Ballad of Deacon Peaslee

There was Uncle Ezry Cyphers and Uncle
Jonas Goff,
And Deacon Simon Peaslee, with his solemn vestry cough;
Mis' Ann Matilda Bellows and Aunt Almiry
Hunt,
--At all the social meetings they performed their earnest stunt.
They were strong in exhortation, and profoundly entertained
The belief that talking did it if a Heavenly
Home were gained.
So they rose on Tuesday evening, at Friday meeting, too,
And informed their friends and neighbors what the sinners ought to do;
They explained the route to Heaven and exhorted all to go
In the straight and narrow pathway through the blandishments below;
They were good and they were earnest, but, alas, a little tame,
For month by month and year by year their talks were just the same,
Until the folks who'd listened all those many years could start
And declaim those exhortations, for they had
'em all by heart.
And those old folks talked so constant there was scarcely time to sing,
For they just let in regardless and monopolized the thing.
Now, benign old Parson Johnson died at last.
There's scarcely doubt
That those prosy dissertations sort of wore the old man out.
And he promptly was succeeded ere the church had dried its tears
By a cocky, youthful pastor, who was full of new ideas.
Now, he sized the situation ere he'd been in town a week,
And he set to work to fix it by a plan that was unique,
For he saw unless he did so--and the Lord allowed them breath,
Those devoted saints would surely talk that wearied church to death.
So he came to Tuesday meeting and upon his desk he placed
A nickeled teacher's call-bell and blandly then he faced
An astonished congregation and explained he thought it best
To condense the exhortations so as not to crowd the rest;
For he said that in the worship all the members ought to share,
And monopoly of talking by the elders wasn't fair;
Therefore, each could have five minutes, and he'd ring to let each know
When 'twas time to cut the discourse and give t'other one a show.
There were scowls from Uncle Ezry--there were grunts from Uncle Goff,
And Deacon Simon Peaslee gave a scornful vestry cough.
Then he laid his cane beside him and he struggled to his feet
And commenced his regular discourse in regard to tares and wheat.
He was scarcely fairly going on the punishments of hell
When the pastor smiled and nodded and dingclink-ling went the bell!
All the old folks gasped in horror and a titter soft and low
Ran along the youthful sinners who were back on Devil's Row;
And for just a thrilling instant Deacon Simon lost his force,
With astonished jaws a-gaping--then continued on his course.
To the pastor's youthful visage swept a sudden flush of wrath,
As the obstinate old deacon brushed him calmly from his path,
And with all the college muscle that he had at his command
The parson cuffed the call-bell with a swift and steady hand.
There was riot in the vestry--deacon vieing with the bell,
As he strove to paint the terrors of the hot,
John Wesley hell,
Till at last he balked and stuttered, gasped a while and tried to speak,
Then sat down with tears a-dropping through the furrows on his cheek.
There he bent in voiceless anguish with his old gray head bowed low,
While the hushed and pitying people mourned to see him grieving so;
And the parson left the platform and contritely crept across
To the side of Deacon Simon and expressed his deep remorse.
But the deacon raised his visage, and, with tears still streaming down,
Glared upon his trembling pastor with a fierce and scornful frown.
"Drat yer hide," roared Deacon Simon, "do ye think that leetle bell
Scart a warrior sech as I am out of talking truths on hell?
'Tain't no passon sets me down, sah! 'Tain't no bell ye ever saw,
But ye went and got me narvous and ye've made me eat my chaw."
Then the deacon, stern and angry, arm in arm with Jonas Goff,
And with Uncle Cyphers trailing, stalked in righteous dudgeon off,
And the sympathizing parish held a meeting there and then,
And extolled the absent deacon as the most abused of men;
And the parson's walking papers hit his neck below the jaw
In about the same location that the deacon lost his chaw.