Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:
Henry Thoreau told a good story of Deacon Parkman, who lived in the house he now occupies, & kept a store close by. He hung out a salt fish for a sign, & it hung so long & grew so hard, black & deformed, that the deacon forgot what thing it was, & nobody in town knew, but being examined chemically it proved to be salt fish. But duly every morning the deacon hung it on its peg.
(Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 7:65)
