It was one of my very favorite Bible stories and was about some fishermen who lived near a great big blue-watered lake that was thirteen miles long and seven miles wide and had thousands of fish in it. Two brothers, named Peter and Andrew, were fishing, not with poles but with nets, and two other brothers whose names were James and John, whose Pop’s name was Zebedee and whose Mom’s name was Salome, were using another boat. I was feeling sorry for the double brothers ’cause they hadn’t caught any fish and I was wondering what their Moms would say when they got home, when Barry started in to telling about a big crowd of people coming along listening to Someone telling wonderful stories and also telling them about the Father in Heaven and how to live right and things like that; and the crowd got so close to the Speaker that He might have been crowded into the water.
He turned and asked Peter to let Him borrow his boat, so He could get into it and push out from shore a little, and then He could talk to the crowd and not get trampled on and also the crowd’d be able to see Him. It was a bright idea, I thought, and wished I had been there, ’cause if it was wonderful to hear our minister at Sugar Creek tell about Him in his very interesting sermons, it would have been even wonderfuller to have been beside that pretty blue-watered lake that day and listened to the Saviour right while He was talking....
Pretty soon, the Speaker’s sermon was over, Barry said, and then He, just as if He wanted to pay Peter for being so courteous as to let Him make a pulpit out of his boat, told Peter to shove the boat into the deep water and let down the nets for some fish.... Say, Peter didn’t want to do it, ’cause he had been fishing around there all night, and hadn’t caught anything, and he might have wondered, “Why do it again and make a fool of myself?”
“But,” said Barry,—and I could see his all-gold tooth shining as he talked, and even though he was smiling, his face was very sober—“it is better to obey the Lord, boys, even if it does seem foolish to the world for you to do it, than it is to disobey Him. Besides, He has a right to give us orders, since He is the Son of God....”
He kept on talking, but for a minute, I looked at Circus, who I noticed had his fists doubled up, and was lying on his stomach and his elbows, looking up and across the fire at Barry. Also he had his chin resting on his doubled-up fists and the muscles of his jaw were working and I knew he was maybe imagining himself to be Peter and his thoughts were right out in that pretty lake, and he was seeing the whole thing with his mind’s eye like I was....
When my thoughts got back to Barry again, he was farther along in the story to where the net was suddenly jammed full of great big bouncing, swishing, lunging, splashing fish, and Peter and Andrew had to have help to pull the net in. Also right that second, the big strong net began to break in places and some of the fish were getting away, so Peter let out a yell for James and John to make a dive for their boat—in fact, to bring their boat with them which they did quick, and both of the boats were so jammed full of fish that both of them started to sink. That scared Peter, and also all of a sudden Peter realized that the Man he’d been listening to was more than a man, but was also the Lord. He all of another sudden realized what a terrible sinner he was, and he forgot all about the bouncing, swishing, lunging, splashing fish and dropped down on his knees and cried out to the Lord, “Go away, Lord, leave me. I’m a sinful man!”—on account of he was so ashamed of himself for being a sinful man, he didn’t think he was good enough to be anywhere near the Lord....
But say, Jesus had done all this on purpose to get Peter to believe in Him, and He told him not to be afraid any longer, but said, “Fear not; henceforth thou shalt catch men...”
When Barry said that, Circus’ bright eyes lit up and he interrupted the story to say, “What’d he mean by that?” Before Barry could answer, Little Tim Till surprised us all by cutting in and saying across the crackling fire to Circus, “He meant, ‘Don’t be scared; from now on you’ll be what our Sugar Creek minister calls a soul winner.’”
Well, it was a wonderful true story, and for some reason I had the happiest feeling all inside of me. I not only wished all of a quick sudden that I had been there and had maybe been Peter or Andrew or one of Mother Salome’s two boys, but I felt also that maybe the most important thing in the world was to be a soul winner, or a fisher of men...
Well, the story was done and the sky above the lake toward where the sun had gone down, reminded me of the reddish, purplish and also yellowish spread-out feathers of a terribly big fantail pigeon.