`` Halloo ! Who stands guard here ? Is the doorkeeper asleep ? '' cried I , approaching a ladder of two or three steps which was let down from the wagon . The music ceased at my summons , and there appeared at the door , not the sort of figure that I had mentally assigned to the wandering showman , but a most respectable old personage whom I was sorry to have addressed in so free a style . He wore a snuff-colored coat and small-clothes , with white top-boots , and exhibited the mild dignity of aspect and manner which may often be noticed in aged schoolmasters , and sometimes in deacons , selectmen or other potentates of that kind . A small piece of silver was my passport within his premises , where I found only one other person , hereafter to be described . `` This is a dull day for business , '' said the old gentleman as he ushered me in ; `` but I merely tarry here to refresh the cattle , being bound for the camp-meeting at Stamford . '' Perhaps the movable scene of this narrative is still peregrinating New England , and may enable the reader to test the accuracy of my description . The spectacle -- for I will not use the unworthy term of `` puppet-show '' -- consisted of a multitude of little people assembled on a miniature stage . Among them were artisans of every kind in the attitudes of their toil , and a group of fair ladies and gay gentlemen standing ready for the dance ; a company of foot-soldiers formed a line across the stage , looking stern , grim and terrible enough to make it a pleasant consideration that they were but three inches high ; and conspicuous above the whole was seen a Merry Andrew in the pointed cap and motley coat of his profession . All the inhabitants of this mimic world were motionless , like the figures in a picture , or like that people who one moment were alive in the midst of their business and delights and the next were transformed to statues , preserving an eternal semblance of labor that was ended and pleasure that could be felt no more . Anon , however , the old gentleman turned the handle of a barrel-organ , the first note of which produced a most enlivening effect upon the figures and awoke them all to their proper occupations and amusements . By the selfsame impulse the tailor plied his needle , the blacksmith 's hammer descended upon the anvil and the dancers whirled away on feathery tiptoes ; the company of soldiers broke into platoons , retreated from the stage , and were succeeded by a troop of horse , who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs as might have startled Don Quixote himself ; while an old toper of inveterate ill-habits uplifted his black bottle and took off a hearty swig . Meantime , the Merry Andrew began to caper and turn somersets , shaking his sides , nodding his head and winking his eyes in as lifelike a manner as if he were ridiculing the nonsense of all human affairs and making fun of the whole multitude beneath him . At length the old magician -LRB- for I compared the showman to Prospero entertaining his guests with a masque of shadows -RRB- paused that I might give utterance to my wonder . `` What an admirable piece of work is this ! '' exclaimed I , lifting up my hands in astonishment . Indeed , I liked the spectacle and was tickled with the old man 's gravity as he presided at it , for I had none of that foolish wisdom which reproves every occupation that is not useful in this world of vanities . If there be a faculty which I possess more perfectly than most men , it is that of throwing myself mentally into situations foreign to my own and detecting with a cheerful eye the desirable circumstances of each .
I could have envied the life of this gray-headed showman , spent as it had been in a course of safe and pleasurable adventure in driving his huge vehicle sometimes through the sands of Cape Cod and sometimes over the rough forest-roads of the north and east , and halting now XXXXX the green before a village meeting-house and now in a paved square of the metropolis .
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