ones you smile when you see the joke’s on you. It’s a feeling I reckernized from other times before this, when big expecterations come crashing down and all you can do is ask why you was sap-head enough to have them expecterations anyway.
I stayed over there till the last man was done and Ma went over to the tent, I reckon to give Pa McSween the nod. He finished the hymn he’s on and the meeting was over. The women come out and went to the wagons where all the men was waiting for them and there was noise aplenty as they all went home, with one fight when two wagons locked wheels and the drivers both blamed each other for it. Then the last one rattled across the field and away down the road and it’s quiet again. Ma got a fire started and the virtues come out for food. I felt ashamed to be with them, then my belly growled some so I swallered my pride as they say, and followed up with stew and fried bread. The virtues stood around kind of weary looking, back in their regular clothes and their hair all mussed. Hope says:
“Did you enjoy the meeting, Tom?”
“It come as a powerful surprise,” says I, not lying.
That got them started on which songs went over best and who hit the wrong note in “Jerusalem the Golden” and such, never a mention about what they done after. You would of thought they was all sweet and innocent and not whores at all, and Ma looks like a Ma should, big and warmhearted, and McSween don’t look like no cruel whoremaster, and Mordecai looks thin and wasted and stern enough to be a saint just back from forty days in the wilderness. But it’s all counterfeit.
I helped Jim dump the ashes from the calliope, then we turned in. It’s kind of empty in the wagon with no folded up tent to lie on and I must of tossed and turned considerable because Jim says:
“How you feel, Huck?”
“I’m poorly, I reckon.”
“You got de misery?”
“A heap of it. Why do folks always let a body down, Jim?”
“I don’ rightly know, Huck. ’Pears to me dey’s mostly made dat way. It don’ do no good to wonder why. Ain’t nothin you kin do ’cept let it roll off’n you.”
“I just wish sometimes there was things I can depend on and never get into disappointment over. I reckon there ain’t one solid fixed thing in the world. Even them things that look it is quicksilver underneath.”
“I reckon you kin depend on me, Huck, an’ me on you.”
There’s quiet for a spell, then I say:
“You’re right, Jim. We’d never have nothing at all without we had each other.”
And knowing it let me give myself over to sleep.
Next day was a late sleeper for everyone, and the tent was all took down and folded and stowed away in the afternoon. When it’s done McSween come over to me and says:
“Tom, let’s you and me go for a stroll together. There’s things to discuss between us.”
So we walked a little way and he put his hand on my shoulder like he’s my uncle or something and started off the talking.
“Tom, I guess your mind is filled with questions. You must of seen things last night that have started you thinking. Would I be right?”
“Yessir, I reckon so.”
“This will need understanding beyond your years, Tom, but I’ll take the chance you’ve got just that. It all began many years ago when our baby daughter died. Yes, for a brief moment of time there was an eighth virtue. Modesty was her name. She died of diphtheria and Ma and me were terrible sad about it, coming hard on the heels of Chastity, who’s a retardee. We prayed for enlightenment, but it was Mordecai who gave us the answer. He had suffered a recent loss himself. His beloved church in Deer Falls, Ohio, was taken from him after he was accused of a crime he did not commit. Can you imagine the effect that would have upon an innocent man?”
“I reckon I could.”
“Well, there we were, the most miserable family on the face of the earth. I was in disemployment too, you understand, being the organist in the aforementioned church. Mordecai led us all in prayer and gave us the answer, and it was to travel across the country as a family devoted to the word of God. We used up our last cent to buy wagons and off we went. But it was awful hard, Tom. There are tent meetings by the score, and why should folks flock to one rather than another? You must have something which makes you stand out from the rest. You can’t feed a family on an ailing business. The Lord’s word can only rise up from your throat if there’s food going down. Then Ma, who had a checkered career before I married her, came up with the answer, the answer you witnessed last night. And lo, we prospered! There was only Faith, Hope and Charity at first,
then Mercy, Constance and Grace got old enough to join in. We prospered so much I bought us the calliope to round out the choir singing and after that nothing could hold us back. That is how we came to be where and what we are today. The Lord has seen fit to bless our little enterprise, proof positive that we have chosen the correct way to spread the gospel among His flock.”
“Do Faith and Hope and them like being whores?” I ask, and his face clouded over.
“Never, never use that word,” he says. “My beloved daughters are Brides of Christ, no less, and devoted to his service. You see, Tom, it is easy to get women into a congregation since they have a natural need for comfort and solace, their lives generally being filled with hardship and pain. One of these burdens is the attentions thrust upon them by their husbands at night. Any relief they can get from that particular burden is welcome, only it must not come from the kind of person you just now mentioned. No indeed, it must come in the guise of holy work, and the McSween Brides of Christ provide such relief. The topic is never discussed openly by either spouse, but after any tent meeting it’s natural for men to go outside on their own and drink to the glory of the Lord, and this is what their wives have agreed among themselves to believe, that their men are outside simply drinking. Not one woman dares speak the bald truth to her neighbor since the neighbor would then be obliged to call her a lying troublemaker, or else agree and admit to turning a blind eye herself. It’s a mighty fine arrangement for all concerned, the perfect all-round solution, and there are long-term benefits too. Since the men are happier for having lain with a woman other than their wives, and the women are happier for having been spared their marital duty, the marriage, which—who knows—may have hit upon stony ground, is rekindled anew in this time of mutual happiness. Yes, I sincerely believe we play our part in holding together the sacred institution of marriage. Have I made things clear to you, my boy?”