Perhaps it’s my own fault, for dear old Mr Hopewell used to say, “Sam, your head ain’t like any one else’s. Most men’s minds resembles what appears on the water when you throw a stone in it. There is a centre, and circles form round it, each one a little larger than the other, until the impelling power ceases to act. Now you set off on the outer circle, and go round and round ever so often, until you arrive to the centre where you ought to have started from at first; I never see the beat of you.”
“It’s natur,” sais I, “Minister.”
“Natur,” sais he, “what the plague has natur to do with it?”
“Why,” sais I, “can one man surround a flock of sheep?”
“Why, what nonsense,” sais he; “of course he can’t.”
“Well, that’s what this child can do,” sais I. “I make a good sizeable ring-fence, open the bars, and put them in, for if it’s too small, they turn and out agin like wink, and they will never so much as look at it a second time. Well, when I get them there, I narrow and narrow the circle, till it’s all solid wool and mutton, and I have every mother’s son of them. It takes time, for I am all alone, and have no one to help me; but they are thar’ at last. Now, suppose I went to the centre of the field, and started off arter them, what would it end in? Why, I’de run one down, and have him, and that’s the only one I could catch. But while I was a chasin’ of him, all the rest would disperse like a congregation arter church, and cut off like wink, each on his own way, as if he was afraid the minister was a-goin’ to run after ’em, head ’em, and fetch ’em back and pen ’em up again.”
He squirmed his face a little at that part about the congregation, I consaited, but didn’t say nothin’, for he knew it was true.
“Now, my reason,” sais I, “for goin’ round and round is, I like to gather up all that’s in the circle, carry it with me, and stack it in the centre.”
Lord! what fun I have had pokin’ that are question of Jessie’s sudden to fellows since then! Sais I to Brother Eldad once—
“Dad, we often talk about natur; what is it?”