In Stockbridge, that morning, what few industries still supported a
languishing existence in spite of the hard times, were wholly
suspended. The farmer left his rowen to lie in the field and take the
chances of the weather, the miller gave his mill-stream a holiday, the
carpenter left the house half-shingled with rain threatening, and the
painter his brush in the pot, to collect on the street corners with
their neighbors and discuss the portentous aspect of affairs. And even
where there was little or no discussion, to stand silently in groups
was something. Thus merely to be in company was, to these excited men,
a necessity and a satisfaction, for so does the electricity of a
common excitement magnetize human beings, that they have an attraction
for one another, and are drawn together by a force not felt at other
times. There were not less than three hundred men, a quarter of the
entire population of the town, on and about Stockbridge Green at ten
o'clock that Monday morning, twice as many as had assembled to hear
the news from the convention the Saturday preceding.

The great want of the people, for the most part, tongue-tied farmers,
seemed to be to hear talk, to have something said, and wherever a few
brisk words gave promise of a lively dialogue, the speakers were at
once surrounded by a dense throng of listeners. The thirsting
eagerness with which they turned their open mouths toward each one as
he began to speak, in the hope that he would express to themselves
some one of the ideas formlessly astir in their own stolid minds, was
pathetic testimony to the depth to which the iron of poverty, debt,
judicial and governmental oppression had entered their souls. They had
thought little and vaguely, but they had felt much and keenly, and it
was evident the man who could voice their feelings, however partially,
however perversely, and for his own ends, would be master of their