in', and lives up in the air like a kite; and outthinks other
people, because he sits round readin' and turkey-dreamin' when he ought
to be at work. I shall work agin him."

And she did. She first consulted upon the subject with Josiah
Crawford--"the Esquire," as she called him--and he promised to give the
negative of the question all the weight of his ability.

There was a young man in Gentryville named John Short, who thought that
he had had a call to preach, and who often came to Aunt Indiana for
theological instruction.

"Don't run round the fields readin' books, like Abraham Linkern," she
warned him. "He'll never amount to a hill o' beans. The true way to
become a preacher is to go into the desk, and open the Bible, and put
yer fingers on the first passage that you come to, and then open yer
mouth, and the Lord will fill it. I do not believe in edicated
ministers. They trust in chariots and horses. Go right from the plow to
the pulpit, and the heavens will help ye."

John Short thought Aunt Indiana's advice sound, and he resolved to
follow it. He once made an appointment to preach after this unprepared
manner in the school-house. He could not read very well. He had once
read at school, "And he smote the Hittite that he died" "And he smote
the Hi-ti-ti-ty, that he did," and he opened the Bible at random for a
Scripture lesson on this trying occasion. His eye fell upon the hard
chapters in Chronicles beginning "Adam, Sheth, Enoch." He succeeded very
well in the reading until he came to the generations of Japheth and the
sons of Gomer, which were mountains too difficult to pass. He lifted his
eyes and said, "And so it goes on to the end of the chapter, without
regard to particulars."

"That chapter was given me to try me," he said, as a kind of commentary,
"and, my friends, I have been equal to it. And now you shall hear me
preach, and after that we'll take up a contribution for the new
meetin'-house."

The sermon was a short one, and began amid much mental confusion. "A
certain man," he began, "went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell
among thieves; and the thieves sprang up and choked him; and he said,
'Who is my neighbor?' You all know who your neighbors are, O my
friends." Here followed a long pause. He added:

"Always be good to your neighbors. And now we will pass around the
contribution-box, and after that we'll _all_ talk."

This beginning of his work as a speaker did not look promising, but he
h