r he'd ketch his foot in behind the trough and squeal
like mad, or something else, so that the minister had to keep leaving
his sermon-writing to straighten him out, and the minister's wife
complained of the squealing when she had company. And so the parson
decided to heave the enterprise up, and Jim sent up and took the pig
back. Come to settle, 'How do we stand?' says the minister. 'Oh, just as
you say,' says Jim, 'I'll leave it to you.' 'Well,' says the minister,
'on the one hand you've got back a pig that you've been paid for; but,
on the other hand, I 've had the use of him for some three months,--and
so I guess we 're square.'" "Talking of preachers," said Caleb Parker,
"reminds me of a story they tell of Uncle Cephas Bascom, of Northhaven.
Uncle Cephas was a shoemaker, and he never went to sea much, only to
anchor his skift in the Narrows abreast of his house, and catch a mess
of scup, or to pole a load of salt-hay from San-quitt Island. But he
used to visit his married daughter, in Vermont, and up there they knew
he come from the sea-board, and they used to call him 'Captain Bascom.'
So, one time when he was there, they had a Sabbath-school concert, and
nothing would do but 'Captain Bascom' must talk to the boys, and tell a
sea-yarn, and draw a moral, the way the Deacon, here, does." The Deacon
gravely smiled, and stroked his beard. "Well, Uncle Cephas was ruther
pleased with his name of 'Captain Bascom,' and he did n't like to go
back on it, and so he flaxed round to git up something. It seems he had
heard a summer boarder talk in Sabbath-school, at Northhaven; he told
how a poor boy minded his mother, and then got to tend store, and then
kep' store himself, and then he jumped it on them. 'That poor boy,' says
he, 'now stands before you.' So Uncle Cephas thought him up a similar
yarn. Well, he had never spoke in meeting before, and he hemmed and
hawed some, but he got on quite well while he was telling about a
certain poor boy, and all that, and how the boy when he grew up was out
at sea, in an open boat, and saw a great sword-fish making for the boat
Hail Columbia, and bound to stave right through her and sink her,--and
how this man he took an oar, and give it a swing, and broke the
critter's sword square off; and then Uncle Cephas--he 'd begun to git
a little flustered--he stops short, and waves his arms, and says he,
'Boys, what do you think! That sword-fish now stands before you!' I
cal'late that brought the