That he might be prepared for
journeying, as he proposed to do in the spring, he took with him his light
wagon, and for the winter his sleigh, which he fastened behind the wagon.
He was, as I have just told you, very old and infirm. His temples were
covered with thinned locks which the frosts of eighty years had whitened.
His sight, and hearing, too, were somewhat blunted by age, as yours will be
should you live to be as old.
"He was proceeding very slowly and quietly, for his horse was old and
feeble, like his owner. His thoughts reverted to the scenes of his youth,
when he had periled his life in fighting for the liberties of his country;
to the scenes of his manhood, when he had preached the gospel of his divine
Master to the heathen of the remote wilderness; and to the scenes of riper
years, when the hard hand of penury had lain heavily upon him. While thus
occupied, almost forgetting himself in the multitude of his thoughts, he
was suddenly disturbed, and even terrified, by loud hurrahs from behind,
and by a furious pelting and clattering of balls of snow and ice upon the
top of his wagon.
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