The pipe was, indeed, an indispensable part of the peasant’s equipment. The boy of twelve had his sticking out of his side pocket, just like his father. They never stopped smoking except when they were haying, and I have seen a man mowing grass with his long pipe hanging from his mouth. They even counted distances by pipes instead of miles. A peasant would tell you, if you asked how far it was to the next town, that it was two pipes, or three pipes, as the case might be. How far that was, I have forgotten, but it was a safe enough way of reckoning. For they went always at the same jog-trot, and the pipe bowls were always of the same size. They were of porcelain and gayly decorated. Among the young men there was a kind of rivalry as to who should have the handsomest pipe bowl; the meerschaum was the holiday pipe, for home and festive occasions. And it was not only the country folk who smoked thus. Everybody did--the men, that is to say. It is only lately the women have taken to smoking cigars, and in public. When last I crossed the “Great Belt” on the steam-ferry, I was greatly annoyed at the sight of two handsome and otherwise nice young girls smoking cigarettes on the deck, and I took occasion to say so to a motherly woman who occupied the chair next to mine. She listened with polite interest to my diatribe about how things were when I was a boy, and when I had finished took out a cigar, a regular man’s cigar. “Yes!” she said, “things do change. Now, I like a smoke myself. These girls take after me, I suppose. They are my daughters.” And she struck a match and lit her weed. We boys in the Old Town were strictly prohibited from smoking under the school rules, which prescribed the rod for every such offence. In consequence, we did it on the sly, thinking it manly and fine. At his desk, at home, Father smoked all the time, and so did everybody else. Many a pound of Kanaster have I carried home from the tobacconist’s shop, the one in Grönnegade with the naked brown Indian smoking a very long pipe. From the moment the “Last of the Mohicans” fell into my hands I looked upon him as friend and brother. There was something between us which the grown-ups knew nothing about. He must be acquainted with Uncas and Chingachgook and Deerslayer, of course, for clearly he was of the good Delawares and not of the wicked Hurons. He swings from his hook yet, and I confess to a nodding acquaintance when I pass him in the street. His pipe is still the biggest part of him.