Part 13

"That day the baby was born I thought to myself, 'Well, here's somethin' that'll make Amos forgit about his callin' and election for once, anyhow;' and I wrapped the little feller up in his blanket and held him to the light, so his father could see him; and Amos looked at him like he was skeered, for a minute, and then he says, 'O Lord! I hope it ain't a reprobate.'

"Now jest think of a man lookin' down into a little new-born baby's face and talkin' about reprobates!

"Marthy heard what he said, and says she, 'Amos, are you goin' to have him babtized in infancy?'

"'Why, yes,' says Amos, 'of course I am.'

"And Marthy says, 'Well, hadn't you better wait until you find out whether he's a reprobate or not? If he's a reprobate, babtizin' ain't goin' to do him any good, and if he's elected he don't need to be babtized.'

"And I says, 'For goodness' sake, Marthy, you and Amos let the doctrines alone, or you'll throw yourself into a fever.' And I pushed a rockin'-chair up by the bed and I says, 'Here, Amos, you set here by your wife, and both of you thank the Lord for givin' you such a fine child;' and I laid the baby in Amos' arms, and went out in the gyarden to look around and git some fresh air. I gethered a bunch o' honeysuckles to put on Marthy's table, and when I got back, Marthy and the baby was both asleep, and Amos looked as if he was beginnin' to have some little hopes of the child's salvation.

"Marthy named him John; and Sam Amos said he reckoned it was for John the Babtist. But it wasn't; it was for Marthy's twin brother that died when he was jest three months old. Twins run in the Crawford family. Amos had him babtized in infancy jest like he said he would, and such a hollerin' and squallin' never was heard in Goshen church. The next day Sally Ann says to me, says she, 'That child must 'a' been a Babtist, Jane; for he didn't appear to favor infant babtism.'

"Well, Marthy had her say-so about the next child--that one was a boy, too, and they named him Amos for his father--and young Amos wasn't babtized in infancy; he was 'laid aside for immersion,' as Sam Amos said. Then it was Amos' time to have his way, and so they went on till young Amos was about fifteen years old and Marthy got him converted and ready to be immersed. The Babtists had a big meetin' that spring, and there was a dozen or more converts to be babtized when it was over. We'd been havin' mighty pleasant weather that March; I ricollect me and Abram planted our potatoes the first week in March, and I would put in some peas. Abram said it was too early, and sure enough the frost got 'em when they was about two inches high. It turned off real cold about the last o' March; and when the day for the babtizin' come, there was a pretty keen east wind, and Kittle Creek was mighty high and muddy, owin' to the rains they'd had further up. There was some talk o' puttin' off the babtizin' till better weather, but Brother Gyardner, he says: 'The colder the water, the warmer your faith, brethren; Christ never put off any babtizin' on account of the weather.'

"Sam Amos asked him if he didn't reckon there was some difference between the climate o' Kentucky and the climate o' Palestine. Sam was always a great hand to joke with the preachers. But the way things went that day the weather didn't make much difference anyhow to young Sam.

"The whole neighborhood turned out Sunday evenin' and went over to Kittle Creek to see the big babtizin'. Marthy and Amos and all the children was there, and Marthy looked like she'd had a big streak o' good luck. Sam Amos says to me, 'Well, Aunt Jane, Marthy's waited a long time, but she'll have her innin's now.'

"Bush Elrod was the first one to go under the water; and when two or three more had been babtized, it was young Amos' time. I saw Marthy pushin' him forward and beckonin' to Brother Gyardner like she couldn't wait any longer.

"Nobody never did know exactly how it happened. Some folks said that young Amos wasn't overly anxious to go under the water that cold day, and he kind o' slipped behind his father when he saw Brother Gyardner comin' towards him; and some went so fur as to say that Brother Gyardner was in the habit o' takin' a little spirits after a babtizin' to keep from takin' cold, and that time he'd taken it beforehand, and didn't know exactly what he was about. Anyhow, the first thing we knew Brother Gyardner had hold o' Amos himself, leadin' him towards the water. Amos was a timid sort o' man, easy flustered, and it looked like he lost his wits and his tongue too. He was kind o' pullin' back and lookin' round in a skeered way, and Brother Gyardner he hollered out, 'Come right along, brother! I know jest how it is myself; the spirit is willin', but the flesh is weak.' The Babtists was shoutin' 'Glory Hallelujah' and Uncle Jim Matthews begun to sing, 'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,' and pretty near everybody j'ined in till you couldn't hear your ears. The rest of us was about as flustered as Amos. We knew in reason that Brother Gyardner was makin' a big mistake, but we jest stood there and let things go on, and no tellin' what might 'a' happened if it hadn't been for Sam Amos. Sam was a cool-headed man, and nothin' ever flustered him. As soon as he saw how things was goin' he set down on the bank and pulled off his boots; and jest as Brother Gyardner got into the middle o' the creek, here come Sam wadin' up behind 'em, and grabbed Amos by the shoulder and hollered out, 'You got the wrong man, parson! Here, Amos, take hold o' me.' And he give Amos a jerk that nearly made Brother Gyardner lose his footin', and him and Amos waded up to the shore and left Brother Gyardner standin' there in the middle o' the creek lookin' like he'd lost his job.

"Well, that put a stop to the singin' and the shoutin', and the way folks laughed was scandalous. They had to walk Amos home in a hurry to git his wet clothes off, and Uncle Jim Matthews and Old Man Bob Crawford went with him to rub him down. Amos was subject to bronchitis, anyhow. Marthy went on ahead of 'em in the wagon to have hot water and blankets ready. I'll give Marthy that credit; she appeared to forgit all about the babtizin' when Amos come up so wet and shiverin'. Sam couldn't git his boots on over his wet socks, and as he'd walked over to the creek, Silas Petty had to take him home in his spring wagon. Brother Gyardner all this time was lookin' round for young Amos, but he wasn't to be found high nor low, and that set folks to laughin' again, and so many havin' to leave, the babtizin' was clean broke up. Milly come up jest as Sam was gittin' into Old Man Bob's wagon, and says she, 'Well, Sam, you've ruined your Sunday pants this time.' And Sam says, 'Pants nothin'. The rest o' you all can save your Sunday pants if you want to, but this here's a free country, and I ain't goin' to stand by and see a man babtized against his will while I'm able to save him.' And if Sam'd saved Amos' life, instead o' jest savin' him from babtism, Amos couldn't 'a' been gratefuler. When Sam broke his arm the follerin' summer, Amos went over and set up with him at night, and let his own wheat stand while he harvested Sam's.

"Well, the next time the 'Sociation met, the Babtists had somethin' new to talk about. Old Brother Gyardner got up, and says he, 'Brethren, there's a question that's been botherin' me for some time, and I'd like to hear it discussed and git it settled, if possible;' and says he, 'If a man should be babtized accidentally, and against his will, would he be a Babtist? or would he not?' And they begun to argue it, and they had it up and down, and some was of one opinion and some of another. Brother Gyardner said he was inclined to think that babtism made a man a Babtist, but old Brother Bascom said if a man wasn't a Babtist in his heart, all the water in the sea wouldn't make him one. And Brother Gyardner said that was knockin' the props clean from under the Babtist faith. 'For,' says he, 'if bein' a Babtist in the heart makes a man a Babtist, then babtism ain't necessary to salvation, and if babtism ain't necessary, what becomes o' the Babtist church?'

"Somebody told Amos about the dispute they was havin' over his case, and Amos says, 'If them fool Babtists want that question settled, let 'em come to me.' Says he, 'My father and mother was Presbyterians, and my grandfather and grandmother and great-grandfather and great-grandmother on both sides; I was sprinkled in infancy, and I j'ined the Presbyterian church as soon as I come to the age of accountability, and if you was to carry me over to Jerusalem and babtize me in the river Jordan itself, I'd still be a Presbyterian.'"

Here Aunt Jane paused to laugh again. "There's some things, child," she said, as she wiped her glasses, "that people'll laugh over and then forgit; and there's some things they never git over laughin' about. The Kittle Creek babtizin' was one o' that kind. Old Man Bob Crawford used to say he wouldn't 'a' took five hundred dollars for that babtizin'. Old Man Bob was the biggest laugher in the country; you could hear him for pretty near half a mile when he got in a laughin' way; and he used to say that whenever he felt like havin' a good laugh, all he had to do was to think of Amos and how he looked with Brother Gyardner leadin' him into the water, and the Babtists a-singin' over him. Bush Elrod was another one that never got over it. Every time he'd see Amos he'd begin to sing, 'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,' and Amos couldn't git out o' the way quick enough.

"Well, that's what made me and old Uncle Sam Simpson laugh so last Sunday. I don't reckon there's anything funny in it to folks that never seen it; but when old people git together and call up old times, they can see jest how folks looked and acted, and it's like livin' it all over again."

"I don't believe you can see it any plainer than I do, Aunt Jane," I hastened to assure her. "It is all as clear to me as any picture I ever saw. It was in March, you say, and the wind was cool, but the sun was warm; and if you sat in a sheltered place you might almost think it was the last of April."

"That's so, child. I remember me and Abram set under the bank on a rock that kind o' cut off the north wind, and it was real pleasant."

"Then there must have been a purple haze on the hills; and, while the trees were still bare, there was a look about them as if the coming leaves were casting their shadows before. There were heaps of brown leaves from last year's autumn in the fence corners, and as you and Uncle Abram walked home, you looked under them to see if the violets were coming up, and found some tiny wood ferns."

Aunt Jane dropped her knitting and leaned back in the high old-fashioned chair.

"Why, child," she said in an awe-struck tone, "are you a fortune-teller?"

"Not at all, Aunt Jane," I said, laughing at the dear old lady's consternation. "I am only a good guesser; and I wanted you to know that I not only see the things that you see and tell me, but some of the things that you see and don't tell me. Did Marthy ever get young Amos baptized?" I asked.

"La, yes," laughed Aunt Jane. "They finished up the babtizin' two weeks after that. It was a nice, pleasant day, and young Amos went under the water all right; but mighty little good it did him after all. For as soon as he come of age, he married Matildy Harris (Matildy was a Methodist), and he got to goin' to church with his wife, and that was the last of his Babtist raisin'."

Then we both were silent for a while, and I watched the gathering thunder-clouds in the west. A low rumble of thunder broke the stillness of the August afternoon. Aunt Jane looked up apprehensively.

"There's goin' to be a storm betwixt now and sundown," she said, "but I reckon them young turkeys'll be safe under their mother's wings by that time."

"Don't you think a wife ought to join her husband's church, Aunt Jane?" I asked with idle irrelevance to her remark.

"Sometimes she ought and sometimes she oughtn't," replied Aunt Jane oracularly. "There ain't any rule about it. Everybody's got to be their own judge about such matters. If I'd 'a' been in Marthy's place, I wouldn't 'a' j'ined Amos' church, and if I'd been in Amos' place I wouldn't 'a' j'ined Marthy's church. So there it is."