HEMAN W. CHAPLIN (“C. H. WHITE”)
Author of “The New Minister’s Great Opportunity”
“O. K.,” said Mr. Snell; “if ’tain’t no trouble, then ’tain’t. But seeing’s you know, suppose you specify the materials for this particular discourse.”
Mr. Noyes looked a little disconcerted.
“Well,” he said, “of course I can’t set here and compose a funereal discourse offhand without no writing-desk; but there’s stock enough to make a sermon of any time.”
“Oh, come,” said Mr. Snell, “don’t sneak out; particularize.”
“Why,” said Mr. Noyes, “you’ve only to open the leds of your Bible, and choose a text, and then: When did this happen? Why did this happen? To who did this happen? and so forth and so on; and there’s your sermon. I’ve heard ’em so a hunderd times.”
“All right,” said Mr. Snell; “I don’t doubt, you know: but as for me, I for one never happened to hear of anything that Uncle Capen did but whitewash and saw wood. Now, what sort of an autobiographical sermon could you make out of sawing wood?”
Whereat Leander Buffum proceeded, by that harsh, guttural noise well known to country boys, to imitate the sound of sawing through a log.
His sally was warmly greeted.