A fellow appears with a pink guard-chain and two breast-pins in his shirt, — one a masonic one of gold, with compass and square, and the other of colored glass, set in filigree brass, — and the shirt a soiled one.
A tendency to obesity is more common in this part of the country than I have noticed it elsewhere.
August 19th. — I drove with Orrin S — — — last evening to an old farmer’s house to get some chickens. Entering the kitchen, I observed a fireplace with rough stone jambs and back, and a marble hearth, cracked, and otherwise contrasting a roughness of workmanship with the value of the material. There was a clock without a case, the weights being visible, and the pendulum swinging in air, — and a coffee-mill fixed against the wall. A religious newspaper lay on the mantelpiece. The old farmer was reluctant to go after the fowls, declaring that it would be impossible to find them in the dark; but Orrin insisting, he lighted a lamp, and we all went together, and quickly found them, roosted about the woodpile; whereupon Orrin speedily laid hands on five, and wrung their necks in a twinkling, they fluttering long after they should have been dead. When we had taken our departure, Orrin remarked, “How fainthearted these old fellows are!” and it was a good observation; for it was the farmer’s timorous age that made him doubt the practicability of catching the chickens, and it contrasted well with the persevering energy of the middle-aged Orrin. But Orrin inquired, somewhat dolefully, whether I should suppose that he himself bewailed the advances of age. It is a grievous point with him.
In the evening there was a strange fellow in the bar-room, — a sort of mock Methodist, — a cattle-drover, who had stopped here for the night with two cows and a Durham bull. All his talk turned upon religion, and he would ever and anon burst out in some strain of scriptural-styled eloquence, chanted through his nose, like an exhortation at a camp-meeting. A group of Universalists and no-religionists sat around him, making him their butt, and holding wild argument with him; and he strangely mingled humor with his enthusiasm, and enthusiasm with his humor, so that it was almost impossible to tell whether he were in jest or earnest. Probably it was neither, but an eccentricity, an almost monomania, that has grown upon him, — perhaps the result of strong religious excitement. And, having been a backslider, he is cursed with a half-frenzied humor. In the morning he talked in the same strain at breakfast, while quaffing fourteen cups of tea, — Eliza, all the while, as she supplied him, entreating him not to drink any more. After breakfast (it being the Sabbath) he drove his two cows and bull past the stoop, raising his stair, and running after them with strange, uncouth gestures; and the last word I heard from him was an exhortation: “Gentlemen, now all of you take your Bibles, and meditate on divine things,” — this being uttered with raised hands, and a Methodistical tone, intermingled, as was his expression, with something humorous; so that, to the last, the puzzle was still kept up, whether he was an enthusiast or a jester. He wore a suit of coarse brown cloth, cut in rather a Quaker fashion; and he had a large nose, and his face expressed enthusiasm and honor, — a sort of smile and twinkle of the eye, with wildness. He is excellent at a bargain; and if, in the midst of his ghostly exhortation, the talk were turned on cattle, he eagerly seized the topic and expatiated on it.
While this fellow was enumerating the Universalists in neighboring towns who had turned from their errors on their deathbeds, some one exclaimed, “John Hodges! why, he isn’t dead, — he’s alive and well.” Whereat there was a roar of laughter. While holding an argument at table, I heard him mutter to himself at something that his adversary said; and though I could not distinguish what it was, the tone did more to convince me of some degree of earnestness than aught beside. This character might be wrought into a strange portrait of something sad, terrific, and laughable.
The Sabbath wore away lazily, and therefore wickedly. The heavy caravan-man inquired for some book of light reading, and, having obtained an old volume of a literary paper, betook himself to the seat of his wagon, to read. At other times he smoked, and talked sensibly enough with anybody that offered. He is a man of sense, though not quick, and seems to be a fair man.
When he walks, he puts the thumb of each hand into the armhole of his waistcoat, and moves along stiffly, with a knock-kneed gait. His talk was chiefly of hotels, and such matters as a man, always travelling, without any purpose of observation for mental improvement, would be interested in. He spoke of his life as a hard one.
There was a Methodist quarterly meeting here, and a love-feast.
There is a fellow hereabout who refuses to pay six dollars for the coffin in which his wife was buried. She died about six months since, and I believe he is already engaged to another. He is young and rather comely, but has not a straightforward look.
One man plods along, looking always on the ground, without ever lifting his eyes to the mountain scenery, and forest, and clouds, above and around him. Another walks the street with a quick, prying eye, and sharp face, — the most, expressive possible of one on the lookout for gain, — of the most disagreeable class of Yankees. There is also a sour-looking, unwholesome boy, the son of this man, whose voice is querulous and ill-natured, precisely suited to his aspect. So is his character.
We have another with Indian blood in him, and the straight, black hair, — something of the tawny skin and the quick, shining eye of the Indian. He seems reserved, but is not ill-natured when spoken to. There is so much of the white in him, that he gives the impression of belonging to a civilized race, which causes the more strange sensation on discovering that he has a wild lineage.
August 22d. — I walked out into what is called the Notch this forenoon, between Saddle Mountain and another. There are good farms in this Notch, although the ground is considerably elevated, — this morning, indeed, above the clouds; for I penetrated through one in reaching the higher region, although I found sunshine there. Graylock was hidden in clouds, and the rest of Saddle Mountain had one partially wreathed about it; but it was withdrawn before long. It was very beautiful cloud-scenery. The clouds lay on the breast of the mountain, dense, white, well-defined, and some of them were in such close vicinity that it seemed as if I could infold myself in them; while others, belonging to the same fleet, were floating through the blue sky above. I had a view of Williamstown at the distance of a few miles, — two or three, perhaps, — a white village and steeple in a gradual hollow, with high mountainous swells heaving themselves up, like immense, subsiding waves, far and wide around it. On these high mountain-waves rested the white summer clouds, or they rested as still in the air above; and they were formed in such fantastic shapes that they gave the strongest possible impression of being confounded or intermixed with the sky. It was like a daydream to look at it; and the students ought to be day-dreamers, all of them, — when cloudland is one and the same thing with the substantial earth. By degrees all these clouds flitted away, and the sultry summer sun burned on hill and valley. As I was walking home, an old man came down the mountain-path behind me in a wagon, and gave me a drive to the village. Visitors being few in the Notch, the women and girls looked from the windows after me; the men nodded and greeted me with a look of curiosity; and two little girls whom I met, bearing tin pails, whispered one another and smiled.
North Adams, August 23d. — The county commissioners held a court; in the bar-room yesterday afternoon,