Every Sunday morning, Culbertson McClintock and the strong, agile Johnny would finish up the farm chores early. Then they all piled into the lumber wagon, with a picnic lunch, and went off to spend the day at the little Seceders' church-- a meeting house-- deep in the woods. The Seceders were old style Presbyterians, and their services resembled the early settlers' "meetings." farmers hitched their horses to trees around the grove, and the children played quietly while the grownups gossiped. Boys, their hair slicked down with marrow grease, eyed demure young girls in linsey-woolsey. Sunday School was from ten to eleven; for the next two hours, Elder Slentz hollered and pounded on the pulpit in the tiny church, in a sermon reeking of brimstone for sinners. Johnny, raised in the strict, devout McClintock household, had learned his Catechism, the first four Gospels, and most of the Acts, almost before he could spell. But the long Sunday sessions were hard on even the most docile children, and Johnny, an exuberant normal boy,  got a warning pinch from his aunt whenever he fidgeted.

The picnic bench was a blessed escape, but all too brief. Afterwards, men, women and children went back inside for another hour, or sometimes two, of the Elder's damning the Devil, and offering the Kingdom of Heaven like a bribe for model deportment. Prayers were a droning filibuster to keep Satan at bay. To please his aunt, Johnny, who could carry a tune as well as a tree toad, even sang in the choir.

--from The Great Oildorado (1959)