One more experience must be told. The Judge, the Preacher and the Southerner had gone up the de Sable River at high tide in a dory. Their theory was that after fishing around Dixon’s Mill they would float back on the receding tide. The theory as to the fishing and the receding of the tide proved trustworthy; but the floating was a delusion. The fact is, they fished too long, the tide had gone out, and the dory would float only as it was dragged. The Southerner declared that he was incapacitated for violent physical exertion, and furnished his share of the necessary toil in the shape of large chunks of advice. As a self-acting dispenser of gratuitous counsel he was immense. Behold the Judge at one end of the boat and the Preacher at the other, shoes and stockings off, trousers rolled above the knees, tugging and straining at that heavy boat to induce it to float in three inches of water! When they were fairly stuck fast and it looked as if the boat could never be stirred again until floated by the next tide, the reproving voice of the passenger would be heard assuring the perspiring propellers that it was all their own fault; that if they had kept a little this way or to that side, all would have been well. As they listened, the wonder grew in their minds that Job ever allowed the friends who visited him in the capacity of an advisory committee to escape with their lives. But it takes more than a heavy dory and an unappreciative passenger to discourage men who are firm believers in the perseverance of the saints, and the Judge and the Preacher hauled their burden through a mile of mud and water, and live to tell the tale.
Fair Prince Edward Island! Across the years the Preacher sees your smiling fields and sober woods and hears the beat of the surf and the tinkle of silver streams. Land of trout! Land of peace! Land of Nod!
[Original]
[Original]
In lands of palm and southern pine,
In lands of palm and orange-