convert oxygen into fuel for warmth—­were solidifying, I locked my hatch, and scrambled up the high banks to seek the comforts of that civilization which I had so gladly left behind when I embarked at a point five hundred miles further up the river, thinking as I went what a contrary mortal man was, myself among the number, for I was as eager now to find my human brother as I had been to turn my back upon him a short time before.  The poetry of solitude was frozen into prose, and the low temperature around me made life under a roof seem attractive for the time being, though, judging from the general aspect of things, there was not much to look forward to, in either a social or comfortable light, in my immediate vicinity.  I was, however, too cold and too hungry to be dainty, and felt like Dickens’s Mrs. Bloss, that I “must have nourishment.”

A turnpike crossed the ravine a few rods from my boat, and the tollgate-keeper informed me that I was frozen up in Pleasant Run, near which were several small houses.  Upon application for “boarding” accommodations I discovered that breakfast at Pleasant Run was a movable feast, that some had already taken it at seven A. M., and that others would not have it ready till three P. M. This was anything but encouraging to a cold and hungry man; but I at length obtained admission to the house of a German tailor, and, explaining my condition, offered to pay him liberally for the privilege of becoming his guest until the cold snap was over.  He examined me closely, and having made, as it were, a mental inventory of my features, dress, &c., exclaimed, “Mine friend, in dese times nobody knows who’s which.  I say, sar, nobody knows who’s what.  Fellers land here and eats mine grub, and den shoves off dere poats, and nevar says ‘tank you, sar,’ for mine grub.  Since de confederate war all men is skamps, I does fully pelieve.  I fights twenty-doo pattles for de Union, nots for de monish, but because I likes de free government; but it is imbossible to feeds all de beebles what lands at Pleasant Run.”

I assured this patriotic tailor and adopted citizen that I would pay him well for the trouble of boarding me, but he answered in a surly way: 

“Dat’s vat dey all says.  It’s to be all pay, but dey eats up de sour-crout and de fresh pork, and drinks de coffee, and ven I looks for de monish, de gentlemens has disappeared down de rivver.  Now you don’t looks as much rascal as some of dem does, and as it ish cold to-day, I vill make dish corntract mid you.  You shall stay here till de cold goes away, and you shall hab de pest I’ve got for twenty-five cents a meal, but you shall pays me de twenty-five cents a meal down in advance, beforehand.”

“Here is a character,” I thought, “a new type to study, and perhaps, after all, being frozen up in Pleasant Run may not be a fact to regret.”