Georgia Boy Read Online Free

ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling-ding sound as well as the ding-dong one, and right then Preacher Hawshaw came running in and jerked the rope out of my hands. The bell-clapper struck a couple of more times and then stopped.
    “That’s enough, William!” he said, grabbing me by the shirt and flinging me out of the vestibule and down the front steps.
    Just then my old man came running around the corner of the church. He missed hearing the bell ring, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
    “What did you quit for, son?” he asked me.
    “Preacher Hawshaw told me to,” I said. “He pushed me outside.”
    “He did!” my old man said, getting mad.
    Preacher Hawshaw came out through the door and stopped on the top step. He looked all tired out.
    “Now, look here, preacher!” Pa began. “When I agreed to ring the bell, I made up my mind to ring it or else to bust my buttons off in the effort. I’m going back inside there and finish the job like I promised to do. If you don’t like the way I ring it, that ain’t no fault of mine.”
    “Oh, no, you don’t!” Preacher Hawshaw said, blocking the door. “You’ve already broken up a wedding and caused a disgraceful fist-fight in the cemetery. The Things and the Willys have had their old sores opened up just because you tolled that bell. I don’t want you to ever touch that bell-rope again.”
    “How in the world was I to know you wanted it rung ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling-ding instead of ding-dong, ding-dong ?”
    “Common sense ought to have told you that,” he said, shoving my old man away from the door. “Besides, a man who doesn’t know the difference between tolling a bell and trilling it hasn’t got any business touching a church bell.”
    The people who had come to the church to see the wedding began talking about the way my old man had made the feud between the Things and the Willys come back. Miss Susie, who had been crying all that time in the choir loft, ran down the street toward her house still holding the big bouquet of flowers. I didn’t see Jule and Hubert again, but I supposed they had gone home to wash up.
    “You mean you just naturally don’t like the way I rang the bell for you?” my old man asked Preacher Hawshaw.
    “That’s exactly right, Mr. Stroup,” he said, giving Pa a big shove away from the door and making him hop down the steps in order to keep his footing.
    “Then don’t never come to my house again begging me to come to church to hear you preach,” Pa said, turning and walking sidewise toward the street. “If you don’t like my bell-ringing, I sure wouldn’t take to your preaching.”
    Preacher Hawshaw went inside the vestibule. He was almost out of sight when my old man called him.
    “What am I going to do about getting recognized religion if I take a notion that I need it?” Pa asked him. “I might decide recognized religion’s something I ought to have, instead of my own private kind, and I don’t want to be left high and dry when everybody else’s being saved and sent to Heaven.”
    Preacher Hawshaw stuck his head out the door.
    “You’ll be better off among the Methodists or Baptists,” he said. “The Universalists can get along without you, Mr. Stroup.”

III. Handsome Brown and the Aggravating Goats
    “I F IT’S NOT ONE thing your Pa’s done,” Ma said, looking all helpless and worn, “it’s something else. I declare, sometimes I think I’ll never have a minute’s peace as long as I live.”
    She walked up and down in the backyard wringing her hands, trying to think of something to do.
    The goats that Pa and Handsome Brown had brought home from our farm in the country were standing on top of the house chewing and looking down at us. The big billy goat had long white chin whiskers that made him look exactly like Mr. Carter who lived across the street.
    “What in the world am I going to do?” Ma said, still walking up and down. “I’ve invited the Ladies’ Social Circle to meet here this afternoon, and if