Now notice. I used to go up there to hunt with a fellow called Burt. He was a good hunter. You didn't have to worry about him. He was a crack shot and a good hunter, and you didn't have to worry about him being lost. He knowed where he was at.
I got up there late, one year, to hunt with him. There's only one fault I found to Burt. He was a good hunter, but he was the meanest man I ever met in my life. He had eyes like a lizard, them, kind of like slanted eyes, you know, like some women paint their eyes today, over, kind of like a cat, and she had. Had them kind of eyes, you know, kind of funny-looking eyes. And he used to be so cruel. He used to shoot fawns just to make me feel bad. And he used to say to me, "Aw, you preachers are chicken-hearted bunch," See?
And I said, "Burt, if the law says you can kill a fawn, that's all right, 'cause the--the size or the sex of the animal doesn't matter if the law says you can do it." See? I said, "There's nothing about killing a lamb. Abraham killed a lamb and fed it to God. That's right." I said, "Nothing about killing a fawn. But, Burt, you do it just to be mean. You shoot one, then shoot another, then shoot another. That's mean. That's not right to do that. That's murder."
He said, "Ah, Billy, get next to yourself. You're chicken-hearted like the rest of the preachers." Oh! He was cruel.
But that day when I went up there, my wife was with me. We went to the little cabin, lodge there, and the women folks, and get ready. And Burt and I left that morning. We always carried a--a--a thermos bottle full of hot chocolate, and a sandwich. And we'd hunt up till about noon, and then we'd separate, going up over the Presidential Range, and Mount Wilson, Mount Adams, and so forth. And then we'd separate and come back and get in the camp that night. We hunted the whitetail deer, really fine deer. So we...
That year, he said to me, when we left that morning, said, "Hey, Billy, I got a surprise for you. I'm going to get them this year."
I said, "What's that, Burt?" Reached down in his pocket and pulled out a little whistle that he had made, sound just like a little baby deer calling for its mammy. You know, the little fawn calling, that little "whee" noise made.
I said, "Burt, you wouldn't use something like that."
I said, "Burt, you wouldn't use something like that."
He said, "Aw, there you are. You're still chicken-hearted, aren't you?" And so we went on.
And it kind of late in the season. Them whitetail deer, when they are shot at, a few times, oh, my! You talk about hiding! Houdini was a amateur. So how they can hide! And so then we--we went till eleven o'clock. There was about six inches of snow on the ground. Didn't even see a track. They were really hid good.
So, along about eleven, twelve o'clock, there was kind of a drift of snow, and an open place, something the size of this room here. And Burt just was in front of me. He just stooped down like this, and started reaching back in his coat here. And I thought he would, we'd eat our sandwich, and then we would separate and go back to the camp, get back that night. He was feeling back. I thought he was going to get his bottle out, you know, with his hot chocolate, so I reached back to get mine. And when I did, he come out with this little whistle.
He looked up at me with them lizard eyes, you know, and put that little whistle in his mouth, like that. And he blowed it, just like a little fawn, or little fellow calling for its mother. And when he blowed that whistle, just across that clearing, a big mother deer, a doe, stood up. That's the mother deer. She jumped up. She heard that call of the baby. I could seen him look up at me, like that, and grin. I thought, "Burt, you won't do that. Surely you won't." And he duck his head down. He blowed again.
I can just see her big ears, them big brown eyes. She walked right out in that open. Now, that's strange for a deer to do that, especially that time of day, and right out when hunting season is in, to walk out like that. But she walked right out into that opening, a little clearing, a little meadow. That's very unusual for her to do that. But why did she do it? She was a mother. She was actually born a mother. And that call of her baby, she didn't think about danger. She was thinking about her baby.
And when I seen her turn broadsided; Burt, I heard him let the bolt down on that.30-06, and he was a dead shot. I seen him raise around and put the cross hair of that scope right across her loyal heart.
I thought, "Burt, how can you do it? How can you do it? Surely you won't do it." I thought, "That mother, walking out there to take up for her baby, and then you would blow that loyal heart out of her. How can you do it, Burt?" And I stood there.
I see him quieten himself down, leveling down like that.
I see him quieten himself down, leveling down like that.
I thought, "Oh, my! I--I can't watch it." I thought, "That mother, she can't help it." She's not acting smart. She's not putting on a show. She's a mother, in her. Her--her--her part, in her, she's a mother. And that was a baby calling, in trouble, and she's hunting for it.
And when the bolt fell, the deer turned and looked to the hunter, 'cause he had raised up. That still didn't excite her. She was ready to die. She...
Oh, if people could just be like that!
Oh, if people could just be like that!
I turned my head. I couldn't watch him shoot her. I turned my head. And I started praying, silently, 'cause I knowed he'd bawl me out if I tried to run her away. I--I turned my head like that, and I said, "Father God, help him. Help him. Don't--don't let him kill that mother, trying to hunt for her baby, and it crying like that. Don't--don't let him kill her." And I was turning, like this, and I noticed.
I was listening, to hear the gun go off, any minute, but the gun never went off. I waited and I waited. And when I turned around, to see, he was holding like this. I seen the gun going like this.
He turned around, looked up to me, and out of them cruel-looking lizard eyes, the tears was dropping off his cheeks. He throwed the gun on the ground. He grabbed me around the trouser leg. He said, "Billy, lead me to that Jesus that you know." Right there on that snow bank, I led that cruel hunter to Jesus. He's a deacon in a Baptist church up there now.
Why? What was it? It wasn't a preaching. It--it--it wasn't the songs that he heard. But he seen something that wasn't a put-on, something that wasn't a front. He seen something that was genuine. "If they hold their peace, the rocks will cry out." He saw that there was something somewhere that could send a person in the face of death, a love that could send that mother deer in the face of death, and yet not fear to die, because the love of her fawn calling. He wanted to know if there was a--a God that could give him that kind of love, and he found it that day.
WMB - 63-0605, Greater Than Solomon Is Here, Ramada Inn, Tucson, AZ
