The Peddler's Boy; Or, I'll Be Somebody

by Francis C. Woodworth

"Very well."

The hour passed. The deacon was in his wagon, ready to start. "Well, Patty," he shouted, so that his daughter could hear him in the room where she was busy putting herself in a trim for the city. She was not quite ready. I think she had forgotten where her gloves were, and was ransacking every drawer in her bureau for them. The deacon spoke again.

"In one minute," said Patty.

The deacon waited one minute more, a very long minute, according to his watch—and off he started for Boston.

Poor Patty! The disappointment was a sore one for her. But it taught her a lesson in punctuality which was worth more to her than a quarter's schooling at the Roundhill Academy.

Mr. Bissell, you will please to take notice, was a real deacon. In the country, it is a very common thing, I presume you are aware, for almost all the folks to have some handle or another fixed to their names; and very often the handle is put on, nobody knows how, or why, or when, or where. One man is known as a military officer, a captain, perhaps, or a general. But when you come to inquire into his history, you find that he never rose to a higher rank than that of a corporal in the militia, and possibly not quite so high as that. Another man is a squire. But how he came to be one, and, indeed, what is meant by the title in his case, are questions which would puzzle the wisest heads in the neighborhood. There are, also, in almost every part of the country, sundry men whom everybody calls uncle. Each one of them is everybody's uncle in general, and nobody's uncle in particular. Deacons, too, scores of them, may be found, who have no other claim to the title than this—that they are called so, by nearly all the men, women and children in the parish.

But Mr. Bissell, as I said before, was a real deacon. The title had been given to him by the little church in his native parish. And he was a good man, too. Some people make up their religion into a sort of a cloak, which they regard as too nice for every day use. They put it on and wear it every Sunday, and take it off every Monday morning, and keep it off until Saturday night. You never get a sight of their religion, when they are about their business. They wear long faces, to be sure. But a face as long as a broom handle is not worth much to Uncle Frank, as a sign of a man's piety. People may say what they will about religion—and in this country, especially, where everybody can think for himself, and very few get other folks to think for them, there must be a great many different notions as to what religion is—but people may say what they will about it, I think more of actions than I do of words. I don't care if a man's creed reaches as far as from the Battery to Grace Church. If he is not fair in his dealings, and a good neighbor, in every respect, I don't think much of his religion.

The piety of Deacon Bissell did not all fly off in words, as a glass of soda water flies off in foam. He was a good man on Saturdays and Mondays, as well as on Sundays, at home as well as at church, in his worldly business as well as out of it.

Deacon Bissell had a brother, who did a large business in Boston, and was supposed to be very rich. Rich people, however, sometimes get a little cramped in their business, and find it hard to get along. Deacon Bissell's brother happened, at one time, to need some thousands of dollars more than he had at command. He knew that the deacon had saved quite a snug sum from the profits of his small trading, and so he went to him, and asked him if he would put his name to a note of some ten or twelve thousand dollars. The deacon had never done anything of the kind before. But supposing his brother would be able to pay the note when it was due, and always being anxious to oblige everybody, when he could, he put his name to the note.

That note ruined Deacon Bissell. His brother could not pay it. He failed, and his failure swept away nearly every dollar which the deacon had been laying up for thirty years. This loss tried him very much. He wept over it—not because he needed or wanted the lost money for himself, but because, as he used to remark, it was one of his darling schemes to give all his children "a good setting out" in the world. It seemed a terrible loss to him. "If I were a young man," said he, "I might hope to get up again. But I am old. I am almost worn out. A few more years, I am afraid, will finish what there is left of me."