The Old Apple Dealer

From "Mosses from an Old Manse"

The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he, seeks
in a character which is nevertheless of too negative a description
to be seized upon and represented to the imaginative vision by word-
painting. As an instance, I remember an old man who carries on a
little trade of gingerbread and apples at the depot of one of our
railroads. While awaiting the departure of the cars, my
observation, flitting to and fro among the livelier characteristics
of the scene, has often settled insensibly upon this almost hueless
object. Thus, unconsciously to myself and unsuspected by him, I
have studied the old apple-dealer until he has become a naturalized
citizen of my inner world. How little would he imagine--poor,
neglected, friendless, unappreciated, and with little that demands
appreciation--that the mental eye of an utter stranger has so often
reverted to his figure! Many a noble form, many a beautiful face,
has flitted before me and vanished like a shadow. It is a strange
witchcraft whereby this faded and featureless old apple-dealer has
gained a settlement in my memory.

He is a small man, with gray hair and gray stubble beard, and is
invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff-color, closely
buttoned, and half concealing a pair of gray pantaloons; the whole
dress, though clean and entire, being evidently flimsy with much
wear. His face, thin, withered, furrowed, and with features which
even age has failed to render impressive, has a frost-bitten aspect.
It is a moral frost which no physical warmth or comfortableness
could counteract. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat upon
him or the good fire of the depot room may slake him the focus of
its blaze on a winter's day; but all in vain; for still the old roan
looks as if he were in a frosty atmosphere, with scarcely warmth
enough to keep life in the region about his heart. It is a patient,
long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He is not
desperate,--that, though its etymology implies no more, would be too
positive an expression,--but merely devoid of hope. As all his past
life, probably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he
takes his present poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of
course! he thinks it the definition of existence, so far as himself
is concerned, to be poor, cold, and uncomfortable. It may be added,
that time has not thrown dignity as a mantle over the old man's
figure: there is nothing venerable about him: you pity him without a
scruple.

He sits on a bench in the depot room; and before him, on the floor,
are deposited two baskets of a capacity to contain his whole stock
in trade. Across from one basket to the other extends a board,