<TITLE>05. Par 21-23</TITLE>L-21 He said, "I believe they're barking up the wrong tree." Now, anybody knows that a dog that you hunt with at night, and he barks the wrong tree, you're always fooled. So he said, "They're barking up the wrong tree." And now, he said, "They claim to have something treed, but you can never see it."
"Yes, sir."
And he said, "They're always talking about something, but can produce nothing."
"Yes, sir."
He said, "There was a certain preacher come here about two years ago, up here at a little place called Acton, up at the Methodist Campground. They had a meeting." Said, "There was an old sister who lives up here on the hill, was dying with cancer." And said, "This man had never been in this country."

L-22 And said, "At the meeting that night where several thousand people had gathered," he said, "this woman's sister was setting over in there crying about her sister." Said, "She couldn't even get on the bedpan no more. Wife and I had to pull a draw-sheet from beneath her." And said, "She... her sister out there with a... crying." Said, "This minister looked at that woman, and called her name, and said, 'You're weeping over a sister that's dying with cancer up on a certain ridge.' 'Yes,' said the woman."
Said, "The minister said, 'THUS SAITH THE LORD. Take that handkerchief right now that you have in your pocketbook, that you put in your pocketbook when you left home, and took it out of a top dresser drawer--a little handkerchief with initial in the corner of it, white handkerchief with a blue initial. Take that handkerchief and lay it on the woman in the Name of the Lord.' And said, 'She'll get well.'"

L-23 "Well," said, "the woman took off with some more people." And said, "Honest, it's three miles nearly over there," and said, "we thought they had the Salvation Army on that hillside around ten o'clock one night." But said, "We went over there the next morning, and the old lady was up cooking breakfast, eating fried apple pies for breakfast." And said, "That's been two or three years ago." And said, "You know, she hasn't even had a sick day since." He said, "Now, if I could see something like that happen."
"Oh," I said, "You..." Brother Wood looked over at me, and I shook my head. So he said... Standing there, dirt and squirrel blood, and everything, whiskers about that long, been in the hills camping... And I--I said, "Does that puzzle you?"
He said, "No, sir."
I said, "Do you mind if I have one of those apples?"
He said, "Help yourself. The yellow jackets are eating them up."
I said, "All right." I rubbed it on my old dirty pants and took off a bite. I said, "That's a good apple."
He said, "Sure is. I planted that tree there thirty-five years ago."
I said, "Let's see, this is about the last week in August."
"Yes, sir."
I said, "Sir, I want to ask you a question."
He said, "Go right ahead."
I said, "When you planted that tree there, how big was it?"
"Oh," he said, "it was just a sprout, about this high."
"Uh-huh." And I said, "I want to ask you... It's right now the last week in August. We haven't even had a cool night. But the apples are all dropped off that tree, and the leaves is dropped off of it."
"That leaf has gone back down into the root."
"That's right." I said, "Sir, why did that leaf drop off? Did it get wore out?"
"No." He said, "Well, the life left it."
"Oh, I see. And then the life left it and went back to the roots."
"Yes."
I said, "Sir, if it didn't go back to the root, then what?"
"Well," he said, "the tree... It has to go back to the roots. The tree wouldn't live. It would die. The winter would kill it." Said, "It gets twenty or thirty below zero down here sometimes."


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