Even then, old as he was, if there were any topic worthy of discussion, and his fellow-citizens were in danger of going wrong, he became an haranguing prophet, as it were, a local Isaiah or Jeremiah.  Every gate heard him, for he stopped on his rounds in front of each, and calling out the inhabitant poured forth such a volume of fact and argument as tended to remove all doubt of what he, at least, considered right.  All of this he invariably accompanied by a magnificence of gesture worthy of a great orator.

At such times his mind, apparently, was almost wholly engrossed with these matters, and I have it from one of his daughters, who, besides being his daughter, was a sincere admirer of his, that often he might have been seen coming down his private lawn, and even the public streets when there was no one near to hear him, shaking his head, gesticulating, sometimes sweeping upward with his arms, as if addressing his fellow-citizens in assemblage.

“He used to push his big hat well back upon his forehead,” she said on one occasion, “and often in winter, forgetful of the bitter cold, would take off his overcoat and carry it on his arm.  Occasionally he would stop quite still, as if he were addressing a companion, and with sweeping gestures illustrate some idea or other, although, of course, there was no one present.  Then, planting his big cane forcibly with each step, as though still emphasizing his recently stated ideas, he would come forward and enter the house.”

The same suggestion of mental concentration might have been seen in everything that he did, and I personally have seen him leading a pet Jersey cow home for milking with the same dignity of bearing and forcefulness of manner that characterized him when he stood before his fellow-citizens at a public meeting addressing them on some important topic.  He never appeared to have a sense of difference from or superiority over his fellowmen, but only the keenest sympathy with all things human.  Every man was his brother, every human being honest.  A cow or a horse was as much to be treated with sympathy and charity as a man or a woman.  If a purse was lost, forty-nine out of every fifty men would return it without thought of reward, if you were to believe him.

In the little town where he had lived so many years, and where he finally died, he knew every living creature from cattle upwards, and could call each by name.  The sick, the poor, the widows, the orphans, the insane, and dependents of all kinds, were his especial care.  Every Sunday afternoon for years, it was his custom to go the rounds of the indigent, frequently carrying a basket of his good wife’s dinner.  This he distributed, along with consolation and advice.  Occasionally he would return home of a winter’s day very much engrossed with the discovery of some condition of distress hitherto unseen.