There were three churches near. They were served by Dutch preachers, and some of them were characters. We young boys would line up on the back and look for something to amuse us and often were rewarded. I often wonder whether I went to church from a religious motive or to be entertained. One old preacher by the name of Gumbert would have a chaw of tobacco in his mouth when he was preaching. I remember once while he was preaching he got too much saliva in his mouth, so he opened the window that back of the pulpit and spat out the window, closed it and went on preaching as if nothing had happened. Then there was old Mr. Isaac Smith, who always came in late and sat on the first pew at the side of the church. About the time the preacher was getting warmed up in his sermon, Isaac would let out about three sneezes and then go and spit out a little hole in the broken stained glass window. One old preacher had been raised in the valley but preached in Somerset County, and they would have him preach when he was back on a visit. I remember once he took his text from Revelations and said, "I am going to preach from Revelations. I don't know much about them. I don't think anybody does." So he proceeded to preach a sermon on them anyway. Once the same preacher was conducting a funeral service over the body of a young man who had gone away from home and led a wild life, died, and the body was brought back for burial. He started by saying, "As a tree falleth, so it lieth. That is all I have to say about that." The he proceeded to preach a sermon. He wasn't going to send him to either place. Then a few miles away there was a Methodist Church made up of German descendants, the same as our Reformed or Lutheran at home. One night they were taking up a collection for some cause and one would get up and subscribe on dollar, another two, so one old fellow by the name of Andy Rupert jumped to his feet and yelled out, Five dollars for Andy Rupert, by Gad!" These old characters had their own way of describing some incident that happened. One morning a neighbor went to call on Eph Rupert and he had had a bad misfortune. His dog had died. So this is the way he described it: "I went out to the barn in the morning to do my chores, and there was little Rover sitting up lying down deader than hell." We had Literary Societies and would meet twice a month at the school house and always had a debate. Oh, we settled lots of the world problems at these societies. One night they were busy debating when an old fellow jumped to his feet and said, "A thought just now struck me." He stood there for awhile and then said, "And it now just left me," and then sat down.