Reuben Black was an infestation in the neighbourhood where he resided. The very sight of him produced effects similar to the Hindoo magical tune, called Raug, which is said to bring on clouds, storms, and earthquakes. His wife seemed lean, sharp, and uncomfortable. The heads of his boys had a bristling aspect, as if each individual hair stood on end with perpetual fear. The cows poked out their horns horizontally, as soon as he opened the barn-yard gate. The dog dropped his tail between his legs, and eyed him askance, to see what humour he was in. The cat looked wild and scraggy, and had been known to rush straight up the chimney when he moved toward her. Fanny Kemble’s expressive description of the Pennsylvanian stage-horses was exactly suited to Reuben’s poor old nag. “His hide resembled an old hair-trunk.” Continual whipping and kicking had made him such a stoic, that no amount of blows could quicken his pace, and no chirruping could change the dejected drooping of his head. All his natural language said, as plainly as a horse _could_ say it, that he was a most unhappy beast. Even the trees on Reuben’s premises had a gnarled and knotted appearance. The bark wept little sickly tears of gum, and the branches grew awry, as if they felt the continual discord, and made sorry faces at each other, behind their owner’s back. His fields were red with sorrel, or run over with mullein. Every thing seemed as hard and arid as his own visage. Every day, he cursed the town and the neighbourhood, because they poisoned his dogs, and stoned his hens, and shot his cats. Continual law-suits involved him in so much expense, that he had neither time nor money to spend on the improvement of his farm.