"Oh, well, I thought I knew ye," he answers, not the least disconcerted.
"How do you do? and how's your folks? All well, I hope. I took this
'ere paper, you see, to help a poor furriner, who couldn't make himself
understood any more than a wild goose. I thought I 'd just start him
for'ard a little. It seemed a marcy to do it."

Well and shiftily answered, thou ragged Proteus. One cannot be angry
with such a fellow. I will just inquire into the present state of his
Gospel mission and about the condition of his tribe on the Penobscot;
and it may be not amiss to congratulate him on the success of the steam-
doctors in sweating the "pisen" of the regular faculty out of him. But
he evidently has no'wish to enter into idle conversation. Intent upon
his benevolent errand, he is already clattering down stairs.
Involuntarily I glance out of the window just in season to catch a
single glimpse of him ere he is swallowed up in the mist.

He has gone; and, knave as he is, I can hardly help exclaiming, "Luck go
with him!" He has broken in upon the sombre train of my thoughts and
called up before me pleasant and grateful recollections. The old farm-
house nestling in its valley; hills stretching off to the south and
green meadows to the east; the small stream which came noisily down its
ravine, washing the old garden-wall and softly lapping on fallen stones
and mossy roots of beeches and hemlocks; the tall sentinel poplars at
the gateway; the oak-forest, sweeping unbroken to the northern horizon;
the grass-grown carriage-path, with its rude and crazy bridge,--the dear
old landscape of my boyhood lies outstretched before me like a
daguerreotype from that picture within which I have borne with me in all
my wanderings. I am a boy again, once more conscious of the feeling,
half terror, half exultation, with which I used to announce the approach
of this very vagabond and his "kindred after the flesh."

The advent of wandering beggars, or "old stragglers," as we were wont
to call them, was an event of no ordinary interest in the generally
monotonous quietude of our farm-life. Many of them were well known;
they had their periodical revolutions and transits; we could calculate
them like eclipses or new moons. Some were sturdy knaves, fat and
saucy; and, whenever they ascertained that the "men folks" were absent,
would order provisions and cider like men who expected to pay for them,
seating themselves at the hearth or table wi