<TITLE>37. Par -</TITLE>1L-051-259 I'd set trout lines on the river; go down, and get them fish, and sell them for ten cents a pound. Set my trout lines; I didn't have no boat; I'd swim out with a log. Get in the river, and it's still cold, put my bucket of bait out here on the log and to paddle and paddle out like that, my naked body in the river, and run this... Had me a string on this side, tie my fish up. Them old catfish finning me in the leg going along like that, and put my bait on...
But look, a many a night have I went out in that river at 11 o'clock and shake every piece of bait off that line. If I couldn't catch enough in six days, I didn't want the one come on the seventh. I've stood there in the rain.

1L-051-261 One night I can just see myself yet standing, leaning against... I was a sinner; but I was standing, leaning against the post like this, the door. Oh, it was pouring down rain, pretty near 11 o'clock. I said, "I'll be late tonight, but I'm going and spring every one of those traps. I won't catch him on the Sabbath." I said, "I won't--I won't set them traps." God honors that.
I remember the time when I always wanted, I always, all my life wanted to be a hunter. My grandfather was. You know, my grandmother come off the reservations; she drawed a pension. I just love outdoors.
And I remember I always wanted... I--I just wanted all my life... Thought if I could ever get enough money till I could own a .30-30 rifle... If I could ever do it, then I'd get a bunch of traps. I'd go to the mountains; I'll let the rest of the world go by. And I thought, "Maybe sometime if I'll take my .22 and practice to be a good shot, some hunter sometime will want me to go along. If I get to be a pretty good shot, he'll let me go along for his protection; I'll get to go hunting." I look, hanging on my walls, and the best rifles that money can buy hangs there, till I can loan people rifles to go hunting.

1L-051-264 He lets me go into the mountains and preach, and some of the best guides there is in the world takes me hunting free. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!"
When I... Even this morning, an old deer hunter here somewhere with a .35 Remington (I didn't really need the rifle.), but he put his arm around me, said he's getting too old to hunt, "I want to give you my rifle." I thought of that when I was a little boy, how, if I'd ever thought I'd owned a rifle like that, oh, my, what it would've been. And now, I just think, hanging there on my wall, fine rifles, places to go hunting.
I remember going out, and the boys would buy ice cream cone. And sometimes some of them would have a extra nickel and they'd buy me one. My, I couldn't buy them one back. I thought, "If I..."

1L-052-267 And they sometimes used to buy these old, what we call "mudlark hamburgers." Don't know whether you all remember or not, but some of you old-timers... You get it for a nickel, a whole lot of fried onions with it. Oh, I love those things. A little kid we didn't have... Just corn bread and molasses--you know how it is--to eat.
Now, somebody'd buy me one of them hamburgers, and boy, I'd lick my fingers where I held it. It was--it was--taste so good. And I thought, "Boy, that man, if I could only buy him a hamburger." And now, I can buy a church their supper.
I remember all those things, and where did it come from? The grace of God, nothing that I did.

1L-052-270 I remember going down the street here and I talked to somebody. My father--you all know it--he drank; he made whiskey. And that--nobody had nothing to do with me. I'd go down the street and try to talk to men; I still meet them men today. Try to talk somebody, if there's nobody else to talk to, they'd stand, "Yeah, uh-huh." See? I was a Branham.
So I'd feel real bad, and turn around, and walk away. I thought, "I'm not guilty of that. I didn't do what my daddy did. I never drank in my life. Why do I have to stand that?" And I was telling the wife here not long ago, "I almost have to stay out of town." God has done been good to me.


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