before seen such garments on a
human being--old bits of flannel, frayed strips of bagging-stuff, and
other curious odds and ends of fabrics, in all the primitive
colors, the whole roughly basted together with sack-thread. He was
a philosopher, was this rag-tag-and-bob-tail of a man, a philosopher
with some mother-wit about him. For an hour, he sat on his haunches,
crouching over our little stove, and following with cat-like care
W----'s every movement in the culinary art; she felt she was under the
eye of a critic who, though not voicing his opinions, looked as if he
knew a thing or two.

As a conversationist, our visitor was fluent to a fault. It required
but slight urging to draw him out. His history, and that of his
fathers for three generations back, he recited in much detail. He
himself had, in his best days, been a sub-contractor in railway
construction; but fate had gone against him, and he had fallen to the
low estate of a shanty-boatman. His wife had "gone back on him," and
he was left with two little boys, whom he proposed to bring up as
gentlemen--"yaas, sir-r, gen'lem'n, yew hear me! ef I _is_ only a
shanty-boat feller!"

"I thote I'd come to visit uv ye," he had said by way of introduction;
"ye're frum a city, ain't yer? Yaas, I jist thote hit. City folks is a
more 'com'dat'n' 'n country folks. Why? Waal, yew fellers jist go
back 'ere in th' hills away, 'n them thar country folks they'd hardly
answer ye, they're thet selfish-like. Give me city folks, I say, fer
get'n' long with!"

And then, in a rambling monologue, while chewing a straw, he discussed
humanity in general, and the professions in particular. "I ain't got
no use fer lawyers--mighty hard show them fellers has, fer get'n' to
heaven. As fer doctors--waal, they'll hev hard sledd'n, too; but them
fellers has to do piles o' dis'gree'bl' work, they do; I'd jist
rather fish fer a liv'n', then be a doctor! Still, sir-r, give me an
eddicated man every time, says I. Waal, sir-r, 'n' ye hear me, one
o' th' richest fellers right here in Madison, wuz born 'n' riz on a
shanty-boat, 'n' no mistake. He jist done pick up his eddication from
folks pass'n' by, jes' as yew fellers is a passin', 'n' they might say
a few wuds o' information to him. He done git a fine eddication
jes' thet way, 'n' they ain't no flies on him, these days, when
money-gett'n' is 'roun'. Jes' noth'n' like it, sir-r! Eddication does
th' biz!"

An observant man was this philosopher, a