76 



^\)t iHirmcv'0 iHont()li) Visitor. 



])iiiil liis bill, and was goiriK hcA'ove breakfast, liav- 

 iii<I fiut oil li.e saildle liiiiisijH'. The Miiiii"lio 

 liiulcliarpe of the .stable thoii,::lit,as he had liearil 

 him talk of it, thai we had arliiallv traded liDrses. 

 Not so liisi, said 1, willi my horse iliei-e! ' VVIiy,' 

 said he, ' wluit am 1 about?' looking p^iirpi-iseil : 

 ' I have got your horse indeed. J have lianlly j;ol 

 my eyes o|ieii, and wonid not have made siieli a 

 bliincier fur filly dollars.' Nor 1 either, I replied, 

 .so he clianiicd hor^res, inoimlcd his own, and was 

 off." '•V 



"Why did yon not have him taken np?" i?a>»J 

 i\larj;aret ; " Icr hi.s design was evident." 



•'1 was well satisfieil at liavinn shvimI the mare, 

 and the less we have to do Willi rogues the bet- 

 ter," .answered my iinele. " r5o I went on to Bos- 

 ton and as I went al<ing upon the road there was 

 a great talk alioiit the sea-serpent by the people, 

 and boat.-i were said to he out with men armed 

 w itii harpoons to take the erealiire. 



" When J go! to Boston I ,-aw my horse put in 

 the .stable arid told the keeper to let no one have 

 her hilt myself, and then I went down to see my 

 old sehoofnnite, Dr. Symptom, who sold medicine 

 near the market. That [ilaee has altered as mneh 

 as onr farms since, ll was then a low shed, open 

 on all sides, where now stands that lieamifn| 

 specimen of modern urcliitectiire. 1 had arrived 

 early in the afternoon, and the market was slill 

 open, but the busy time past, and the iiiarketmeii 

 who were then farmers, or the sons of larmers, 

 appeared to h.-ive little to do, and consequently 

 inorej-han usually prone to iniseliief. 1 went in- 

 lo the store of my <dd friend: he knew ine at 

 once and was hapfiy to see mo. A boy came in 

 haviiig a fox witli a chain about bis neck, and 

 addressing liimself to Symptom, told him that he 

 inider.-toud he wished to piircliase live fo\es. 'I 

 do 1101,' said my (i-ieiid: 'this is the shop said 

 the hov; and they told mi^ in the market there 

 that you were buying np all ihe foxes you could 

 get for the purpose of letting them loose to clia.-e 

 lliem.' 'I do not want any,' said Symptom. 

 ' I'erhaps you will give mo something tiir liiiii.' 

 '1 tell yon I do not want him at all,' and lie gent- 

 ly motioned the boy to go out. Scarcely had he 

 got out, when a tali man, his face black, with a 

 basket of charco;d, the dust of bis load, came in 

 and looking round slep|ied behind the door and 

 1 mplied his basket upon llie iloor. The Doctor 

 seized the brass pestle of his mortar and made at 

 llie coal man. He was justly eiiraaed, for the fine 

 dust clouded the whole shop. The man i'ended 

 oft' with his basket and hacked out of tlie door. 

 ■ Who sent yon here?' said my friend, ''i'he 

 owner,' was the reply, ' w ho paid me for the coal, 

 and told me to put it beiiind the door, aiirl not to 

 iiiinri you.' He was scarce gone when a large 

 m;iii came in with a leather bandied whip, and 

 appetued to be, as he actually was, a driver of a 

 wagon. Accosting the. Doctor lie said, 'your 

 name is Symptom ?' ' Yes,' replied the Doctor. 

 ' Well,' said the teamster, 'I am told that you 

 picked up my great co.it, which dropped from off 

 my wagon just now.' 'I have seen no great 

 coat.' ' Vou need not deny it,' said llie man. 



braiidishinir his whi;: 



■ lor the coat 1 will li; 



bffore I leave this shop.' -1 know nothing of it; 

 I have not seen it. It was the men in the market, 

 who wear lihie fror'ks, thai sent you here.' 



As ihe tcaitisier closed the door after him, for 

 he appeared couviiieed of having been .sent on a 

 kind of fool's erraiul, my friend locked it, ami 

 ^ve retired to the back part of the shop lor a 

 short time. 



" These p:'0|ile," said he, "when the lime of 

 sale is over, like other idlers, go into mischief, 

 and have got a kind of run upon me. Almost 

 every afternoon I am annoyed by them ; in the 

 morning, iioliie, respectl'nl, and attentive, but in 

 the aflernooii any iliing for fun, and a liarmless 

 apolhecary suits their purpose." 

 " Who are they ?" said I. 



" Why," he answerrd, "they are from the siir- 

 roiniding conulry. Many are from Roxbiiry, as 

 respectable a place as any that can be found." 



"I went out airionglliem. as 1 wished to know 

 the prices of articles, and see what they were 

 about. There was little doing, and almost as 

 soon as I entered I heard soma one remark, re- 

 ferring to me, 'he is a Representative, and comes 

 from down east.' 'Why from there?' s;iid an- 

 other. ' Why, do yon not see that he has a red 

 haodi-crchlcf about his neck? all the membeis 



from Maine wear red stocks to give tliein a sort 

 of military aspect.' 



" I felt a little ilattered," said my Uncle Jacub, 

 "at being so respectably sorted, as 1 was aware 

 that the Maine part of the State was equal to 

 any other. So I said nothing upon that subject; 

 but I went up to a young man or lad that ap- 

 peared about seventeen, who seemed to have a 

 prepossessing e.xpression, and inquired the prices 

 of his different articles. 1 never met with more 

 respectful attention, or heard better answers, and 

 felt sure that he was not one of those wlio en- 

 gage in mischief. As I was pocketing a few 

 rnsseting apples ]iurchased from him, for it was 

 ill May, I inquired if he knew why they were 

 called the Ro.xbury rnsseting? 'Perhaps,' lie 

 replied, ' because the first tree of the kind grew 

 there, but they would be more appropriately 

 named the Warren rnsseting. for tlie tree was 

 a seedling upon the farm that belonged to the 

 liither of Cien. Joseph Warren, who lt:ll at JJim- 

 ker's Hill.' 



'"Then you know tlie place?' .said I. 



'"Perfectly well; I daily pass it on rny way 

 in and out of tow n.' 



" ;\t this moment two or three of these mar- 

 ket men appeared to be looking up on the tops 

 of the bniliiings, very earnestly. 'There he is 

 again,' said they ; ' how he grins!' ' What a ras- 

 cal I' said another. ] stepped from under the 

 eaves to see the object of so much earnestness. 

 'There he goes; there lie comes again.' 1 look- 

 ed, but saw nothing. They kept exclaiming and 

 pointing to each other, but I saw nothing. ' What 

 is it ?' 1 at length inquired of the young man 

 wdio had Just sold me the apples. 'Itisakill- 

 eck,' he replied, and then there appeared to be a 

 general laugh among them; but ,1 s;iw nothing 

 to be merry at, and when I got home I looked 

 into my books upon natural history to learn whv,t 

 a killeck was, biitcouldfiud no such animal. At 

 this moment up came one of ihem ; I knew him 

 by his striped frock — -and breathed as thongli he 

 had walked fast, and said, '1 have seen him; I 

 would not have missed for ten dollar?^.' ' I told 

 you,' said anoiher, ' it was worth going down 

 for. and they are going to (int liim in the Miisi^imi 

 to-morrow, or rather this evening.' 'So they 

 said,' was the reply ; ' while I w^as there they fed 

 him; he ate five low l.s — swallowed them whole, 

 and the last was a rooster, which went down 

 spurs and all. The keeper of ihe Museum is to 

 pay two thousand dollars for him, only for a 

 a week. Those fellow's will make a (Virtnno out 

 of him.' 



" I began to conjecture what it might be, for I 

 had heard at Lynn as I came up that the sea 

 serpent was off Nahant, and that the whalemen 

 were after him. So 1 inquired if it was the 

 snake they were speaking of, when they told me 

 yes, that he was on board a brig at the lower 

 end of the Long Whart; where tlie people were 

 goiii!,' to see him before he should be init into 

 the 55nseuni.' 



" ' But as you area member,' said one, 'you 

 will doubtless prefer to pay for seeing him there.' 

 1 answered that I should leave town in the morn 

 ing. 'Then you have not a inomeiit to lose,' 

 said they; 'the monster has just been rendered 

 lorpiil by feeding, and as soon as they can, he 

 will be taken to the Mnseuin. 



"A liuckney-coach was passing along near, 

 and, as soon as I looked towards it, which lliey 

 |ieiceived, they hailed the man, who stopped, 

 w hen they undid the door, escorted me in, and 

 told the driver that 1 was a Representative, who 

 wished to ;:o down to the end of the Long 

 Wharf: 



"So polite were they that I had no chance to 

 speak, and off the carriage went, and they ch<!tr- 

 ed me on my departure. My first sensaiion was 

 (piiie pleasant; a little of the 'oats of onice,'and 

 1 w.is iiol a liltle |iroud at being mistaken for n 

 meiriber ior Maine. 



" ' How much belter il is,' said I to myselt: 'to 

 be looked up to, rather iliriU looked down upon, 

 like my worthy friend Svmptom, whom they rim 

 upon because he .sells medicine.' 



"Musing along in this train I now fmuid my- 

 self well down upon the wharf: the sailors were 

 busy, trucks passing and repassing, and I began 

 to look out for the vessel with the large snake. 

 .'Vs we CMine near the end of the wdiarf, the diiver 

 inquired when- I wished to get out; and when I 

 answered 'at the .>=hip that has the sea serpent 



on board,' he laughed, and said that he should 

 hardly find her that day. I was now myself 

 again, and fairly hoaxed, went back to my old 

 friend, for the blue frockcd regiies bad all gone, 

 and over a cup of tea told bim of my ride to Sl^e 

 the fish, and all the circuni.>iances. He and his 

 wife both laughed at me, which proved that they 

 would have been ready to encourage amusement 

 to thc-mselves, at the expense of others. 



"This comes of being only mistaken for n 

 Representative. What ■■: lime those must have 

 of il wdio are really so if perchance they fall into 

 the'toils of these vegetable Phili.-tines. 



"'So they really quizzed yon?' said my wife, 



" ' Yes, I was overreached, altlioui:h put on my 

 guard by what I bad jusl witnessed in my friend's 

 shop.' 



"' I thought yon were too wary fiir such peo- 

 ple—they must be a roguish set any bow.' 



"'Oh no,' said my uncle, 'not more so than 

 others; like lawyers tlieir wits are sharpened by 

 constant exercise, and they take a pride in out- 

 witling th()se especially who manifest more than 

 usii.-d suspicion. The cheer they gave me as I 

 rode away was jnst about as sincere as public 

 men frequently receive, savoring more of mirth 

 for ihemseives than respect for others.' 



"What a school for teaching mischief a mar- 

 ket must be," said I. 



"Well," replied my Uncle Jacob, "there is 

 tnucli to be said on both sides. Wickedness is 

 to be found every where, and onr universities 

 fiir learning and morality have their full share. 

 1 do not know that for that practical wisdom that 

 we draw upon every day as we pass along the 

 journey of life but that the market is as good for 

 a boy as a college. In the hitler I sometimes 

 think that a |)ride is fostered ihat looks upon la- 

 bor Willi the hands as ilegrading, and our pride 

 often costs us more than our necessities, and how 

 crowded are what is calleil the liberal profe.s- 

 sioiis of Law, Physic and Divinity! Nnmhersof 

 onr youth who attempt these fiiil, and a depres.s- 

 ing broken spii it seems to attend them. Besides, 

 the press has become so prolific, and science, 

 taste and knowledge so cheap, that the fiirmers 

 and mechanics are treading close upon the heels 

 of those w ho are bred to literature. In a college, 

 liltle of practical knowledge is obtained at a 

 time of life when the character is formed, and 

 Ihe impressions then made endure — and how is 

 it uilh the market boy? Is he not brought at 

 once into the very whirlpool of [iracticcd wisdom ? 

 Does he not read men while the other reads 

 books? Is he not taught politeness in making 

 sales, caution in not being overreached, calmness 

 lioni the constant exercise of good temper whicii 

 his irritating position brings into action, and that 

 word without price to a young man or young 

 woman either, Peggy — that monosyllable JVo ■' 

 For I look upon the youth of either se.x who can 

 say no complacently and adhere to it when .said, 

 that they have acquired a better safeguard than 

 is taught in halt' the aiMilemies extant. It is 

 practical wisdom rather than learning which con- 

 stilntes the back-bone of society. ' And had I 

 been married,' said my uncle, and here he paus- 

 ed, and fidtered a little in voice as he spoke ; 

 'had I been married, 1 would Jiave sent at least 

 one half of iny boys to market when well out of 

 the sidiool- house to finish their education.' 



".And what," said 1, "would you have done 

 with the other half?" 



'•Why," he replied, "1 would perhaps have 

 sent them to Dailmo:itli : if too indolent to get 

 along with their hands, I could do no oilier than 

 let them try their heads." 



" And what would 3011 do with the glils, un- 

 cle ?" said my will'. 



" Why, 1 would have them taught the useful 

 ratlier than the ornamental," he replied. "Give 

 them an equal chance with the boys at school. 

 Let them learn to knit, and sew, and spin ; exer- 

 cise is the best kinri of bloom ; and 1 have been 

 thinking this evening as 1 have seen you so in- 

 dusliious, what a fortune you are wilhont a pen- 

 ny. When I see the liandsome young women 

 that attend meeting, 1 say to myself what possi- 

 ble excuse can so mnuy of our young men have 

 for remaining single?" 



Here Uncle Jacob kiinc!;ed the ashes out of 

 llie bowl of hi."! second pipe: "And now," said 

 he, " Boll, for a rubber of gnmmon, and then it 

 will be my usual hour for retiiing. I have been 

 so talkative that you have not found a chance for 



