But it was of another kind of knowledge he oftenest spoke, and of
which I shall try to tell you, in his own words as nearly as
possible.

First let me say that if there should seem to be the faintest tinge
of irreverence in aught I write, I tell my story badly.   There was
no irreverence in Fishin' Jimmy.  He possessed a deep and profound
veneration for all things spiritual and heavenly; but it was the
veneration of a little child, mingled as is that child's with
perfect confidence and utter frankness.  And he used the dialect of
the country in which he lived.

"As I was tellin' ye," he said, "I allers loved fishin' an' knowed
't was the best thing in the hull airth.  I knowed it larnt ye more
about creeters an' yarbs an' stuns an' water than books could tell
ye.  I knowed it made folks patienter an' commonsenser an'
weather-wiser an' cuter gen'ally; gin 'em more fac'lty than all the
school larnin' in creation.  I knowed it was more fillin' than
vittles, more rousin' than whisky, more soothin' than lodlum.  I
knowed it cooled ye off when ye was het, an' het ye when ye was
cold.  I knowed all that, o' course--any fool knows it.  But--will
ye b'l'eve it?--I was more 'n twenty-one year old, a man growed,
'fore I foun' out why 't was that away.  Father an' mother was
Christian folks, good out-an'-out Calv'nist Baptists from over
East'n way.  They fetched me up right, made me go to meetin' an'
read a chapter every Sunday, an' say a hymn Sat'day night a'ter
washin'; an' I useter say my prayers mos' nights.  I wa'n't a bad
boy as boys go.  But nobody thought o' tellin' me the one thing,
jest the one single thing, that 'd ha' made all the diffunce.  I
knowed about God, an' how he made me an' made the airth, an'
everything an' once I got thinkin' about that, an' I asked my
father if God made the fishes.  He said 'course he did, the sea an'
all that in 'em is; but somehow that did n't seem to mean nothin'
much to me, an' I lost my int'rist agin.  An' I read the Scripter
account o' Jonah an' the big fish, an' all that in Job about
pullin' out levi'thing with a hook an' stickin' fish spears in his
head, an' some parts in them queer books nigh the end o' the ole
Test'ment about fish-ponds an' fish-gates an' fish-pools, an' how
the fishers shall l'ment--everything I could pick out about fishin'
an' seen; but it did n't come home to me; 't wa'n't my kind o'
fishin' an' I did n't seem ter sense it.