A nod is always exchanged between strangers meeting on the road. This
morning an uuderwitted old man met me on a walk, and held a pretty long
conversation, insisting upon shaking hands (to which I was averse,
lest his band should not be clean), and insisting on his right to
do so, as being "a friend of mankind." He was a gray, bald-headed,
wrinkled-visaged figure, decently dressed, with cowhide shoes, a coat on
one arm, and an umbrella on the other, and said that he was going to see
a widow in the neighborhood. Finding that I was not provided with a
wife, he recommended a certain maiden of forty years, who had three
hundred acres of land. He spoke of his children, who are proprietors of
a circus establishment, and have taken a granddaughter to bring up in
their way of life; and he gave me a message to tell them in case we
should meet. While this old man is wandering among the hills, his
children are the gaze of multitudes. He told me the place where he was
born, directing me to it by pointing to a wreath of mist which lay on the
side of a mountain ridge, which he termed "the smoke yonder.
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