{"id":"01KG6G893MQGSB9WEV1AKCYNWP","cid":"bafkreifh7dj55irzotkiwxvhnowdlxnqvmp5yhbpudjsx7mabeuobfriaq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4778,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 8","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":4696,"text":"‘My friend, have you heard an extraordinary cock-crow of late?’\r\n\r\n‘Well, well,’ he drawled, ‘I don’t know--the Widow Crowfoot has a\r\ncock--and Squire Squaretoes has a cock--and I have a cock, and they all\r\ncrow. But I don’t know of any on ’em with ’strordinary crows.’\r\n\r\n‘Good morning to you,’ said I, shortly; ‘it’s plain that you have not\r\nheard the crow of the Emperor of China’s chanticleer.’\r\n\r\nPresently I met another old man mending a tumble-down old rail-fence.\r\nThe rails were rotten, and at every move of the old man’s hand they\r\ncrumbled into yellow ochre. He had much better let the fence alone, or\r\nelse get him new rails. And here I must say, that one cause of the sad\r\nfact why idiocy more prevails among farmers than any other class of\r\npeople, is owing to their undertaking the mending of rotten rail-fences\r\nin warm, relaxing spring weather. The enterprise is a hopeless one. It\r\nis a laborious one; it is a bootless one. It is an enterprise to make\r\nthe heart break. Vast pains squandered upon a vanity. For how can one\r\nmake rotten rail-fences stand up on their rotten pins? By what magic put\r\npith into sticks which have lain freezing and baking through sixty\r\nconsecutive winters and summers? This it is, this wretched endeavour to\r\nmend rotten rail-fences with their own rotten rails, which drives many\r\nfarmers into the asylum.\r\n\r\nOn the face of the old man in question incipient idiocy was plainly\r\nmarked. For, about sixty rods before him extended one of the most\r\nunhappy and desponding broken-hearted Virginia rail-fences I ever saw in\r\nmy life. While in a field behind, were a set of young steers, possessed\r\nas by devils, continually butting at this forlorn old fence, and\r\nbreaking through it here and there, causing the old man to drop his work\r\nand chase them back within bounds. He would chase them with a piece of\r\nrail huge as Goliath’s beam, but as light as cork. At the first\r\nflourish, it crumbled into powder.\r\n\r\n‘My friend,’ said I, addressing this woeful mortal, ‘have you heard an\r\nextraordinary cock-crow of late?’\r\n\r\nI might as well have asked him if he had heard the death-tick. He stared\r\nat me with a long, bewildered, doleful, and unutterable stare, and\r\nwithout reply resumed his unhappy labours.\r\n\r\nWhat a fool, thought I, to have asked such an uncheerful and uncheerable\r\ncreature about a cheerful cock!\r\n\r\nI walked on. I had now descended the high land where my house stood, and\r\nbeing in a low tract could not hear the crow of the Shanghai, which\r\ndoubtless overshot me there. Besides, the Shanghai might be at lunch of\r\ncorn and oats, or taking a nap, and so interrupted his jubilations for a\r\nwhile.\r\n\r\nAt length I encountered riding along the road, a portly gentleman--nay,\r\na _pursy_ one--of great wealth, who had recently purchased him some\r\nnoble acres, and built him a noble mansion, with a goodly fowl-house\r\nattached, the fame whereof spread through all that country. Thought I,\r\nHere now is the owner of the Shanghai.\r\n\r\n‘Sir,’ said I, ‘excuse me, but I am a countryman of yours, and would\r\nask, if so be you own any Shanghais?’\r\n\r\n‘Oh, yes; I have ten Shanghais.’\r\n\r\n‘Ten!’ exclaimed I in wonder; ‘and do they all crow?’\r\n\r\n‘Most lustily; every soul of them; I wouldn’t own a cock that wouldn’t\r\ncrow.’\r\n\r\n‘Will you turn back, and show me those Shanghais?’\r\n\r\n‘With pleasure: I am proud of them. They cost me, in the lump, six\r\nhundred dollars.’\r\n\r\nAs I walked by the side of his horse, I was thinking to myself whether\r\npossibly I had not mistaken the harmoniously combined crowings of ten\r\nShanghais in a squad, for the supernatural crow of a single Shanghai by\r\nhimself.\r\n\r\n‘Sir,’ said I, ‘is there one of your Shanghais which far exceeds all the\r\nothers in the lustiness, musicalness, and inspiring effects of his\r\ncrow?’\r\n\r\n‘They crow pretty much alike, I believe,’ he courteously replied; ‘I\r\nreally don’t know that I could tell their crow apart.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 8"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6Q5SW6GV0037JNSFXSK6","peer_type":"article","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G893PT5DNMSH6QZQR69HV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6G893MYPT6VNHWX3PT52SS","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:21.236Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:27.143Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}