w an uninterrupted view, as he sat in his old position, with his head
jammed obstinately into the capstan. But how was this?--he was round at
the opposite side of it now; and I puzzled myself for a moment, thinking
whether this change of bearings could be accounted for by the fact of
the boat being headed the other way.
But Young New York, who is far more nautical than I am, and has a big
brother in one of the yacht-clubs, derided the idea, and said he must
have gone round with the handspikes, when the anchor was hove.
And there he remained, as we went our way,--a modern Spartan slave in a
kind of marine pillory,--conveying to the red-legged children of Gotham,
as they toddled ashore, a useful lesson on the doubtful relations
existing between whiskey and pleasure.
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
The beaver cut his timber
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the cows
Surveyors of highway,--
When Keezar sat on the hillside
Upon his cobbler's form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.
And there, in the golden weather,
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.
Well knew the tough old Teuton
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the good-wife's reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.
The songs they still are singing
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples
Flashing in foam and spray,--
Down on the sharp-horned ledges
Plunging in steep cascade,
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock's shade.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
East and west and north and south;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river's mouth;
Only here and there a clearing
With its farm-house rude and new,
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew.
No shout of home-bound reapers,
No vintage-song he heard,
And on the green no dancing feet
The merry violin stirred.
"Why should folk be glum," said Keezar,
"When Nature herself is glad,
And the painted woods are laughing
At the faces so sour and sad?"
Small heed had the careless cobbler
What sorrow of heart was theirs
Who travailed in pain with the births of God,
And planted a st
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