“I TOLD you once,” said Mrs. Melissa Allgood, “about the time Kate Negley took that leading on the lodge line, and locked the doctor out of the house one night when he was meeting with the Masons, and hollered at him scornful-like, when he come home, to ‘get in with his lodge-key;’ and how the doctor smashed up her fine front door with an ax. Well, all the Station thought that might be the end of Kate’s foolishness, and that maybe she would take her religion and sanctification comfortable after that, same as other folks. And everybody was glad Dr. Negley broke that door in, because it ain’t good for Kate Negley or any other human to have their own way all the time.

“So Kate went along quiet and peaceable after that for two or three months, and never had no new leadings to tell about in meeting, and never did a thing to show she had heartfelt religion except to wear her hair straight down her back, according to Paul. And ma she said to me one day she believed Kate had come to the end of her line, and was going to act like sensible folks the rest of her days. But I told ma not to waste her breath in vain babblings; that I bet Kate Negley was just setting on a new nest, and for ma to wait for the hatching.

“I hadn’t hardly spoke the words before it come. The very next Sunday, when Brother Cheatham got through preaching and called for experiences and testimonies, Kate she rose and said she was mightily moved to rebuke a faithless and perverse generation, puffed up in its fleshly mind, loving unrighteousness, and abominable in wickedness. She said she had been wandering in the way of destruction like the rest, and putting her faith in lies, till the last few weeks, when light begun to dawn on her, and she commenced to search the Scriptures more. She said she was fully persuaded now, halleluiah! and wanted all them that desired to be wholly sanctified to enter the strait and narrow path with her. She said the gospel she had to preach to them that morning was the gospel of healing by prayer and faith, and not by medicines or doctors; that though she had lain among the pots, like the rest of them, yet now was her soul like the wings of a dove, and forever risen above all such works of the devil as ipecac and quinine and calomel; that only in the Great Physician did she place her trust; that as for earthly doctors, she could only say to them, in the words of Job: ‘Ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.’ She said yea, verily, all they was good for was to ‘beguile unstable souls, and bewitch the people with sorceries;’ and not only that, but, like Jeremiah says, ‘They help forward the affliction.’ She said she never meant to say anything against doctors as men, but as doctors they was vessels of wrath, corrupters of souls, firebrands of the devil, and the liveliest stumble-stones in the path of righteousness. She said for them benighted folks that put their faith in physic to listen to Jeremiah’s point-blank words, ‘Thou hast no healing medicines,’ and again, ‘In vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be healed.’ She said from lid to lid of the Bible there wasn’t a single case of anybody being cured of anything by either doctors or medicine; and that ought to be enough for the earnest Christian, without looking any farther. But, she said, knowing their hard-heartedness, she had studied every verse of the Scriptures before she got up to speak.

“She said when the disciples was sent out, they was told to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils; and they did it. She said she’d like to know how many that called themselves disciples nowadays so bigotty, and claimed the in-dwelling of holiness, ever even tried to do any of them things, except talk, let alone do them. She said it was because they were so poor-spirited they didn’t have faith to lay hold of the promise, though there it was in plain words: ‘Ask, and ye shall receive;’ ‘According to your faith be it unto you;’ ‘For I will restore health to thee, saith the Lord;’ ‘I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal.’ She said, bless the Lord, her spiritual eyes was open now, and the only medicines she would ever take was prayer and faith. She said James’s prescription was good enough for her: ‘Pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much;’ and that she wanted every soul in the Station to get to the same point. But, she said, until they did, she wanted it known that there was one righteous soul in Sodom, that was going to start out on the war-path against the devil and all his doctors. She said she was going to lay hold of the promise of James: ‘Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.’ She said she wanted it published abroad that anybody that took sick was welcome to her services and prayers, without money and without price. She said for all her hearers to put on the breastplate of faith and the armor of righteousness, and enter in at the strait and narrow path that opened into her front door, and keep out of the broad way that led to the doctor’s office. She said she had a big bottle of sweet-oil, and faith to remove mountains.

“Well, all the congregation was thunderstruck at the idea of Kate Negley setting up in opposition to her own husband, Dr. Negley being the only doctor at the Station. Ma said that anybody could have knocked her down with a feather; and I know it made me right weak in my knees, though, of course, I felt like Kate was doing right to follow her leadings, and thought she was mighty courageous. I never could have done it myself, especially if I’d had such a good husband as Kate. I have traveled about more than Kate, and I know that hen’s teeth ain’t scarcer than good men; yea, like Solomon says, ‘One among a thousand have I found.’ But of course a woman never appreciates what she has, and Kate she always took all the doctor’s kindness and spoiling like it was her birthright, and ding-donged at him all the time about his not having any religion or sanctification. Now, I reckon you’ve lived long enough to know that there are three kinds of sanctified; them that are sanctified and know it, humble-like—such as me; them that are sanctified and don’t know or even suspicion it; and them that are sanctified and know it too well. And I have told ma many a time that Dr. Negley is one of the kind that is sanctified and don’t know it, and that Kate might pattern after the doctor in some ways, to her edification. Somehow, I’ve always felt like ten or eleven children might have took some of the foolishness out of Kate; but, not having any, she was just on a high horse about something or other all the time.

“The evening after Kate did that talking in church, ma saw the doctor riding by, and she called him to the fence and asked him if he had heard about Kate’s talk, and what he thought about it. And he said yes, Brother Jones and them had told him about it down at the post-office, and it had tickled him might’ly; that he thought it was very funny. Ma told him she should think it would make him mad for Kate to get up and talk that away about doctors and medicine. ‘Mrs. Garry,’ he says, ‘women are women; and one of their charms is that nobody knows what they’re going to do next. And if my wife,’ he says, ‘has a extry allowance of charm, I certainly ought to feel thankful for it.’ He said if Kate wanted to quarrel with her bread and butter, and talk away his practice, he wasn’t going to raise any objections; that he needed to take a rest anyhow, having worked too hard all his life. He said, another thing, a woman that took as many notions as Kate couldn’t hold on to any one of them very long, but was bound to get cured of it before much harm was done.

“Ma she told me what he said, and that, in her opinion, Dr. Negley could give Job lessons in patience.

“Then we commenced to have times in the Station. The first thing Kate did was to get up one night after the doctor had gone to sleep, and go down-stairs and across the yard to his office, and hunt up his saddle-bags, and stamp on them, and smash every bottle in them, and then sling them over in pa’s cornfield. Pa he found them out there in the morning after breakfast, and took them to the doctor’s office; and he said the doctor did some tall swearing when he saw them. But I believe that was a slander of pa’s, because I know the way the doctor acted afterwards. At dinner-time he went up to the house mighty peaceful, and eat his dinner, and then he says to Kate, very cheerful and polite: ‘I see that my saddle-bags have met with a little accident. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,’ he says, ‘and I don’t know but what it’s a fine thing for my patients, some of them medicines being powerful stale. But it’s mighty unfortunate for you, Kate,’ he says, ‘for I will be obliged to use up all your missionary money for the next year and a half to replenish them saddle-bags, times being so hard,’ he says.

“You know Kate always give more money to missions than any woman in the Station,—doctor just couldn’t deny her anything,—and she prided herself a heap on it, righteous pride, of course. She was just speechless with wrath at what he said, and she saw she’d have to change her warfare and fall back on the outposts.

“So she started out and went to see the women in the Station, and prayed with them, and strengthened their faith, and tried to make them promise to send for her if anybody got sick, and not for the doctor, and worked on them till they got plumb unsettled in their minds. Some of them went to Brother Cheatham and asked him about it, and he said it was a question everybody must decide for themselves, but there certainly was Scripture for it, he couldn’t deny. It’s a funny thing what poor hands some preachers are at practicing. Brother Cheatham couldn’t get so much as a crook in his little finger but what Dr. Negley must come, double-quick, day and night. I’ve always felt like getting their doctoring for nothing was a big drawback to preachers’ faith.

“Kate didn’t only go about in the Station, but she would keep on the watch, and when the doctor got a call to the country, Kate would saddle her bay mare and follow after him, sometimes ten or fifteen miles. By the time she would get to the sick one’s house, the doctor would be setting by the bed, feeling the patient’s pulse, or some such; and Kate would sail across the room, with never so much as ‘Howdy’ to the doctor, and go down on her knees the other side of the bed, and dab a little sweet-oil on the sick person, and pray at the top of her voice, and exhort the patient to throw away the vile concoctions of the devil, and swing out on the promise of James. And the doctor wouldn’t pay no more attention to her than she did to him, but would dose out the medicine and go on about his business, as pleasant as could be. After he was gone, Kate would smash up all the bottles in sight, if the folks wasn’t mighty careful; and then she would follow the doctor to the next place, never any more noticing him or speaking to him than if he was a fence-post. She said when the doctor was at home, he was her husband, though unregenerate, and she was going to treat him according to Scripture, and as polite as she knew how: but when he was out dosing the sick, he was an angel of darkness, and not fit to be so much as looked at by the saved and sanctified.

“Mary Alice Welden was one of the first to take up with Kate’s notions—I’ve always believed it was because Dick Welden scoffed at them. If Dick had been a quick man, he never would have done it, knowing well that the only way to get Mary Alice to do like he wanted her to was for him to come out strong on the opposite side. But it takes a hundred years to learn some men anything; and what did Dick do that Sunday but laugh at Kate’s notions on healing. Ever since Mary Alice had shook the red rag at Satan by getting up and shouting in church one time when Dick had told her point-blank she shouldn’t, she had enjoyed a heap of liberty, and Dick he had been diminished, like the Bible says. So when Dick laughed at Kate, Mary Alice fired right up and told Dick Welden that never another doctor or bottle of medicine should ever step over her door-sill, and that the next time any of her household got sick, prayer or nothing should cure them.

“So the next time her little Philury had spasms, Mary Alice sent over for Kate; and when Dick come home for dinner, he found all the doors locked, and looked in at a window, and there was Philury in fits on the bed, and Kate and Mary Alice praying loud and long on both sides. Dick was just crazy, and he ran up the street for the doctor, and they come back and broke in the window, and there was Philury laying quiet and peaceful and breathing regular, and Kate and Mary Alice shouting and glorifying God for casting a devil out of Philury. That gave Kate a big reputation, and stirred the Station to the dregs. And even the doctor said it was only by the grace of God that Philury pulled through under the circumstances.

“Sister Sally Barnes had been laying up for nearly a year with a misery in her back, and the doctor had give her physic, and she had took up all the patent medicines she could borrow or raise money to buy, but there she laid, and expected to lay the rest of her days. Kate went up there one day and expounded Bible to her and anointed her with that oil, and prayed over her for about two hours, and then told her to rise and cook dinner, that the Lord had healed her. And up Sister Sally got, and has been up ever since. Of course everybody was excited and talking about it. Ma asked Dr. Negley one day what he thought about it, and he said it was a mighty fine thing for Sister Sally’s family, and that Kate’s medicine was certainly better for some folks than his.

“That healing gave Kate a big name, and folks begun to send for her right and left. Some would send for her and the doctor both, thinking it just as well to be on the safe side and not neglect either faith or works. I reckon it did the sick good just to lay eyes on Kate, she was such a fine, healthy, rosy-checked woman, and never had had a day’s sickness to pull her down.

“Then come along the time for Sister Nickins’ shingles. For seven years old Sister Nickins, Tommy T.’s ma, had took down regular, every Washington’s Birthday, at ten o’clock in the morning, with the shingles. Everybody thought a duck could as soon get along without water as Sister Nickins without her shingles; and she never dreamt of such a thing as not having them. They never got to the breaking-out stage with her but once, but she was scared to death every time for fear they would break out, and run all around her and meet, and of course that will kill anybody dead. So she used to make her will and give away her gray mule every year, beforehand.

“This time Kate sent Sister Nickins word not to make no will or give away the mule; that she was going to cast them shingles into the bottomless pit by prayer. So, at sun-up on the 22d, Kate went up to Sister Nickins’s house, and set into praying and anointing, and by ten o’clock she had Sister Nickins so full of grace and glory that the devil or the shingles couldn’t get within a mile of her, and she never felt a single pain. And of all the halleluiah times, that was one. You could hear the shouting all over town, and nearly all the Station went up there. I went myself, and saw Sister Nickins with my own eyes, up and about, and full of rejoicings, and not a shingle to her name. I thought it was wonderful. It seemed just like Bible times over again. And Sister Nickins was so lifted up over it that she mounted her gray mule after dinner and started out on a three months’ visitation through the county, to spread the news abroad amongst her kin and friends.

“That was the winter I felt the inward call to preach, but never got no outward invitations. So, while I was having that trial of patience, I thought I might as well help Kate some, though I knew my call was to preach, and not to heal. And I would go around a good deal with Kate, though I never was just as rampant as she was, or as Mary Alice Welden, and always allowed that doctors might have their uses.

“One day Kate came by for me to go up with her to pray over old Mis’ Gerton’s rheumatism. So up we went, and Kate told old Mis’ Gerton what we come for, and Mis’ Gerton said she never had no objections, that prayer certainly couldn’t do no harm, and oil was good for the joints. So I poured on the oil, and Kate did the praying. In about an hour Kate jumped up and told old Mis’ Gerton to get up and walk, that the prayer of faith had healed her. ‘No such a thing,’ old Mis’ Gerton says; ‘them knees is worse than when you commenced.’ Kate got red in the face, and said of course the grace was thrown away on them that wouldn’t accept of it. Old Mis’ Gerton said she couldn’t tell no lies; that she felt worse instead of better; that pain was pain, and rheumatism was rheumatism, as well they knew that had it. She said she never meant no disrespect, but that in her opinion prayer couldn’t hold a candle to Dr. Hayhurst’s Wildcat Liniment as a pain-killer. Of course Kate was horror-struck, and she wiped the dust of old Mis’ Gerton’s house off of her feet when we went out.

“Then what should pa do about that time but take down with the yellow janders. You know, and everybody knows, that pa never did have a bit of religion. I would hate to say such a thing about an own relation, but pa being my stepfather, and the second one at that, I feel like he’s kind of far-removed. Well, ma would have been a mighty religious woman if she hadn’t been unequally yoked together with unbelievers three times. That’s enough to wear a woman’s religion to a frazzle, goodness knows; and I have always made excuses for ma. So when pa got sick and told ma to send for the doctor, ma, being one of those women that is always trying to serve two masters, her husband and her religion, sent for the doctor and Kate both. And when I got there, a few minutes later, there set the doctor by pa’s bed, and Kate and ma back in the kitchen, and every time Kate would start over the door-sill into pa’s room, to pour the oil on him and pray over him, pa would set up in bed and shake his fist at her, and swear a blue streak, and tell her not to come another step. Ma and me we nearly went through the earth for shame at pa; and of course he never would have done it if his liver had been right, for I will say this for pa, he is a polite, mild-mannered man, and slow to wrath, when he hasn’t got the janders. Then Kate would flop down on the kitchen floor and thank the Lord she was being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. And a good many people dropped in, hearing the noise; and everybody was plumb scandalized at pa, and said he was a downright infidel, and all their sympathies was roused for Kate.

“After that she had a bigger business than ever, in spite of a set-back or two, like old Mis’ Gerton’s rheumatism, and Brother Gilly Jones’s baby dying one night of the croup when him and Kate was praying over it and wouldn’t send for the doctor. Kate said that it was the Lord’s will, and the baby’s appointed time to die; and Brother Gilly Jones, being sanctified, and having eight more children anyhow, he agreed with Kate, and said he felt perfectly resigned; though Sister Jones, poor thing, never has got reconciled to this day.

“Of course those things never fazed Kate, and she was just on the top notch all the time, and going day and night. And every Sunday there would be testimonials in church about healings, and faith begun to take hold on both sanctified and sinner, till it actually got to the point that folks’ religion was doubted if they sent for a doctor. And when spring opened up, the doctor said his occupation was so near gone that he felt justified in going on that camp-hunt he had been wanting to make for fourteen years; so he made up a party of men—Masons and such—and went down on Green River for two weeks’ hunting.

“Well, you ought to have seen Kate that morning the doctor left. He wasn’t out of sight before she turned loose a-shouting over the triumph of righteousness, and over having actually run the devil out of town; and she held a thanks-meeting up at her house that night, and we had a full-salvation time.

“Kate invited me to stay with her while the doctor was gone; so I shooed my chickens down to ma’s, so’s I could have my mind free from worldly cares, and shut up my house, and went. We had a mighty joyful, edifying time for two days.

“The third night Kate woke me up sudden from a good sleep, about three o’clock in the morning. ‘Melissy,’ she says, ‘get up and light the lamp. I don’t know what on earth’s the matter with me,’ she says; ‘I feel awful, and have got all the aches there is inside of me.’ ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate,’ I says, rolling out of bed, ‘I reckon you are getting the grippe.’ She groaned. ‘It’s worse than the grippe, Melissy Allgood,’ she says; ‘I feel like I’m going to die.’ I lit the lamp and brought it over by the bed. ‘I do believe you have got some fever, Kate,’ I says. ‘I am eat up with it,’ she says, ‘and with aches, and have a terrible gone feeling all over. I tell you, Melissy, I’m an awful sick woman. Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?’ ‘Do?’ I says, no little surprised. ‘Why, pray, of course.’ ‘Well,’ she says, kind of faint-like, ‘you’d better be about it.’

“I was a little outdone by her lukewarmness, but I got down on my knees and went to praying. Kate kept up a consid’able groaning. In about five minutes she says: ‘Get up from there, Melissy Allgood, and do something for me. I’m a terrible sick woman,’ she says. ‘Gracious sakes alive, Kate,’ I says, ‘there ain’t another thing I can do but anoint you with the oil.’ I run and brought the sweet-oil. ‘Take it away!’ she says. ‘The smell of it makes me sick! I won’t have it!’ I was completely dazed, and it seemed to me like the world was turning upside down. But what can you expect of a woman that don’t know what the feeling of pain is, and never had a sick day since she was a young child and got through the catching age? I fell down on my knees and went to praying again, not knowing just what to do. Kate stopped me again. ‘Melissy Allgood,’ she says, ‘are you going to let me lay here and die, and not stretch out even a finger to help me?’ she says. ‘Why, Kate,’ I says, plumb petrified, ‘you know I’m doing the very best that can be done.’ I says: ‘You must have patience and faith, and wait on the time of the Lord.’ ‘Oh!’ she says, fairly crying, ‘what on earth made the doctor go off and leave me? He might have known something would happen to me. He ought to have stayed here, where he belongs! He’d know what to do for me if he was here,’ she says. ‘He wouldn’t let his own dear wife lay here and die!’

“’Kate,’ I says, ‘you are wandering, the worst kind. I’m going after Mary Alice Welden.’ So I slipped on my shoes and dress and run down the street to Mary Alice’s, and we hurried back as fast as we could. I told Mary Alice that Kate was sick, and out of her mind to that extent she was calling for the doctor. Mary Alice said she certainly must be mighty bad off, and that we must pray with abounding faith, and be firm. When we got back, Kate was still a-groaning and crying. Mary Alice told her to cease her complainings and put her trust in One who was mighty to save. Then Mary Alice snatched up the bottle of sweet-oil that set there on the table, and started at Kate with it. ‘She won’t have it on her,’ I says, ‘it ain’t no use to try.’ ‘She’s got to have it,’ Mary Alice says, ‘whether she wants it or not. It’s a part of James’s directions.’ Kate begun to holler and throw out her arms when she saw the oil coming. ‘Take it away,’ she says; ‘it makes me sick!’ ‘You hold her hands,’ Mary Alice says, ‘while I pour it on her.’ So I set down and took a good grip on Kate’s hands, and Mary Alice poured the oil on her, and it went all over her face and head and the pillow, she kept threshing around so lively, and hollering till her mouth was full. Then Kate she cried and carried on, and said we were treating her shameful, and would be sorry for it when she was dead and gone: We never paid any attention to her, of course, but got down on both sides of the bed and went to praying as loud and earnest as we could, so as to drown the groaning. Then Kate said she didn’t want to be prayed for nohow, that what she wanted was the doctor. Mary Alice told her she was plumb out of her senses, and didn’t know what she was talking about. And Kate said, no such a thing; that she was a mighty sick woman, but she was in her right mind, and knew what she wanted, and that it was the doctor. She said the doctor was the only friend she had on earth. She said the doctor wouldn’t stand by and see her die and never lift a hand, and she knew it. She said he would know of something to give her that would ease them aches and pains, and let her die in peace. But she said of course if the doctor was there she wouldn’t need to die—that he would save her. She set up in bed. ‘Melissy Allgood,’ she says, ‘run over and tell your pa to mount his horse and ride for the doctor,’ she says, ‘and never stop till he finds him!’ ‘Land of the living, Kate,’ I says, ‘you know the doctor is thirty mile and more away, and nobody knows where he’s at by now.’ ‘Tell Mr. Garry I say not to stop till he finds him!’ Kate says. ‘And to keep life in me till he gets here,’ she says, ‘I want old Dr. Pegram, at Dixie, sent for immediate. He ought to get here in three hours’ time. You tell Tommy T. Nickins to take my mare and go for him, quick!’ she says. ‘And Mary Alice Welden, you go down in the cellar and bring me one of those bottles of blackberry cordial, to keep up my strength till Dr. Pegram comes.’

“Mary Alice and me were smitten dumb right there where we was at, on our knees. ‘Kate Negley,’ I got the voice to say, ‘are you sure them are your right-minded wishes, and not the devil speaking through you?’ ‘I tell you to do what I say, and hurry up!’ Kate says. ‘Do you reckon I want to die?’

“Mary Alice rose and walked out with never a word; but if I ever saw complete disgust wrote on anybody’s face, it was hers. I had to go down and get the blackberry cordial myself, and you ought to have seen Kate make away with it. Then I went out and started off Tommy T. and pa.

“Old Dr. Pegram was there inside of three hours, dosing out big pills for Kate to take every half-hour, and powders every fifteen minutes; and it looked like Kate couldn’t swallow them fast enough to suit her. Dr. Pegram told ma and me that Kate had a mild case of the grippe, and there wasn’t no earthly danger.

“When Dr. Negley and pa come poking in after midnight that night, wore out and muddy, you never saw as happy a woman in your life as Kate. She laughed and she cried, and she hugged the doctor, and she kissed him, and she said there never was anybody like him, that he was her sweet angel from heaven, and the dearest darling on earth, and she knew she wouldn’t have no chance to die, now he had come and would know just what to do for her. And I reckon the doctor was the worst-astonished man that ever was; but he was a heap too polite and kind to let on, and went on dosing out physic for her just as if there wasn’t anything out of the common. And never a word did he ever say to her, either, about having his camp-hunt broke up; and that’s the reason I know he’s sanctified, for, like I told ma, what sainted martyr could do better?

“Of course the Station was shaken to the foundations over Kate acting that way, and there was a big time of rejoicing amongst the scoffers. And Mary Alice Welden hasn’t spoken to Kate since, and says she never will. But I tell Mary Alice she ought to be ashamed of herself; that she’s too ready in her judgments, and needs to make allowance for humans being humans, and for folks changing with circumstances.”

Lucy S. Furman.