an' seen; but it did n't come home to me; 't wa'n't my kind o'
fishin' an' I did n't seem ter sense it.

"But one day--it's more 'n forty year ago now, but I rec'lect it
same 's 't was yest'day, an' I shall rec'lect it forty thousand
year from now if I 'm 'round, an' I guess I shall be--I
heerd--suthin'--diffunt. I was down in the village one Sunday; it
wa'n't very good fishin'--the streams was too full; an' I thought I
'd jest look into the meetin'-house 's I went by. 'T was the ole
union meetin'-house, down to the corner, ye know, an' they had n't
got no reg'lar s'pply, an' ye never knowed what sort ye 'd hear, so
't was kind o' excitin'.

"'T was late, 'most 'leven o'clock, an' the sarm'n had begun.
There was a strange man a-preachin', some one from over to the
hotel. I never heerd his name, I never seed him from that day to
this; but I knowed his face. Queer enough I 'd seed him a-fishin'.
I never knowed he was a min'ster; he did n't look like one. He
went about like a real fisherman, with ole clo'es an' an ole hat
with hooks stuck in it, an' big rubber boots, an' he fished, reely
fished, I mean--ketched 'em. I guess 't was that made me liss'n a
leetle sharper 'n us'al, for I never seed a fishin' min'ster afore.
Elder Jacks'n, he said 't was a sinf'l waste o' time, an' ole
Parson Loomis, he 'd an idee it was cruel an' onmarciful; so I
thought I 'd jest see what this man 'd preach about, an' I settled
down to liss'n to the sarm'n.

"But there wa'n't no sarm'n; not what I 'd been raised to think was
the on'y true kind. There wa'n't no heads, no fustlys nor
sec'ndlys, nor fin'ly bruthrins, but the first thing I knowed I was