He could make profit on a single pin;
In business strict, to bring the balance true
He had been known to bite a fig in two,
And change a board-nail for a shingle-nail. 
All that he had he ready held for sale, 440
His house, his tomb, whate’er the law allows,
And he had gladly parted with his spouse. 
His one ambition still to get and get,
He would arrest your very ghost for debt. 
His store looked righteous, should the Parson come,
But in a dark back-room he peddled rum,
And eased Ma’am Conscience, if she e’er would scold,
By christening it with water ere he sold. 
A small, dry man he was, who wore a queue,
And one white neckcloth all the week-days through,—­ 450
On Monday white, by Saturday as dun
As that worn homeward by the prodigal son. 
His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy brown,
Were braided up to hide a desert crown;
His coat was brownish, black perhaps of yore;
In summer-time a banyan loose he wore;
His trousers short, through many a season true,
Made no pretence to hide his stockings blue;
A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was,
Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky brass. 460
A deacon he, you saw it in each limb,
And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn,
Or lead the choir through all its wandering woes
With voice that gathered unction in his nose,
Wherein a constant snuffle you might hear,
As if with him ’twere winter all the year. 
At pew-head sat he with decorous pains,
In sermon-time could foot his weekly gains,
Or, with closed eyes and heaven-abstracted air,
Could plan a new investment in long-prayer. 470
A pious man, and thrifty too, he made
The psalms and prophets partners in his trade,
And in his orthodoxy straitened more
As it enlarged the business at his store;
He honored Moses, but, when gain he planned,
Had his own notion of the Promised Land.

’Soon as the winter made the sledding good,
From far around the farmers hauled him wood,
For all the trade had gathered ’neath his thumb. 
He paid in groceries and New England rum, 480
Making two profits with a conscience clear,—­
Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with dear. 
With his own mete-wand measuring every load,
Each somehow had diminished on the road;
An honest cord in Jethro still would fail
By a good foot upon the Deacon’s scale,
And, more to abate the price, his gimlet eye
Would pierce to cat-sticks that none else could spy;
Yet none dared grumble, for no farmer yet
But New Year found him in the Deacon’s debt. 490