rush of this savage-looking, naked crowd to the door. As I knew no
reason for the excitement, I took my time.

I followed the men to the boiler-room, where, after calling out my
number, I got the bundle corresponding to it, and it looked like a
crow's nest. Everybody around me was hustling to get his clothes on,
boiled or unboiled; and again I was mystified as to the hurry. When I
arrived in the yard, I discovered the reason for this unusual activity
of my parishioners. The first men out in the yard had a cord of wood
each to saw, and it took twice as long to chop as it did to saw it.
Those who were last had to chop. I took my axe and began my task. Soon
the splinters were flying in all directions. The man next to me was
rather put out by this activity and said that if he wanted to work
like that he could do it outside.

"This ain't no place to work like that," he said; then he began to
expectorate over my block and annoy me in that way. I tried a few
words of gentle persuasion on him, but it made him worse. He
bespattered my hands and the axe handle, and I took him by the neck
and ran him to the other end of the yard and dumped him in a corner.
Any kind of a fuss in that yard had usually a very serious ending; but
this had not, for the yard superintendent took my part.

I think it was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon when I finished my
wood, and went in to get breakfast, which consisted of a bowl of gruel
and two hard biscuits. One of these biscuits I kept hanging in my
study for two years. After breakfast I marched into the office, and
said to the superintendent:

"Brother, I want to ask you a few questions which belong to a