in the days when we was young and the children growin' up around us."

She broke off with a laugh relevant to some happy thought.

"I never see a show bill," she said, "that I don't think o' the time
Parson Page went to the circus. Times has changed so, I reckon a
preacher could go to a circus nowadays and little or nothin' be said of
it. I ricollect the last time the circus come to town Uncle Billy Bascom
says to me, says he: 'Jane, they tell me the church members and their
children was so thick in that tent to-day that you could 'a' held a
meetin' of the session right there and organized a Sunday school of any
denomination whatever.' But in my day all a church member or a church
member's children could do on circus day was to stand on the street and
watch the procession; and as for a minister, why, it wasn't hardly
considered fittin' for him to even go a-fishin', much less go to a
circus. Folks used to say a good many hard things about Parson Page for
bein' so fond of fishin', but there wasn't anything that could keep him
away from the river when spring come and the fish begun to bite. And
when folks begun tellin' tales about the fishin' in Reelfoot Lake,
Parson Page never rested till he got there.

"I reckon, honey, you know all about Reelfoot Lake?" Aunt Jane looked
questioningly at me over her glasses and waited for my answer.

"Why, yes, it's a big lake where all the men go to fish," I answered
hesitatingly.

The vagueness of my answer was a sure indication of shameful ignorance,
and Aunt Jane shook her head disapprovingly.

"There's somethin' wrong with the schoolin' of children nowadays," she
said gravely, "Knowin' what I do about Reelfoot Lake, it looks to me
like the folks that make the geography books for children ought to put
that lake down on the map in big letters and then tell all about it.
Why, child, there ain't but one Reelfoot Lake in all the world, and
every child ought to be able to tell all the hows and the wheres and the
whens that concerns it. Schoolin's a mighty good thing, but every now
and then there's somethin' you can't learn out o' books, and you've got
to come to some old man like Uncle Billy Bascom or some old woman like
me that can ricollect away back yonder. Not but what it's all hearsay
with me, when it comes to Reelfoot Lake, for that was before my day; but
many's the time I've heard father and Uncle Tandy Stevens tell about it.

"Father used to say that when God created the wor