That was a thing to hear, when Elmer led them; when he danced before them, swinging his big arms and bellowing, "Now again! Two yards to gain! Two yards for the Savior! Come on, boys and girls, it's our team! Going to let 'em down? Not on your life! Come on then, you chipmunks, and lemme hear you knock the ole roof off! Hal, hal, hal!"
Many a hesitating boy, a little sickened by the intense brooding femininity of Sharon's appeal, was thus brought up to the platform to shake hands with Elmer and learn the benefits of religion.
The gospel crew could never consider their converts as human beings, like waiters or manicurists or brakemen, but they had in them such a professional interest as surgeons take in patients, critics in an author, fishermen in trout.
They were obsessed by the gaffer in Terre Haute who got converted every single night during the meetings. He may have been insane and he may have been a plain drunk, but every evening he came in looking adenoidal and thoroughly backslidden; every evening he slowly woke to his higher needs during the sermon; and when the call for converts came, he leaped up, shouted "Hallelujah, I've found it!" and galloped forward, elbowing real and valuable prospects out of the aisle. The crew waited for him as campers for a mosquito.
In Scranton, they had unusually exasperating patients. Scranton had been saved by a number of other evangelists before their arrival, and had become almost anesthetic. Ten nights they sweated over the audience without a single sinner coming forward, and Elmer had to go out and hire half a dozen convincing converts.
He found them in a mission near the river, and explained that by giving a good example to the slothful, they would be doing the work of God, and that if the example was good enough, he would give them five dollars apiece. The missioner himself came in during the conference and offered to get converted for ten, but he was so well known that Elmer had to give him the ten to stay away.
His gang of converts was very impressive, but thereafter no member of the evangelistic troupe was safe. The professional
