Page:Folks from Dixie (1898).pdf/130

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FOLKS FROM DIXIE

"Well, ef he do, I 's a-leavin' hyeah, you hyeah me," rejoined the first speaker.

The sermon had progressed about one-third its length, and the congregation bad begun to show frequent signs of awakening life, when on an instant, with startling suddenness, Bud Lewis sprang from his seat and started on a promenade down the aisle, swinging his arms in sweeping semi-circles, and uttering a sound like the incipient bellow of a steamboat. "Whough! Whough!" he puffed, swinging from side to side down the narrow passageway.

At the first demonstration from the new-comer, people began falling to right and left out of his way. The fame of Bud Lewis' "shoutin' tantrums" was widespread, and they who knew feared them. This unregenerate mulatto was without doubt the fighting man of Bull-Skin.

While, as a general thing, he shunned the church, there were times when a perverse spirit took hold of him, and he would seck the meeting-house, and promptly, noisily, and violently "get religion." At these times he made it a point to knock people helter-skelter, trample on tender toes, and do other mischief, until in many cases the meeting broke up in confusion. The

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