“So we set in to huntin’ and s’archin’ under old logs and stones, and dead wild grass, but couldn’t git hold of anythin’. The parson fell three times on all fours in the dirt, and gin his wrist a mi’ty bad sprain while pursuin’ a queer, long-legg’d horned critter somethin’ like a cricket, only pizenous, I guess. I could have caught it once, as it went dronin’ past, but didn’t feel like touchin’ it. Finally it got stuck into a clump of ferns, and he gin it up. So arter a while he ses, ‘I’ll have to go back and try that old Shellbark ag’in, though I’d ruther take a dose o’ ipecac than do it.’
“So we come back to whar he was fishin’. He looked mi’ty solemn, and was muddy as an old stone boat. Ses the parson to him, ‘I’ll have to call on you ag’in for another dead worm; the one you gin me is all gobbled up.’
“‘Seems to me you’re mi’ty extravagint with the bait,’ he ses gruffly, and switchin’ his line around and slingin’ it out far as the pole would let it go, but not makin’ the least motion to comply with the parson’s request.
“‘Waal, I don’t know how that is,’ ses Parson Bodfish, kind of easy like, and tryin’ to keep down his anger, that I seed was rizin’ jest like bilin’ sugar, ‘I nabbed four rousin’ good fish with that one bait. I reckon that’s doin’ pooty well; fact I know it is. They seem to bite fust rate at dead worms jest now.’
“‘Waal, I don’t know anythin’ about that,’ ses the old narrow gauge, ‘s’posin’ you cut up some of your fish and see if you can’t catch somethin’ with that sort of bait; fish bite pooty well at that sort of an offerin’ jest before rain, they say.’
“‘Then you ain’t a gwine to give me any worms?’ ses the parson, in a husky voice, and shakin’ like a rag in the wind, he was so chock full of passion.
“‘Waal, this is a sort of curious world, Mr. Bodfish,’ ses old Shellbark, slow and niggardly like, jest that way, ‘and without a feller looks out for himself he ain’t considered nothin’. ‘Sides you know,’ he contin’ed, ‘fish bait is a good deal like an oyster or a bean—somethin’ that’s mi’ty hard to divide with a feller,’ and he commenced to troll along down stream.
“Apple sass and spinage! I never did see a man so riled as that Parson Bodfish was sence I could distinguish the moon from a lightnin’ bug. He changed to all the colors of the rainbow by turns in less time than I’m tellin’ ye. You never seed sech a struggle between sin and piety as raged inside that parson for about five minutes.
“Fust piety seemed to be gettin’ on top, then sin would choke her down and hold her thar. At last he turned around and run full chisel ahind the turned up roots of a big windfall as though a gallon and a half of black hornets war arter him. I reckoned he was gwine arter stuns to gin the old feller a good peltin’, and that kind of work bein’ right into my hand I ran thar too, cal’latin’ to help him do it. But I was mistaken’d.
