Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's Militia,
was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, have been
properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, such as coffee,
sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, salt fish,
butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, agricultural "p'doose"
generally, industrial products, such as boots and shoes, and various
kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of the establishment in
calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of miscellaneous objects of
the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, which tempted in the
smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to ornamental articles of
apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, stationery, in
short, everything which was like to prove seductive to the rural
population. The Colonel had made money in trade, and also by matrimony.
He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan,
Esq., an old miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his name to
posterity in large gilt letters as a generous benefactor of his native
place. In due time the Colonel reaped the reward of well-placed
affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, he thought he had money
enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out his "store," called in
some dialects of the English language shop, and his business.

Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had nothing
particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have to work
are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. They get
a specific look and character, which are the same in all the villages
where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a routine, the
basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room, a
reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly in dress, and
wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity for news