“Ministers, now,” continued Sam in a soliloquizing vein--“folks allers thinks it's suthin' sort o' shaky in a minister to hev much to do with hosses,--sure to get 'em into trouble. There was old Parson Williams of North Billriky got into a drefful mess about a hoss. Lordy massy! he warn't to blame, neither; but he got into the dreffulest scrape you ever heard on--come nigh to unsettlin' him.” “O Sam! tell us all about it,” we boys shouted, delighted with the prospect of a story. “Wal, wait now till I get off this crittur's shoes, and we 'll take him up to pastur', and then we can kind o' set by the river, and fish. Hepsy wanted a mess o' fish for supper, and I was cal'latin' to git some for her. You boys go and be digging bait, and git yer lines.” And so, as we were sitting tranquilly beside the Charles River, watching our lines, Sam's narrative began:-- “Ye see, boys, Parson Williams--he's dead now, but when I was a boy he was one of the gret men round here. He writ books. He writ a tract agin the Armenians, and put 'em down; and he writ a big book on the millennium (I've got that 'are book now); and he was a smart preacher. Folks said he had invitations to settle in Boston, and there ain't no doubt he might 'a' hed a Boston parish ef he'd 'a' ben a mind ter take it; but he'd got a good settlement and a handsome farm in North Billriky, and didn't care to move: thought, I s'pose, that 'twas better to be number one in a little place than number two in a big un. Anyway, he carried all before him where he was. “Parson Williams was a tall, straight, personable man; come of good family--father and grand'ther before him all ministers. He was putty up and down, and commandin' in his ways, and things had to go putty much as he said. He was a good deal sot by, Parson Williams was, and his wife was a Derby,--one o' them rich Salem Derbys,--and brought him a lot o' money; and so they lived putty easy and comfortable so fur as this world's goods goes. Well, now, the parson wan't reely what you call worldly-minded; but then he was one o' them folks that _knows what's good_ in temporals as well as sperituals, and allers liked to hev the best that there was goin'; and he allers had an eye to a good boss.