There weekly arrive in this town
scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain
and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;
fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch
the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence
they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old.
Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat
and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife.
Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.
No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean
a downright bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow
his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands.
Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make
a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you
should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport.
In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats;
straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly
will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou
art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.
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