'em de bref er life. He stuck all de fishes' haids on, but de crab wuz
obstreperous en he say, 'Gib me my haid; I gwine put hit on myse'f.'
De Lord argufied wid him but de crab wouldn' listen, en he say he
gwine put hit on. So de Lord gin him his haid en 'course he put hit on
back'ards. Den he went ter de Lord en ax' Him ter put hit straight,
but de Lord wouldn' do hit, en He tole him he mus' go back'ards all
his life fer his obstinacy. En so 'tis wid some people."

[Illustration: FATHER RYAN
From the portrait in Murphy's Hotel, Richmond, Virginia]

Father Ryan told me that one of the greatest obstacles with which he
had to contend in his dealings with people was the lack of ethic
sensitiveness which rendered them oblivious to the harm of deviations
from principle which seemed not to result in great evil. People who
would not steal articles of value did not hesitate to cheat in
car-fare, taking the view that the company got enough out of the
public without their small contribution. He said, "They are like two
very religious old ladies who, driving through a toll-gate, asked the
keeper the rate. Being newly appointed, he looked into his book and
read so much for a man and a horse. The woman who was driving whipped
up the horse, calling out, 'G'lang, Sally, we goes free. We are two
old maids and a mare.' On they went without paying."

When Abram Ryan was seven years old the family moved to St. Louis,
where the boy attended the schools of the Christian Brothers, in his
twelfth year entering St. Mary's Seminary, in Perry County, Missouri.
He completed his preparation for the work to which his life was
dedicated, in the Ecclesiastical Seminary at Niagara, New York. Upon
ordination he was placed in charge of a parish in Missouri.