“‘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.
“He wasn’t gwine arter stuns, for I seed so soon as he thought he was out of sight he flopped down on his knees right thar in the mud, a-holdin’ his hands jined together above his head jest that way. I allowed he was a gwine to pray then for sartin, but he didn’t pray; no siree, not much pra’ar jest then! he sw’ar’d though. He did! I heered him, jest as plain as could be, ses he:—
“‘I sw’ar I’ll git even yet with that old Shellbark, if I have to yank him out of his grave like a body-snatcher, to accomplish it!’
“I felt like runnin’ thar and sayin,’ ‘Don’t rise yet, let me kneel and sw’ar too,’ the same as that tricky feller does in the play whar he’s a-foolin’ the jealous nigger so bad; but I knowed it wouldn’t do, ’cause he didn’t want me to see him kneel thar in the mud. So when he came back he found me peltin’ a frog as if nothin’ had happened.