But Elmira, she says: "Don't you do it, Brother Cartwright; don't you do it.

You don't know Hank Walters like I does.

If he oncet gets out o' there before he's signed that pledge, he won't never sign it." So they fixed it up that Brother Cartwright was to write out a pledge on the inside leaf of the Bible, and tie the Bible onto a string, and a lead pencil onto another string, and let the strings down to Hank, and he was to make his mark, fur he couldn't write, and they was to be pulled up agin.

Hank, he says all right, and they done it.

But jest as Hank was making his mark on the leaf of the book, that preacher done what I has always thought was a mean trick.