Chapter 7: he wanders.
- Horace leaves Poultney -- his first overcoat -- home to his father's Log House -- ranges the country for work -- the sore leg cured -- gets employment, but little money -- Astonishes the draught -- players -- goes to Erie, Pa. -- interview with an editor -- becomes a journeyman in the office -- description of Erie -- the Lake -- his generosity to his father -- his New clothes -- no more work at Erie -- starts for New-York.
‘Well, Horace, and where are you going now?’ asked the kind landlady of the tavern, as Horace, a few days after the closing of the printing-office, appeared on the piazza, equipped for the road— i. e., with his jacket on, and with his bundle and his stick in his hand. ‘I am going,’ was the prompt and sprightly answer, ‘to Pennsylvania, to see my father, and there I shall stay till my leg gets well.’ With these words, Horace laid down the bundle and the stick, and took a seat for the last time on that piazza, the scene of many a peaceful triumph, where, as Political Gazetteer, he had often given the information that he alone, of all the town, could give; where, as political partisan, he had often brought an antagonist to extremities; where, as oddity, he had often fixed the gaze and twisted the neck of the passing pedler. And was there no demonstration of feeling at the departure of so distinguished a personage? There was. But it did not take the form of a silver dinner-service, nor of a gold tea ditto, nor of a piece of plate, nor even of a gold pen, nor yet of a series of resolutions. While Horace sat on the piazza, talking with his old friends, who gathered around him, a meeting of two individuals was held in the corner of the bar-room. They were the landlord and one of his boarders; and the subject of their deliberations were, an old brown overcoat belonging to the latter. The landlord had the floor, and his speech was to the following purport:—
