Katahdin was always in its place up in the woods. The Penobscot was always buzzing along toward the calm reaches, where it takes the shadow of the mountain. All we needed was the birch.
The birch thrust itself under our noses as we drove into Greenville. It was mounted upon a coach that preceded us, and wabbled oddly along, like a vast hat upon a dwarf. We talked with its owner, as he dismounted it. He proved our very man. He and his amphibious canoe had just made the trip we proposed, with a flotilla. Certain Bostonians had essayed it,--vague Northmen, preceding our Columbus voyage.
Enter now upon the scene a new and important character, Cancut the canoe-man. Mr. Cancut, owner and steerer of a birch, who now became our "guide, philosopher, and friend," is as American as a birch, as the Penobscot, or as Katahdin's self. Cancut was a jolly fatling,--almost too fat, if he will pardon me, for sitting in the stern of the imponderable canoe. Cancut, though for this summer boatman or bircher, had other strings to his bow. He was taking variety now, after employment more monotonous. Last summer, his services had been in request throughout inhabited Maine, to "peddle gravestones and collect bills." The Gravestone-Peddler is an institution of New England. His wares are wanted, or will be wanted, by every one. Without discriminating the bereaved households, he presents himself at any door, with attractive drawings of his wares, and seduces people into paying the late tribute to their great-grandfather, or laying up a monument for themselves against the inevitable day of demand. His customers select from his samples a tasteful "set of stones"; and next summer he drives up and unloads the marble, with the names well spelt, and the cherub's head artistically chiselled by the best workmen of Boston. Cancut told us, as an instance of judicious economy, how, when he called once upon a recent widow to ask what he could do in his line for her deceased husband's tomb, she chose from his patterns neat head- and foot-stones for the dear defunct, and then bargained with him to throw in a small pair for her boy Johnny,--a poor, sick crittur, that would be wanting his monument long before next summer.