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1Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or Paphlagonian man,--he had so suitable and poetic a name
2that I am sorry I cannot print it here,--a Canadian, a woodchopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day,
3who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, has heard of Homer, and, "if it were not for
4books," would "not know what to do rainy days," though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy
5seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the testament in his native
6parish far away; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, Achilles' reproof to Patroclus for his sad
7countenance.--"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?"-- "Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?
8They say that Menœtius lives yet, son of Actor, And Peleus lives, son of Æacus, among the Myrmidons, Either of whom
9having died, we should greatly grieve." He says, "That's good." He has a great bundle of white-oak bark under his arm
10for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. "I suppose there's no harm in going after such a thing to-day," says he.
11To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was about he did not know. A more simple and natural man it
12would be hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any
13existence for him. He was about twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his father's house a dozen years before
14to work in the States, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country. He was cast in the
15coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull
16sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression. He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored
17greatcoat, and cowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to his work a couple of miles
18past my house,--for he chopped all summer,--in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone
19bottle which dangled by a string from his belt; and sometimes he offered me a drink. He came along early, crossing my
20bean-field, though without anxiety or haste to get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. He wasn't a-going to hurt
21himself. He didn't care if he only earned his board. Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog
22had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house
23where he boarded, after deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till
24nightfall,--loving to dwell long upon these themes. He would say, as he went by in the morning, "How thick the pigeons
25are! If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting,--pigeons, woodchucks,
26rabbits, partridges,--by gosh! I could get all I should want for a week in one day." He was a skilful chopper, and
27indulged in some flourishes and ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the sprouts
28which came up afterward might be more vigorous and a sled might slide over the stumps; and instead of leaving a whole
29tree to support his corded wood, he would pare it away to a slender stake or splinter which you could break off with
30your hand at last. He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and
31contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods,
32felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French,
33though he spoke English as well. When I approached him he would suspend his work, and with half-suppressed mirth lie
34along the trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while
35he laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the
36ground with laughter at any thing which made him think and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees he would
37exclaim,--"By George! I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping; I want no better sport." Sometimes, when at leisure,
38he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he
39walked. In the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his
40dinner the chickadees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and peck at the potato in his fingers; and he
41said that he "liked to have the little fellers about him." In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical
42endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at
43night, after working all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look, "Gorrappit, I never was tired in my
44life." But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant. He had been
45instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the
46pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is
47not made a man, but kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion, and
48propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years and ten a child. He
49was so genuine and unsophisticated that no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you introduced a
50woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as you did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for
51work, and so helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged opinions with them. He was so simply and naturally
52humble--if he can be called humble who never aspires--that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor could he
53conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you told him that such a one was coming, he did as if he thought that
54any thing so grand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the responsibility on itself, and let him be forgotten
55still. He never heard the sound of praise. He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their performances
56were miracles. When I told him that I wrote considerably, he thought for a long time that it was merely the handwriting
57which I meant, for he could write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes found the name of his native parish
58handsomely written in the snow by the highway, with the proper French accent, and knew that he had passed. I asked him
59if he ever wished to write his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those who could not, but he
60never tried to write thoughts,--no, he could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there
61was spelling to be attended to at the same time! I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if he did
62not want the world to be changed; but he answered with a chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that
63the question had ever been entertained before, "No, I like it well enough." It would have suggested many things to a
64philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger he appeared to know nothing of things in general; yet I sometimes
65saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply
66ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. A townsman told me that when
67he met him sauntering through the village in his small close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a
68prince in disguise.
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