- end_line
- 5815
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5753
- text
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“Briefly, then. I avoid pine-trees, high houses, lonely barns, upland
pastures, running water, flocks of cattle and sheep, a crowd of men. If
I travel on foot—as to-day—I do not walk fast; if in my buggy, I touch
not its back or sides; if on horseback, I dismount and lead the horse.
But of all things, I avoid tall men.”
“Do I dream? Man avoid man? and in danger-time, too.”
“Tall men in a thunder-storm I avoid. Are you so grossly ignorant as
not to know, that the height of a six-footer is sufficient to discharge
an electric cloud upon him? Are not lonely Kentuckians, ploughing, smit
in the unfinished furrow? Nay, if the six-footer stand by running
water, the cloud will sometimes _select_ him as its conductor to that
running water. Hark! Sure, yon black pinnacle is split. Yes, a man is a
good conductor. The lightning goes through and through a man, but only
peels a tree. But sir, you have kept me so long answering your
questions, that I have not yet come to business. Will you order one of
my rods? Look at this specimen one? See: it is of the best of copper.
Copper’s the best conductor. Your house is low; but being upon the
mountains, that lowness does not one whit depress it. You mountaineers
are most exposed. In mountainous countries the lightning-rod man should
have most business. Look at the specimen, sir. One rod will answer for
a house so small as this. Look over these recommendations. Only one
rod, sir; cost, only twenty dollars. Hark! There go all the granite
Taconics and Hoosics dashed together like pebbles. By the sound, that
must have struck something. An elevation of five feet above the house,
will protect twenty feet radius all about the rod. Only twenty dollars,
sir—a dollar a foot. Hark!—Dreadful!—Will you order? Will you buy?
Shall I put down your name? Think of being a heap of charred offal,
like a haltered horse burnt in his stall; and all in one flash!”
“You pretended envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to and
from Jupiter Tonans,” laughed I; “you mere man who come here to put you
and your pipestem between clay and sky, do you think that because you
can strike a bit of green light from the Leyden jar, that you can
thoroughly avert the supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and
where are you? Who has empowered you, you Tetzel, to peddle round your
indulgences from divine ordinations? The hairs of our heads are
numbered, and the days of our lives. In thunder as in sunshine, I stand
at ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away! See, the scroll
of the storm is rolled back; the house is unharmed; and in the blue
heavens I read in the rainbow, that the Deity will not, of purpose,
make war on man’s earth.”
“Impious wretch!” foamed the stranger, blackening in the face as the
rainbow beamed, “I will publish your infidel notions.”
The scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged round
his eyes as the storm-rings round the midnight moon. He sprang upon me;
his tri-forked thing at my heart.
I seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod it; and dragging the
dark lightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper sceptre
after him.
But spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my
neighbors, the Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still
travels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man.
- title
- Chunk 2