There were many miles between him and his destination. But he did
not upbraid the ungracious driver; he only swung his two canes a
little more briskly, and kept breast of the horses all the
way, entering the town side by side with the inhospitable
vehicles--a running reproach to the churl on the box.
There was another wanderer, a blind woman, whom my mother treated
with great respect on her annual pilgrimages. She brought with
her some printed rhymes to sell, purporting to be composed by
herself, and beginning with the verse:--
"I, Nancy Welsh, was born and bred
In Essex County, Marblehead.
And when I was an infant quite
The Lord deprived me of my sight."
I labored under the delusion that blindness was a sort of
insanity, and I used to run away when this pilgrim came, for she
was not talkative like Larkin Moore. I fancied she disliked
children, and so I shrank from her.
There were other odd estrays going about, who were either well
known, or could account for them selves. The one human phenomenon
that filled us little ones with mortal terror was an unknown
"man with a pack on his back.
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