gatherer's day.

In the morning--dim, gray, dewy summer's morn the distant roll of
ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking
more and more harshly through the midst of his dream, and gradually
replacing it with realities. Hardly conscious of the change from sleep
to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-
gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. The timbers groan
beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the
oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the
half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is seen the drowsy visage
of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The toll is
paid,--creak, creak, again go the wheels, and the huge haymow vanishes
into the morning mist. As yet, nature is but half awake, and familiar
objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing from the shore with a
rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs, comes the
never-tiring mail, which has hurried onward at the same headlong,
restless rate, all through the quiet night. The bridge resounds in one
continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause, merely affording
the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy passengers, who now bestir
their torpid limbs, and snuff a cordial in the briny air. The morn
breathes upon them and blushes, and they forget how wearily the darkness
toiled away. And behold now the fervid day, in his bright chariot,
glittering aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his
golden beams on the toll-gatherer's little hermitage. The old man looks
eastward, and (for he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage coach
and the sun. While the world is rousing itself, we may glance slightly at
the scene of our sketch. It sits above the bosom of the broad flood, a
spot not of earth, but in the midst of waters, which rush with a
murmuring sound among the massive beams beneath. Over the door is a