I kept outside of the circle to avoid being seen, and had
the advantage of hearing the remarks without being embarrassed. Almost
every one as he came up would say, "What's that? What's it for? Who
made it?" The landlord would answer them all alike, "Why, a young man
that lives out in the country somewhere made it, and he says it's a
thing for keeping time, getting up in the morning, and something that
I didn't understand. I don't know what he meant." "Oh, no!" one of the
crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for something else--something
mysterious. Mark my words, you'll see all about it in the newspapers
some of these days." A curious little fellow came running up the
street, joined the crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the wonder,
quickly made up his mind, and shouted in crisp, confident,
cock-crowing style, "I know what that contraption's for. It's a
machine for taking the bones out of fish."
This was in the time of the great popular phrenology craze, when the
fences and barns along the roads throughout the country were plastered
with big skull-bump posters, headed, "Know Thyself," and advising
everybody to attend schoolhouse lectures to have their heads explained
and be told what they were good for and whom they ought to marry.
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