Wilson, on his first Sunday, witnessed this with something like disgust. He had preached a short sermon, trying to talk man-to-man to the audience, to tell them who he was, what he had done in Macon and Birmingham, and what he proposed to do here. He sympathized with them on the loss of their old pastor. But then, at mention of that name, the Amen corner broke loose. He had no chance to say another word. At the very end, when the audience was silent and breathless, a collection was taken and then slowly everyone filed out. The audience did not think much of the new pastor, and what the new pastor thought of the audience he did not dare at the time to say.

During the next weeks he looked over the situation. First of all there was the parsonage, an utterly impossible place for civilized people to live in, originally poorly conceived, apparently not repaired for years, with no plumbing or sewage, with rat-holes and rot. It was arranged that he would board in the home of one of the old members of the church, a woman named Catt who, as Wilson afterward found, was briefly referred to as The Cat because of her sharp tongue and fierce initiative.

Ann Catt was a lonely, devoted soul, never married, conducting a spotless home and devoted to her church, but a perpetual dissenter and born critic. She soared over the new pastor like an avenging angel lest he stray from the path and not know all the truth and gossip of which she was chief repository.