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- 4953
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4889
- text
- 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 snowstorm. From my window, where I was
reading Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, I saw him in the act. I burst
out of doors bare-headed. ‘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 honoured 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 honoured 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.
His name was Merrymusk. I had often thought how jolly a name for so
unjolly a wight. I inquired of people whether they knew Merrymusk. But
it was some time before I learned much about him. He was by birth a
Marylander, it appeared, who had long lived in the country round about;
a wandering man; until within some ten years ago, a thriftless man,
though perfectly innocent of crime; a man who would work hard a month
with surprising soberness, and then spend all his wages in one riotous
night. In youth he had been a sailor, and run away from his ship at
Batavia, where he caught the fever, and came nigh dying. But he rallied,
reshipped, landed home, found all his friends dead, and struck for the
Northern interior, where he had since tarried. Nine years back he had
married a wife, and now had four children. His wife was become a perfect
invalid; one child had the white-swelling, and the rest were rickety. He
and his family lived in a shanty on a lonely barren patch nigh the
railroad-track, where it passed close to the base of a mountain. He had
bought a fine cow to have plenty of wholesome milk for his children; but
the cow died during an accouchement, and he could not afford to buy
another. Still, his family never suffered for lack of food. He worked
hard and brought it to them.
Now, as I said before, having long previously sawed my wood, this
Merrymusk came for his pay.
‘My friend,’ said I, ‘do you know of any gentleman hereabouts who owns
an extraordinary cock?’
The twinkle glittered quite plain in the wood-sawyer’s eye.
- title
- Chunk 28