welcome. I am pretty sure to meet once more that weak-minded and whimsical
fellow, generally weak-bodied too, who prefers a crooked stick for a cane;
perfectly useless, you would say, only _bizarre_, fit for a cabinet, like
a petrified snake. A ram's horn would be as convenient, and is yet more
curiously twisted. He brings that much indulged bit of the country with
him, from some town's end or other, and introduces it to Concord groves,
as if he had promised it so much sometime. So some, it seems to me, elect
their rulers for their crookedness. But I think that a straight stick
makes the best cane, and an upright man the best ruler. Or why choose a
man to do plain work who is distinguished for his oddity? However, I do
not know but you will think that they have committed this mistake who
invited me to speak to you to-day.

In my capacity of surveyor, I have often talked with some of you, my
employers, at your dinner-tables, after having gone round and round and
behind your farming, and ascertained exactly what its limits were.
Moreover, taking a surveyor's and a naturalist's liberty, I have been in
the habit of going across your lots much oftener than is usual, as many
of you, perhaps to your sorrow, are aware. Yet many of you, to my relief,
have seemed not to be aware of it; and when I came across you in some
out-of-the-way nook of your farms, have inquired, with an air of surprise,
if I were not lost, since you had never seen me in that part of the town
or county before; when, if the truth were known, and it had not been for
betraying my secret, I might with more propriety have inquired if _you_
were not lost, since I had never seen _you_ there before. I have several
times shown the proprietor the shortest way out of his wood-lot.

Therefore, it would seem that I have some title to speak to you to-day;
and considering what that title is, and the occasion that has called us
together, I need offer no apology if I invite your attention, for the few