Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1883 — THE DEACONS’ QUARREL. [ARTICLE]

THE DEACONS’ QUARREL.

Rose Teny Cooke in Detroit Free Press. “Did you ever hear tell about Deacon Tanner’s quarrel with Deacon Twist, Joshuay?” “No; I dono as I ever did.” “Ye see, Deacon Tanner was real pious, but bis natur was dreadful arbitrary. He bed naturally an all-fired disposition; high and mighty as though he was a British lord, and when he got mad I tell ye lie was mad—no half-way covenant to him.| “He knowed it himself, and he fit with it night and day, for he was honest pious and it done him good inwardly to have a real set-to with the Old Adam now and then. “Natur is natnr, and the devil in him bein set to be made over into a saint, felt a kind o’ material comfort in fightin’ the devil outside of him. Leastways that’s the way he figured it, and was forever aprayin’ and a-tellin’ in meetin’ about the conflicts and victories and each like. “For my part I don't hold that b’liel I think a man’s got good an’ bad both inside of him without goin’ abroad "to find fightin’. I think we’ve got plenty inwardness to wrastle with, and to use up all the we’ve got a subduin’ of it; but that ain’t here nor there. The deacon was an honest man an’ .he thought different; but whatsoever he thought, I tell ye he done about the right thing, gener’ly. “Well, Deacon Twist he was another Bort; took fire quicker’n a spruce bough and didn’t last no longer; blazed away jest birch-bark fashion all of a minit, and in half an hour he’d be just like a cosset lamb, and orful sorry that he’d give way. “But he kep’givin’vtey and repentin’ some like Peter in the Bible. But he was a real good man—they was good as gold, both on ’em. “Now Deaoon Tanner,he'd set up a saw mill down in Nepash Brook, and he done sawin’ for everybody round. ’Twas new -country then, and he had lots o’ business, so he kinder made a iowl that fust come was fust served, and kept the names of them that was promised in the list, right along as they oame, chalked up on a board in the mill. , “1 had ought to hev said that he and Deaoon Twist was real friendly—both being deacons of Chester meetin’, always agoing to funerals and prayer meetin’s and school-us meetin’s togetaer, till folks kinder give a skit at ’em now and then, and some called ’em David and Jonathan. “Well, it came about one time that deacon Twist wanted some logs sawed to cover his new barn. His turn to have ’em sawed come a Thursday morn in’, and deacon Tanner he wascn hand real early so’s to get al\ set to rights afore work begun. “Jest as he’d got the saw iled an’ things 'bleared up, who should come a-tuggin’ an’ a-toilin’ up the hill with a load o’ logs, but Rod Garrett, from Goshen.

“ ‘Deacon,’ sea he, Tm in a real fix. The’ was a dredfnl blow over t’ our town last evenin’, some folks called it a hurricane—but anyway it hurried off the root o’ my house, and flung it against that mighty big rock in the lot behind, and smashed it into kindlin’ wood.’ “ T hadn’t a board on the farm,’ he ses, ‘nor I couldn’t get one, and Sary’s down with long complaint, and baby’s got a spell of throat aiL I dono how to wait till I get that roof kivered ag’in. A rain ettin’in would jest kill’em; and 1 put to afore daylight, and I’ve drawed these logs over, a-hopin’ to get ’em eawdd afoie - anybody comes.’ ) “ ‘Well, Rodney, ses the deacon, kind of slow, as though he was considerin’, Tve promised Nathaniel Twist for to saw his logs this mornin’, and I’d like to keep to my word.’ “ T don’t believe but what he'd wait for me es he knowed,’ said Rod. It’s a hind Of extremity I’m in, as ye might say. Ijm extreme anxious to get them boards right off I feel to b'lieve that Deacon Twist would let me do’t es he was here. He’s a pious man and a merciful man. I

guess Td r.esk it es I was you, Deacon Tanner.’ “ ‘Wei', Rodney,’sea the deacon, fit does seem to be a work of necessity. I guess I'll try it; you dump them logs and we’ll set her a goin.’ “So be’n his hired man they got a log onto the slide, and Rod Garrett and ) his brother who came with him they onyoked the cattle an’ put ’em under a tree to cool off. Then they stood around to see the machine, and lo you! they hadn’t hauled off more’n half a d< zen boards when they heered Deacon Twist a-hawin’ and a gssin to his big pair o’ Devon cattle on the turn o’ the hill. “I dono as Deacon Tanner heered him, an’ I dono but he did; anyway he didn’t stop, he kept the old saw a-goin, and when Deacon Twist drove up his load o’ logs there was the slide full an a heap more t j put on to it. “He was mad! He roared out quicker'n you could say Jack Robinson: “‘Whose be them logs? Haul’em off, I tell ye! It’s my turn to hev the saw, an’ I ain’t a goin’ to be turned off like this, Hiram Tanner!’ “Jest then the saw stopped a minnit, an’ Deacon Tanner heered him.

“ ‘This here is my mill and my saw,Mr. Twist,’ says he, his eyes kinder shinin’ and his face a gettin’ pale,though Twist’s was redder’n a winter apple. “‘I don’t care a continental if tis!’ ses Twist. ‘You said you was a-goin to saw for me this mornin’. and there’s my name onto the list right afore ye, an’ ye hain’t no right to lie an’ brass it out, if you be a deacon!’ “By this time the fellers that come up along with Deacon Twist for to help him load up, was gawpin’ round, a-lookin’ and a-hearin’. “And, as it was berry time, a lot of the El well tribe was near by in the bushe?, and hearin’ a noise.they came too —crows to a carcass they always was. ‘Sons of Belial,’ Deaoon Tanner used to oall ’em. But they wa’nt; they was old Jake Elwall’s sons, godless fellows enough, half Injiu, and ( they was a-grinnin’ and achucklin’ to see the row. “Well, Deaoon Tanner he growed whiter an’ whiter. “‘I cal’late to do what I will with my own, Mister Twist,’ ses he, ‘and I dono as anybody made you a judge and divider over me. If you’d hear to reason, without fiyin’ off the handle ’ “ ‘The’ ain’t no reason to hear to,’ roar ed Twist. ‘lt’s j lainer’n the nose on /our face; yon promised to saw my logs thisidentikle mornin’, an' now your mill’s full of another feller’s, an’ es that ain’t acheatin’ an’ lyin’ I dono what ’tis! I won’t never bring no more logs to your mill while time endoors.’

“ ‘Nor I wont never saw ’em if you doP snapped Tanner, his eyes a-blazin. “ ‘He! he! he!’ squealed one o’ th’ Elwell fellers, ‘pooty good spunky deaoons now, them be.’ “Deacon Twist heeid him, and his jaw kinder dropped He gin a look at Tanner and stepped right up to him an’ see: “‘Brother Tanner, I’ve did wrong; I’ve giv occasion for the enemy to revile, and them Sons o’ Belial is a-makin us their music. We’ve shamed the Lord. Forgive me, Brother Tanner.’ . “Tanner he stood a minnit jest as tho' somebody’d up and struck him. Then he reached out his hand, and ses he: “ ‘Brother Twist, we have both sinned. Let us ask forgiveness from on high.’ “And so say in’, he led Deaoon Twist a little pieoe off inter the shoemake bushes, and Bod Qarrett said he never in this mortal world heerd such dredful affectin’ prayers as they made, both on ’em. They didn’t seem to think, he said as tho’ the’ was anybody round a-hearin of ’em, only jest the Lord; but all the men heerd ’em. “Tho Elwells they stole away kinder dumbfoundered, but the rest stayed by. When the deacons oome out after a spell a-holdin’ hands just like two youngsters, they see they had been a-cryin’; and when they shook hands right there, and said as they’d quarreled before folks, thev would make up-before ’em,and I tell you it done them fellows good.

“Rod Garrett said he bleeved there was suthin in religion when he see Deacon Twist a-loadin’ of his boards for him,and fairly forcrn Tanner to saw the rest of Garret’s logs afore he touohed his’n. And Hiram Platt he was kinder on the fenoe before, but he came square out and jined Chester meetin’ next Saorament dav, and was a real close walker afterwards. “As for the deaoons,it seemed as though they oouldn’t be good enough to each other after all this. Audit oame about that there was quite a-wakenin’in Chester that winte r ; seemed a* though it took a start to th’ old saw-milL I tell you what, Joshuay, praotioe is wu’th all the preaohin* you can skeer up, now ain’t it?” “Well, mebbe,” said the oonsiderate Joshuay; “but arter all, Amasy, how upon airth is folks a-goin to know how to praotioe without some preaohin?” “There, you hit the nail on the head,” said Aunt Desire, wiping her spectacles. In beating butter always take the back of your spoon.