<SPAN name="toll"></SPAN>
<h3> THE TOLL-GATHERER'S DAY. </h3>
<h4>
A SKETCH OF TRANSITORY LIFE.
</h4>
<p>Methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the
current of life than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, no
undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged
thoroughfare of the land. In youth, perhaps, it is good for the
observer to run about the earth, to leave the track of his footsteps
far and wide, to mingle himself with the action of numberless
vicissitudes, and, finally, in some calm solitude to feed a musing
spirit on all that he has seen and felt. But there are natures too
indolent or too sensitive to endure the dust, the sunshine or the
rain, the turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which all the
wayfarers of the world expose themselves. For such a man how pleasant
a miracle could life be made to roll its variegated length by the
threshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it were,
perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyes
without whirling him onward in its course! If any mortal be favored
with a lot analogous to this, it is the toll-gatherer. So, at least,
have I often fancied while lounging on a bench at the door of a small
square edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a
long bridge. Beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea,
while above, like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of
the north and east is continually throbbing. Sitting on the aforesaid
bench, I amuse myself with a conception, illustrated by numerous
pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day.</p>
<p>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 hay-mow 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.</p>
<p>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 weatherbeaten
board inscribed with the rates of toll in letters so nearly effaced
that the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them legible. Beneath
the window is a wooden bench on which a long succession of weary
wayfarers have reposed themselves. Peeping within-doors, we perceive
the whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints and
advertisements of various import and the immense show-bill of a
wandering caravan. And there sits our good old toll-gatherer,
glorified by the early sunbeams. He is a man, as his aspect may
announce, of quiet soul and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind, who
of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside has
gathered a reasonable store.</p>
<p>Now the sun smiles upon the landscape and earth smiles back again upon
the sky. Frequent now are the travellers. The toll-gatherer's
practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number
of its wheels and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with
their iron tramp. Here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth
betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and his
wife with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between
them. The bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious bandboxes
and carpet-bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty
with yesterday's journey. Next appears a four-wheeled carryall peopled
with a round half dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a single horse
and driven by a single gentleman. Luckless wight doomed through a
whole summer day to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the
frolicsome maidens! Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged
man who as he pays his toll hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to
stick upon the wall. The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a
manufacturer of pickles. Now paces slowly from timber to timber a
horseman clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one who,
whithersoever his steed might bear him, would still journey through a
mist of brooding thought. He is a country preacher going to labor at a
protracted meeting. The next object passing townward is a butcher's
cart canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton. Behind comes a
"sauceman" driving a wagon full of new potatoes, green ears of corn,
beets, carrots, turnips and summer squashes, and next two wrinkled,
withered witch-looking old gossips in an antediluvian chaise drawn by
a horse of former generations and going to peddle out a lot of
huckleberries. See, there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow-load of
lobsters. And now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered with
green canvas and conveying the contributions of a whole herd of cows,
in large tin canisters.</p>
<p>But let all these pay their toll and pass. Here comes a spectacle that
causes the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the
travellers brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome
influence all along the road. It is a barouche of the newest style,
the varnished panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama of the
landscape, and show a picture, likewise, of our friend with his visage
broadened, so that his meditative smile is transformed to grotesque
merriment. Within sits a youth fresh as the summer morn, and beside
him a young lady in white with white gloves upon her slender hands and
a white veil flowing down over her face. But methinks her blushing
cheek burns through the snowy veil. Another white-robed virgin sits in
front. And who are these on whom, and on all that appertains to them,
the dust of earth seems never to have settled? Two lovers whom the
priest has blessed this blessed morn and sent them forth, with one of
the bride-maids, on the matrimonial tour.—Take my blessing too, ye
happy ones! May the sky not frown upon you nor clouds bedew you with
their chill and sullen rain! May the hot sun kindle no fever in your
hearts! May your whole life's pilgrimage be as blissful as this first
day's journey, and its close be gladdened with even brighter
anticipations than those which hallow your bridal-night! They pass,
and ere the reflection of their joy has faded from his face another
spectacle throws a melancholy shadow over the spirit of the observing
man. In a close carriage sits a fragile figure muffled carefully and
shrinking even from the mild breath of summer. She leans against a
manly form, and his arm enfolds her as if to guard his treasure from
some enemy. Let but a few weeks pass, and when he shall strive to
embrace that loved one, he will press only desolation to his heart.</p>
<p>And now has Morning gathered up her dewy pearls and fled away. The sun
rolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his
face with. The horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave
their glistening sides in short quick pantings when the reins are
tightened at the toll-house. Glisten, too, the faces of the
travellers. Their garments are thickly bestrewn with dust; their
whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with the dusty
atmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on the
road. Nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stifling
cloud of dust. "A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims as they
wipe their begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which the
river bears along with it.—"Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!" answers the
sympathetic toll-gatherer. They start again to pass through the fiery
furnace, while he re-enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it with
a pail of briny water from the stream beneath. He thinks within
himself that the sun is not so fierce here as elsewhere, and that the
gentle air doth not forget him in these sultry days. Yes, old friend,
and a quiet heart will make a dog-day temperate. He hears a weary
footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits down
upon the hospitable bench and removes the hat from his wet brow. The
toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and, discovering his
guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable talk,
uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own
soul, but knows not how it came there. And as the wayfarer makes ready
to resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered
feet.</p>
<p>Now comes the noontide hour—of all the hours, nearest akin to
midnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the
world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest
epoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunary
things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner
laden with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably right
athwart the bridge. Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm a throng of
impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors in a gig with
the top thrown back, both puffing cigars and swearing all sorts of
forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly-dressed
gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board and she from a
milliner's back room—the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. And what
are the haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's
day? Here is a tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles all
beholders like a travelling meteor or opposition sun, and on the other
side a seller of spruce beer, which brisk liquor is confined in
several dozen of stone bottles. Here conic a party of ladies on
horseback, in green ridings habits, and gentlemen attendant, and there
a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over the bridge with a
multitude nous clatter of their little hoofs; here a Frenchman with a
hand-organ on his shoulder, and there an itinerant Swiss jeweller. On
this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a train
of wagons conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan; and on that a
company of summer soldiers marching from village to village on a
festival campaign, attended by the "brass band." Now look at the
scene, and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion, the
apparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals, or the great world
itself, seem often to be involved. What miracle shall set all things
right again?</p>
<p>But see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcase through the chasm;
the draw descends; horse and foot pass onward and leave the bridge
vacant from end to end. "And thus," muses the toll-gatherer, "have I
found it with all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be at
a stand." The sage old man!</p>
<p>Far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendor
across the flood, and to the eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightly
among the timbers of the bridge. Strollers come from the town to quaff
the freshening breeze. One or two let down long lines and haul up
flapping flounders or cunners or small cod, or perhaps an eel. Others,
and fair girls among them, with the flush of the hot day still on
their cheeks, bend over the railing and watch the heaps of seaweed
floating upward with the flowing tide. The horses now tramp heavily
along the bridge and wistfully bethink them of their stables.—Rest,
rest, thou weary world! for to-morrow's round of toil and pleasure
will be as wearisome as to-day's has been, yet both shall bear thee
onward a day's march of eternity.—Now the old toll-gatherer looks
seaward and discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and the
stars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond; and,
mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances of earth, the whole
procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has
witnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful
soul to muse upon.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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