"THE POET-PRIEST"

FATHER RYAN


My first meeting with Father Ryan was at the Atlantic Hotel in
Norfolk, in which town he had spent the first seven years of his life,
his parents having emigrated from Limerick and found a home there a
short time before his birth. He has been claimed by a number of
cities, and the dates of his nativity, as assigned by biographers,
range from 1834 to 1840, 1839 being the one best established. He told
me that his early memories of his Norfolk home were especially
associated with figs and oysters, the oysters there being the largest
and finest he had ever seen, they and the figs seeming to "rhyme with
his appetite." Then he told me an oyster story:

"A negro boatman was rowing some people down the river, among them two
prominent politicians who were discussing an absent one. 'He has no
more backbone than an oyster,' said one. The boatman laughed, and
said, 'Skuse me, marsers, but if you-all gemmen don' know no mo' 'bout
politicians dan you does 'bout oyschers you don' know much. No mo'
backbone dan a oyscher! Why, oyschers has as much backbone as folks
has, en ef you cuts into 'em lengfwise a little way ter one side en
looks at 'em close you'll see dar backbone's jes' lak we all's
backbone is. De only diffunce is de oyscher's backbone is ter one
side, jes' whar it ought ter be, 'stead er in de middle. Dat's de
reason I t'ink de debbil mus' er tuck a han' en he'ped ter mek we
alls, en you know de Lord says, Let _us_ mek man; dat shows dat He
didn' do hit all by Hese'f; ef He had He'd a meked we all's backbone
ter de side whar de oyscher's is, ter pertect us, en put our shin