{"id":"01KG6YH8FG6338BKQ6EQ2AT167","cid":"bafkreidjnasp2ywntszi3goub2f2fgbcxxw5nxvq5qfy3gstwfheos4doq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5815,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":5753,"text":"\r\n“Briefly, then. I avoid pine-trees, high houses, lonely barns, upland\r\npastures, running water, flocks of cattle and sheep, a crowd of men. If\r\nI travel on foot—as to-day—I do not walk fast; if in my buggy, I touch\r\nnot its back or sides; if on horseback, I dismount and lead the horse.\r\nBut of all things, I avoid tall men.”\r\n\r\n“Do I dream? Man avoid man? and in danger-time, too.”\r\n\r\n“Tall men in a thunder-storm I avoid. Are you so grossly ignorant as\r\nnot to know, that the height of a six-footer is sufficient to discharge\r\nan electric cloud upon him? Are not lonely Kentuckians, ploughing, smit\r\nin the unfinished furrow? Nay, if the six-footer stand by running\r\nwater, the cloud will sometimes _select_ him as its conductor to that\r\nrunning water. Hark! Sure, yon black pinnacle is split. Yes, a man is a\r\ngood conductor. The lightning goes through and through a man, but only\r\npeels a tree. But sir, you have kept me so long answering your\r\nquestions, that I have not yet come to business. Will you order one of\r\nmy rods? Look at this specimen one? See: it is of the best of copper.\r\nCopper’s the best conductor. Your house is low; but being upon the\r\nmountains, that lowness does not one whit depress it. You mountaineers\r\nare most exposed. In mountainous countries the lightning-rod man should\r\nhave most business. Look at the specimen, sir. One rod will answer for\r\na house so small as this. Look over these recommendations. Only one\r\nrod, sir; cost, only twenty dollars. Hark! There go all the granite\r\nTaconics and Hoosics dashed together like pebbles. By the sound, that\r\nmust have struck something. An elevation of five feet above the house,\r\nwill protect twenty feet radius all about the rod. Only twenty dollars,\r\nsir—a dollar a foot. Hark!—Dreadful!—Will you order? Will you buy?\r\nShall I put down your name? Think of being a heap of charred offal,\r\nlike a haltered horse burnt in his stall; and all in one flash!”\r\n\r\n“You pretended envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to and\r\nfrom Jupiter Tonans,” laughed I; “you mere man who come here to put you\r\nand your pipestem between clay and sky, do you think that because you\r\ncan strike a bit of green light from the Leyden jar, that you can\r\nthoroughly avert the supernal bolt? Your rod rusts, or breaks, and\r\nwhere are you? Who has empowered you, you Tetzel, to peddle round your\r\nindulgences from divine ordinations? The hairs of our heads are\r\nnumbered, and the days of our lives. In thunder as in sunshine, I stand\r\nat ease in the hands of my God. False negotiator, away! See, the scroll\r\nof the storm is rolled back; the house is unharmed; and in the blue\r\nheavens I read in the rainbow, that the Deity will not, of purpose,\r\nmake war on man’s earth.”\r\n\r\n“Impious wretch!” foamed the stranger, blackening in the face as the\r\nrainbow beamed, “I will publish your infidel notions.”\r\n\r\nThe scowl grew blacker on his face; the indigo-circles enlarged round\r\nhis eyes as the storm-rings round the midnight moon. He sprang upon me;\r\nhis tri-forked thing at my heart.\r\n\r\nI seized it; I snapped it; I dashed it; I trod it; and dragging the\r\ndark lightning-king out of my door, flung his elbowed, copper sceptre\r\nafter him.\r\n\r\nBut spite of my treatment, and spite of my dissuasive talk of him to my\r\nneighbors, the Lightning-rod man still dwells in the land; still\r\ntravels in storm-time, and drives a brave trade with the fears of man.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB83HAC2343Y4JRA591H","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH8FGQP6HYXCGSK4FQQPA","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.568Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:06.164Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}