Beneath the window is a wooden bench , on which a long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed themselves . Peeping within doors , we perceive the whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints and advertisements of various import , and the immense showbill of a wandering caravan . And there sits our good old toll-gatherer , glorified by the early sunbeams . He is a man , as his aspect may announce , of quiet soul , and thoughtful , shrewd , yet simple mind , who , of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside , has gathered a reasonable store . Now the sun smiles upon the landscape , and earth smiles back again upon the sky . Frequent , now , are the travellers . The toll-gatherer 's practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle , the number of its wheels , and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp . Here , in a substantial family chaise , setting forth betimes to take advantage of the dewy road , come a gentleman and his wife , with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them . The bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious bandboxes and carpet-bags , and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty with yesterday 's journey . Next appears a four-wheeled carryall , peopled with a round half-dozen of pretty girls , all drawn by a single horse , and driven by a single gentleman . Luckless wight , doomed , through a whole summer day , to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the frolicsome maidens ! Bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin , sour-visaged man , who , as he pays his toll , hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall . The vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles . Now paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in black , with a meditative brow , as of one who , whithersoever his steed might bear him , would still journey through a mist of brooding thought . He is a country preacher , going to labor at a protracted meeting . The next object passing townward is a butcher 's cart , canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton . Behind comes a `` sauceman , '' driving a wagon full of new potatoes , green ears of corn , beets , carrots , turnips , and summer-squashes ; and next , two wrinkled , withered , witch-looking old gossips , in an antediluvian chaise , drawn by a horse of former generations , and going to peddle out a lot of huckleberries . See there , a man trundling a wheelbarrow-load of lobsters . And now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward , covered with green canvas , and conveying the contributions of a whole herd of cows , in large tin canisters . But let all these pay their toll and pass .
Here comes a spectacle that causes the old XXXXX to smile benignantly , as if the travellers brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome influence all along the road .
betimes carpet-bags carryall labor lobsters summer-squashes sunbeams toll-gatherer townward wight