“‘Wall, start in on the sermon at once then,’ he urged, ‘for they are gettin’ mi’ty impatient now I can tell you. You’ve got to be doin’ somethin’ pooty quick. But whatever you do,’ he contin’ed, ‘don’t git up very high without havin’ some idea how you are goin’ to git down ag’in. Keep steerin’ around waters that you’ve piloted over before. Remember a blind mouse shouldn’t venture very far from its hole, especially if thar’s a whole generation of cats watchin’ of it.’
“With that he backed down to his seat ag’in, and took out his pencil and began to design a machine for pickin’ the bones out of fish, on the fly-leaf of a book that was lyin’ thar. So I started in on the sermon. It wasn’t much of a sermon, to be sure. It was more like a lectur’. I couldn’t think of any passages of scriptur’ just then, so I gin ’em the line from the philosopher, ‘Why does the frightened dog depress his tail when he runneth?’
MR. SPUDD.
“You ought to have seen ’em rustlin’ and turnin’ the leaves, huntin’ to find the passage. One old feller by the name of Spudd commenced to paw over the pages, and his wife ses, ‘Don’t go that way; turn back to the Book of Job.’ He looked round at her with his under lip stickin’ out jest that way, arter wettin’ of his thumb to start turnin’ over ag’in, and ses, ‘Job be biled and buttered! I kin pick old Solomon from amongst a thousand of ’em. He was sound on the goose, he was.’
THE OLD INTERROGATOR.
“Two or three of ’em started in to ask me where the text was located, but I kept on talkin’ right straight along, lookin’ around to all of ’em at once and no one in particular. I didn’t gin ’em a chance to stop me ag’in, or git a word in edgeways. One singular-lookin’ old coon with a weed on his hat got up and stood signalin’ of me, and waitin’ and watchin’ for a chance to ask me somethin’. But I never let on to see him. I reckon he stood thar five minutes with his finger up pointin’ to attract my attention, and his mouth open so wide, that from my elevated position I could tell what he had swallowed for breakfast.
“I gin ’em a sort of ramblin’ discourse, alludin’ to the prevailin’ passions, and errors of the age. Amongst other things I touched on jealousy a little,—I wanted to stir ’em up a trifle on that subject, because there was a great deal of jealousy in that neighborhood. The green-eyed monster was a-rantin’ and a-ravin’ round in a good many households, and as it ginnerally turns out, there was least cause for it where it was most prevailin’. One old feller was moved by the first remark. When I said—quotin’ from the poet—‘Jealousy in the wife is wuss than trichina in the pork,’ he leaned over to the man settin’ in the next pew and ses, ‘I can’t tell you for the life of me whar he gits the passage, but it’s the solid truth, anyhow.’
“So I went on and finished the sermon, or lectur’ ruther, and then I ses, ‘The choir will please sing the hymn beginnin’ “Give, give, give to the needy,” arter which I will pass around amongst the congregation and take up a collection for the benefit of the heathen in furrin parts.’