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- 4904
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- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4839
- text
- "But my dear and glorious cock," mused I, upon second thought, "one
can't so easily send this world to pot; one can't so easily be jolly
with civil-processes in his hat or hand."
Hark! the crow again. Plain as cock could speak, it said: "Hang the
process, and hang the fellow that sent it! If you have not land or
cash, go and thrash the fellow, and tell him you never mean to pay him.
Be jolly!"
Now this was the way--through the imperative intimations of the
cock--that I came to clap the added mortgage on my estate; paid all my
debts by fusing them into this one added bond and mortgage. Thus made
at ease again, I renewed my search for the noble cock. But in vain,
though I heard him every day. I began to think there was some sort
of deception in this mysterious thing: some wonderful ventriloquist
prowled around my barns, or in my cellar, or on my roof, and was minded
to be gayly mischievous. But no--what ventriloquist could so crow with
such an heroic and celestial crow?
At last, one morning there came to me a certain singular man, who had
sawed and split my wood in March--some five-and-thirty cords of it--and
now he came for his pay. He was a singular man, I say. He was tall
and spare, with a long saddish face, yet somehow a latently joyous
eye, which offered the strangest contrast. His air seemed staid, but
undepressed. He wore a long, gray, shabby coat, and a big battered hat.
This man had sawed my wood at so much a cord. He would stand and saw
all day in a driving snow-storm, and never wink at it. He never spoke
unless spoken to. He only sawed. Saw, saw, saw--snow, snow, snow. The
saw and the snow went together like two natural things. The first day
this man came, he brought his dinner with him, and volunteered to eat
it sitting on his buck in the snow-storm. From my window, where I was
reading Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, I saw him in the act. I burst
out of doors bareheaded. "Good heavens!" cried I; "what are you doing?
Come in. _This_ your dinner!"
He had a hunk of stale bread and another hunk of salt beef, wrapped in
a wet newspaper, and washed his morsels down by melting a handful of
fresh snow in his mouth. I took this rash man indoors, planted him by
the fire, gave him a dish of hot pork and beans, and a mug of cider.
"Now," said I, "don't you bring any of your damp dinners here. You work
by the job, to be sure; but I'll dine you for all that."
He expressed his acknowledgments in a calm, proud, but not ungrateful
way, and dispatched his meal with satisfaction to himself, and me
also. It afforded me pleasure to perceive that he quaffed down his
mug of cider like a man. I honored him. When I addressed him in the
way of business at his buck, I did so in a guardedly respectful and
deferential manner. Interested in his singular aspect, struck by his
wondrous intensity of application at his saw--a most wearisome and
disgustful occupation to most people--I often sought to gather from
him who he was, what sort of a life he led, where he was born, and so
on. But he was mum. He came to saw my wood, and eat my dinners--if I
chose to offer them--but not to gabble. At first, I somewhat resented
his sullen silence under the circumstances. But better considering
it, I honored him the more. I increased the respectfulness and
deferentialness of my address toward him. I concluded within myself
that this man had experienced hard times; that he had had many sore
rubs in the world; that he was of a solemn disposition; that he was
of the mind of Solomon; that he lived calmly, decorously, temperately;
and though a very poor man, was, nevertheless, a highly respectable
one. At times I imagined that he might even be an elder or deacon of
some small country church. I thought it would not be a bad plan to run
this excellent man for President of the United States. He would prove a
great reformer of abuses.
- title
- Chunk 3