In days of
chivalry I might have got a knight to make me a breach through the
foundation walls, but that was not to be thought of now, and my oil
hogsheads standing disconsolately in the yard seemed to reflect no
great credit on my foresight. In this strait I fell upon a real honest
Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of his craft and
mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces, carry them down in staves, and
set them up again, which the worthy man actually accomplished one fair
summer forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees." When my
man came to put up the pump, he stared very hard to see my hogsheads
thus translated and standing as innocent and quiet as could be in the
cellar, and then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I got 'em
taken to pieces and put together--just as if I had been always in the
habit of doing such things. Professor Smith came down and looked very
hard at them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful woman."
Then followed divers negotiations with a very clever, but (with
reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman of jobs, who occupieth a
carpenter's shop opposite to mine. This same John Titcomb, my very
good friend, is a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is part owner
and landlord of the house I rent, and connected by birth with all the
best families in town; a man of real intelligence, and good education,
a great reader, and quite a thinker.
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