If they do not,
indeed, get time to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!
This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
these parts.
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