These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

Stowe likens an early, half-understood remark to a ring dropped into a well: it disappears from conscious thought but remains intact. The image stresses how childhood impressions—moral counsel, religious teaching, or a striking phrase—can lie dormant for years, only to resurface later when experience provides the “fishing up” that makes their meaning vivid. The simile also implies durability: what is truly valuable in an idea can survive neglect and time “good as new.” In Stowe’s broader moral imagination, such delayed awakenings often mark moments of conscience, conversion, or ethical clarity.