He speaks with great bitterness against the new
license law, and vows if it be not repealed by fair means it shall be by
violence, and that he will be as ready to cock his rifle for such a cause
as for any other. On this subject his talk is really fierce; but as to
all other matters he is good-natured and good-hearted, fond of joke, and
shaking his jolly sides with frequent laughter. His conversation has
much strong, unlettered sense, imbued with humor, as everybody's talk is
in New England.
He takes a queer position sometimes,--queer for his figure particularly,
--straddling across a chair, facing the back, with his arms resting
thereon, and his chin on them, for the benefit of conversing closely with
some one. When he has spent as much time in the bar-room or under the
stoop as he chooses to spare, he gets up at once, and goes off with a
brisk, vigorous pace. He owns a mill, and seems to be prosperous in the
world. I know no man who seems more like a man, more indescribably
human, than this sturdy blacksmith.
There came in the afternoon a respectable man in gray homespun cloth, who
arrived in a wagon, I believe, and began to inquire, after supper, about
a certain new kind of mill machinery.
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