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'
b'l'eve it every mite, an' take it right hum to me to foller an'
live up to 's long 's I live an' breathe. Did j'ever think on it,
reely? I tell ye, his r'liging 's a fishin' r'liging all through.
His friends was fishin' folks; his pulpit was a fishin' boat, or
the shore o' the lake; he loved the ponds an' streams; an' when his
d'sciples went out fishin', if he did n't go hisself with 'em, he
'd go a'ter 'em, walkin' on the water, to cheer 'em up an' comfort
'em.

"An' he was allers 'round the water; for the story 'll say, 'he
come to the seashore,' or 'he begun to teach by the seaside,' or
agin, 'he entered into a boat,' an' 'he was in the stern o' the
boat, asleep.'

"An' he used fish in his mir'cles. He fed that crowd o' folks on
fish when they was hungry, bought 'em from a little chap on the
shore. I 've oft'n thought