One two-hundred pound delegate with a cigar between his fingers, blew the
smoke out of the mouth which but a few hours before was uttering a
supplication to the Most High to make us all good, punched a thin elder in
the ribs with his thumb and said: "Jim, do you remember the time we
carried the cow and calf up into the recitation room?" For a moment "Jim"
was inclined to stand on his dignity, and he looked pained, until they all
began to laugh, when he looked around to see if any worldly person was
present, and satisfying himself that we were all truly good, he said: "You
bet your life I remember it. I have got a scar on my shin now where that
d--blessed cow hooked me," and he began to roll up his trouser leg to show
the scar. They told him they would take his word, and he pulled down his
pants and said:
"Well, you see I was detailed to attend to the calf, and I carried the
calf up stairs, assisted by Bill Smith--who is preaching in Chicago; got a
soft thing--five thousand a year, and a parsonage furnished, and keeps a
team, and if one of those horses is not a trotter then I am no judge of
horseflesh or of Bill, and if he don't put on an old driving coat and go
out on the road occasionally and catch on for a race with some
wordly-minded man, then I am another. You hear me--well, I never knew a
calf was so heavy, and had so many hind legs.
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