"Well, I s'pose it's like this; sometimes a boat gets loose and starts off without oars, and then at other times the oars gets broken or lost in the middle of the river. I never lost nor broke an oar in my life, so I s'pose I must have started without any."
"And so you mean to keep on drifting?" asked Edith, growing interested.
"What can a fellow do? Out in the middle of the river without any oars? He hasn't much chance of getting back to the wharf after them."
"But if the oars have been lying in the bottom of his boat all the time? Wouldn't a man be foolish if he didn't pick them up and use them when he found he was drifting down stream and making no progress toward the other shore?"
"Humph! it ain't much likely that a fellow would let them oars lie right afore his eyes and never touch them, is it, now?"
"That is what puzzles me," replied Edith. "You have only just to put out the hand of faith and take hold of the oars of prayer and the word of God and pull for the shore."
"My! Miss, I never thought of that! I've got a Bible that my old mother gave me when I started out; and she taught me a prayer too. And I've been letting them oars lie idle in the bottom of the old boat all these years. D'ye s'pose they are as good and stout as ever? And would they pull an old fellow like me into port?"
OUT IN JERRY'S BOAT.
"I am sure they would. O, Jerry, I wish you would take hold of them and pull!"