The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

Amidst this confusion of tongues I take another survey of my visitant. Ha! a light dawns upon me. That shrewd old face, with its sharp, winking eyes, is no stranger to me. Pietro Frugoni, I have seen thee before. Si, signor, that face of thine has looked at me over a dirty white neckcloth, with the corners of that cunning mouth drawn downwards, and those small eyes turned up in sanctimonious gravity, while thou wast offering to a crowd of half-grown boys an extemporaneous exhortation in the capacity of a travelling preacher. Have I not seen it peering out from under a blanket, as that of a poor Penobscot Indian, who had lost the use of his hands while trapping on the Madawaska? Is it not the face of the forlorn father of six small children, whom the ‘marcury doctors’ had ‘pisened’ and crippled? Did it not belong to that down-East unfortunate who had been out to the ‘Genesee country’ and got the ‘fevern-nager,’ and whose hand shook so pitifully when held out to receive my poor gift? The same, under all disguises,— Stephen Leathers, of Barrington,—him, and none other! Let me conjure him into his own likeness—

‘Well, Stephen, what news from old Barrington?’

‘Oh, well, I thought I knew ye,’ he answers, not the least disconcerted. ‘How do you do? and how's your folks? All well, I hope. I took this 'ere paper, you see, to help a poor furriner, who couldn't make himself understood any more ’