if they 'd jine him, too, an' they jest dropped all their things,
an' left the ole man with the boat an' the fish an' the bait an'
follered the preacher. I don't tell it very good. I 've read it
an' read it sence that; but I want to make ye see how it sounded to
me, how I took it, as the min'ster telled it that summer day in
Francony meetin'. Ye see I 'd no idee who the story was about, the
man put it so plain, in common kind o' talk, without any
come-to-passes an' whuffers an' thuffers, an' I never conceited 't
was a Bible narr'tive.

"An' so fust thing I knowed I says to myself, 'That 's the kind o'
teacher I want. If I could come acrost a man like that, I 'd jest
foller him, too, through thick an' thin.' Well, I can't put the
rest on it into talk very good; 't aint jest the kind o' thing to
speak on 'fore folks, even sech good friends as you. I aint the
sort to go back on my word,--fishermen aint, ye know,--an' what I
'd said to myself 'fore I knowed who I was bindin' myself to, I
stuck to a'terwards when I knowed all about him. For 't aint for
me to tell ye, who've got so much more larnin' than me, that there
was a dreffle lot more to that story than the fishin' part. That
lovin', givin' up, suff'rin', dyin' part, ye know it all yerself,
an' I can't kinder say much on it, 'cept when I 'm jest all by
myself, or--'long o' him.

"That a'ternoon I took my ole Bible that I had n't read much sence
I growed up, an' I went out into the woods 'long the river, an'
'stid o' fishin' I jest sot down an' read that hull story. Now ye
know it yerself by heart, an' ye 've knowed it all yer born days,
so ye can't begin to tell how new an' 'stonishin' 't was to me, an'
how findin' so much fishin' in it kinder helped me unnerstan' an'