In the fall, Bill, for a season, abandons wood-sawing for the lighter and more refined occupation of stove-blacking.  While engaged in this profession he never fails to assert his profound and lasting conviction that, like sawing, it does not offer a broad and easy road to opulence.  His execution of whatever work is given him in this line is at once artistic and masterly, showing that excellence in oratory is not incompatible with an aptitude for the fine arts.  His outfit is eminently complete and choice.  In order that he may fail in no portion of his work, he usually carries with him a stock consisting of: 

1.  About 35 brooms, carried in a large sack.  These are useful in putting on the finishing touches, and ensuring an unapproachable lustre.

2.  Brushes of various kinds, comprising shoe-brushes, hat-brushes, clothes-brushes, hair-brushes, tooth-brushes, nail-brushes, shaving-brushes, and sometimes, a stove-brush.  These are useful in many respects, the shoe-brushes and hair-brushes being instrumental in doing the heavy and plain work, while the shaving-brushes and tooth-brushes are extremely handy in doing justice to the filagree work and ornamental portion.

3.  A platform, or dais, on which to place the stove.

4.  A stick, curiously carved, to beat out of pipes.

5.  Cloths, of various sizes and patterns, to wipe the poker and the legs of the stove.

6.  Oil-cloths, for emergencies.

7.  One large bottle or jug with a stick in it, and two smaller ones, all filled with mysterious decoctions whose composition and properties are known to Bill alone.

8.  A sponge.

9.  Small boxes containing a dingy powder.

10.  A wheel-barrow, on which Bill vainly attempts to carry the rest of his goods.

We have been thus minute in describing his equipment, knowing him to be at the head of his profession, and hoping that any youth aspiring to celebrity in it, who may chance upon these pages, will profit therefrom.  We regret to be obliged to state that there are some so utterly out of sympathy with the cause of art, as to assert that the greater portion of Bill’s utensils are useless; and that by much puttering he loses time without improving his work.  These persons we are inclined to class among those zealous but unthinking lovers of simplicity, whose misdirected reformatory efforts in other departments of life are so well known.  As might be expected, Bill treats these sacrilegious innovators with the contempt they so justly merit.  Were an officious stranger to try to convince an artist that one color would answer all his purposes as well as a greater number, would the suggestion of the untutored interloper cause the artist to waver in the sternness of his faith?  And shall the subject of this sketch revolutionize his mode of stove-blacking at the promptings of an untaught spectator?