hey floated down past Cairo and
saw the big lake, pretty near twenty-five miles long and four miles
wide, right where there'd been nothin' but woods and dry land, and the
tops o' some o' the biggest trees was stickin' up above the water, and
folks from far and from near was comin' to see what the earthquake had
done.

"Father and Uncle Tandy never got through talkin' about the earthquake
that Sunday mornin', and Parson Page never got tired listenin', and
every time he'd come to see father, he'd manage to bring the talk around
to fishin', and that'd start father to tellin' about the time the lake
was made; and when father'd git through, Parson Page he'd draw a long
breath and say: 'Well, that's wonderful! wonderful! It was a great
privilege to be present at an act of creation, as it were, and something
to be thankful for all your days.'"

Aunt Jane's voice ceased suddenly, and a bewildered look came into her
clear old eyes, the look of one who has lost connection with the present
by lingering overtime in the past, "What was I talkin' about a while
ago, child?" she asked helplessly.

"Wasn't it circuses?" I suggested.

The cloud of perplexity rolled away from Aunt Jane's face, "Why, of
course it was," she ejaculated, with an accent of self-reproof for her
forgetfulness. "Didn't I start out to tell you about Parson Page goin'
to the circus, and here I am tellin' about the earthquake. I'm jest
like an old blind horse; can't keep in the straight road to save my
life. Some folks might say my mind was failin', but if you ever git to
be as old as I am, child, you'll know jest how it is. A young person
hasn't got much to remember, and he can start out and tell a straight
tale without any trouble. But an old woman like me--why, every name I
hear starts up some ricollection or other, and that keeps me goin' first
to one side o' the road and then to the other."

And having explained away her lapse of memory, Aunt Jane went cheerfully
on.

"I was talkin' about church members goin' to circuses, and I started out
to tell about Parson Page the time Barnum's big show come to town. I
don't reckon there ever was such a show as Barnum's, nor such show bills
as he put up that spring. They was pasted up all along every road
leadin' into town, and under the pictures of the animals they had Bible
texts. There was the Arabian horses and that Bible text from Job, 'Thou
hast clothed his neck with thunder.' And under the lion's picture they