“Objection well taken,” responded Jim, gravely.  “I reckon I got it turned ’round a minute ago.  It was more like: 

  “’Lead me on, kindly lantern,
  For I am far from home,
  And the night is dark.’”

“It don’t sound like a song—­not exactly,” ventured Lufkins.  “Why not give ’em ’Down on the Swanee River’?”

“All right,” agreed the “parson,” and therefore they were all presently singing at the one perennial “hymn” of the heart, universal in its application, sweetly religious in its humanism.  They sang it with a woful lack of its own original lines; they put in string on string of “dum te dums,” but it came from their better natures and it sanctified the dingy shop.

When it was ended, which was not until it had gone through persistent repetitions, old Jim was prepared for almost anything.

“I s’pose you boys want a regular sermon,” said he, “and if only I’d ‘a’ had the time—­wal, I won’t say what a torch-light procession of a sermon you’d have got, but I’ll do the best I can.”

He cleared his throat, struck an attitude inseparable from American elocution, and began: 

“Fellow-citizens—­and ladies and gentlemen—­we—­we’re an ornary lot of backwoods fellers, livin’ away out here in the mountains and the brush, but God Almighty ’ain’t forgot us, all the same.  He sent a little youngster once to put a heartful of happiness into men, and He’s sent this little skeezucks here to show us boys we ain’t shut off from everything.  He didn’t send us no bonanza—­like they say they’ve got in Silver Treasury—­but I wouldn’t trade the little kid for all the bullion they will ever melt.  We ain’t the prettiest lot of ducks I ever saw, and we maybe blow the ten commandants all over the camp with giant powder once in a while, lookin’ ’round for gold, but, boys, we ain’t throwed out complete.  We’ve got the love and pity of God Almighty, sure, when he gives us, all to ourselves, a little helpless feller for to raise.  I know you boys all want me to thank the Father of us all, and that’s what I do.  And I hope He’ll let us know the way to give the little kid a good square show, for Christ’s sake.  Amen.”

The men would have listened to more.  They expected more, indeed, and waited to hear old Jim resume.

“That’s about all,” he said, as no one spoke, “except, of course, we’ll sing some more of the hymns and take up collection.  I guess we’d better take collection first.”

The congregation stirred.  Big hands went down into pockets.

“Who gets the collection?” queried Field.

Jim drawled, “When it ain’t buttons, it goes to the parson; when it is, the parson’s wife gits in.”

“You ’ain’t got no wife,” objected Bone.

“That’s why there ain’t goin’ to be no buttons,” sagely answered the miner.  “On the square, though, boys, this is all for the little skeezucks, to buy some genuine milk, from Miss Doc Dennihan’s goat.”