TRIAL SERMONS ON BULL-SKIN
after including the sweet potatoes and brown gravy, that was not all. There was hog jole and cold cabbage, ham and Kentucky oysters, more widely known as chittlings. What more there was it boots not to tell. Suffice it to say that there was little enough of anything left to do credit to the people's dual powers of listening and eating, for in all this time the Reverend Abram Martin had not abated his conversational efforts nor they their unflagging attention.
Just before the supper was finished, the preacher was called upon, at the instigation of Hezekiah Sneedon, of course, to make a few remarks, which he proceeded to do in a very happy and taking vein. Then the affair broke up, and the people went home with myriad comments on their tongues. But one idea possessed the minds of all, and that was that the Reverend Abram Martin was a very able man, and charming withal.
It was at this hour, when opportunity for sober reflection returned, that Sister Williams first awakened to the fact that her own conduct had compromised her cause. She did not sleep that night—she lay awake and planned, and the result of her planning was a great fumbling
103
