68 PASTORAL DAYS. 



ward his fringed and weather-beaten neck, and peered over the brambles. 

 "What is't ye got thar — straddle-bug?" He came still nearer, and looked 

 at the spider. "Wa'al, darn my pictur ef 'tain't an old yeller-belly ! P'raps 

 you don't know that them critters is pizen. Why, Eben Sanford's gal 

 got all chawed up by one on 'em. Great Sneezer!" he exclaimed, taking 

 three or four strides backward, with both hands uplifted. I had merely 

 raised my hand and gently smoothed the spicier. 



"Wa'al," he continued, " yeu kin rub 'em daown ef yeu pleze ; but fer 

 my part, I'd rutber keep off abaout a good spittin' distance" — which was 

 the Shoopegg way of expressing a length of about fifteen feet. Amos 

 was crossing lots for his " caow," he said ; but in spite of his plea that the 

 "old heiff er " was " bellerin' " like "Sam Hill," and was " gittin' 'tarnal on- 

 easy," I made him tarry sufficiently long to enable me to send him off a 

 wiser man. 



Amos Shoopegg is a type of a large class of the native element of 

 Hometown. Of course, " Shoopegg " is not his actual name. In the 

 long line of his prided Puritan ancestry no one ever bore it before him. 

 This is only an affectionate epithet given him by the village boys full 

 twenty years ago, and it has stuck to him closer than a brother ever since, 

 as those festive surnames always do. Nominally, Amos was a farmer. 

 In summer he was one in fact, and could swing off as pretty a swath in 

 haying as any man in town. But in the winter he changed his vocation, 

 and became a disciple of the " waxed -end." All daylong he could be 

 seen, closeted with a little red-hot stove, plying his trade in his small, 

 square shop, up near the old red school -house. Here he pounded on 

 the big lapstone on his knees, or, with strap and foot-stick in position, 

 punched and tugged around the edge of those marvellous brogans. He 

 made slings and leather "suckers" for the bovs, and furnished them with 

 all the black-wax they could chew — or stow-away, to stick between the 

 lining of their pockets. And the huge wooden shoe -pegs that he drove 

 beneath his hammer were a sight to behold. The man who used his 

 " cheap line of goods " might verily say he walked upon a wood-pile. 



So they clubbed him " Shoe-peg," or " Shoop " for brevity. There are 

 others among his neighbors who would furnish an inexhaustible source of 

 study to the student of character. There's old Rufus Fairchild, known 

 as " Roof," a rotund specimen of rural jollity, his round face set in dishev- 

 elled locks of gray, with a twinkle in his eye and a good word for every- 

 body. And there's Father Tomlinson, who keeps the post-office down by 



