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

by Francis C. Woodworth

"But I know all about this race of men already," perhaps you will say.

Do you? Well, then, consider my sketch as having been made for another reader, and not for you. The fact is—for I want to let you into one of my little secrets, just here, to start with—the story I am telling is one about a peddler's boy; and I have got a notion that it would be a good plan to devote one chapter, before I have any more to do with the boy himself, to that famous class of men who get their living principally by peddling small wares about the country.

The peddler—the genuine Massachusetts or Connecticut peddler—usually has a wagon built on purpose for his business, so fitted up that it will conveniently hold all the articles he has for sale. One who has ever taken a peep into a peddler's wagon, will not need to be told that his assortment comprises a great many different articles. Tin ware occupies a large space. In this department may be found tin ovens, sauce pans, milk pans, graters, skimmers, and things of that sort. Then the genuine peddler is always provided with two tin trunks, I believe—trunks which are large enough to hold about half a bushel each. These trunks are stored full of little knick-knacks, "too numerous to mention," as the dealer in dry goods has it in his advertisement.

The peddler does not often drive his trade in the city. He finds the country the best place for him. So you generally come across him where there are not many stores, and where the houses are not very close together. He stops before the door of a house. I say he stops; but I ought rather to have said his horse; for the old nag, who, perhaps, has been in his service for a quarter of a century, stops of her own accord at the door of every respectable looking house on the route. She needs no hint from her master in relation to this matter.

Indeed, I once heard of a peddler's mare, who was so well persuaded that it would be for the interest of her master to stop at the gate of a certain large and neat-looking farm-house, which gate the peddler seemed, for once, disposed to pass by, that she actually stopped in the road, and looked round at the man who had the helm, as if she would say, "My dear sir, there must be some mistake about this matter. Are you crazy? Upon my word, this is one of the strangest things that has ever turned up since we've been driving this peddling business."

We will suppose, now, that the faithful horse, guided by something which, for want of a better name, people generally call instinct, but which seems to me a good deal like reason, has stopped at the door of a house. The peddler, taking good care to carry along with him the tin trunks before mentioned, leaves the wagon, and goes into the house, the faithful mare, in the meantime, leisurely grazing, if it is summer, and stamping and kicking, just for exercise, in order to keep warm, if it is winter.

"Any tin ware to-day, madam?" the peddler asks. Perhaps madam does want some tin ware, and perhaps she does not. We will suppose, now, that as far as the department of tin ware is concerned, her wants have been entirely supplied. Then follows a partial enumeration of the contents of the two trunks. Did you ever hear a peddler rattle over the names of these small wares? He does it as rapidly, almost, as a bobolink goes through the different notes of his song: "Any pins, needles, sewing silk, twist, buttons, tape, jew's harps, hooks and eyes, scissors, penknives, pocket books, handkerchiefs, breast pins, ear rings"—and so he runs on, hardly waiting for the good lady, who is looking over the articles by this time, to put in a word edgewise.

Peddlers, as a class, are set down as pretty wide awake in driving a bargain. They have been slandered, I doubt not. A great deal of unfairness and dishonesty have been charged to them, of which they never were guilty. Still, I think they are apt to be pretty shrewd and keen, when they are trading. Sometimes, no doubt, though not always, they are too shrewd and keen to be strictly honest; for there is a point where shrewdness and keenness ought to stop.

When I was a little boy, I lived in Connecticut. My home was in the very bosom of the country. It was not often that anybody from the busy world came there; and when one did come, he was sure to make something of a stir, especially among us little folks. The advent of a tin peddler's wagon, I recollect, I hailed as a most remarkable event. It always seemed to me that a peddler's head was as full of knowledge as it could well hold. Such a budget of news as he always opened! Such smart things as those which came from his mouth! Such wonderful good nature as he showed towards the children. Why I don't remember that I ever heard a peddler speak cross to a boy, though we used always to tumble over the nameless "notions" in his trunks to our hearts' content, all the time he stayed in the house. I hardly know which interested me more, the driving up to our door of a peddler's wagon, or the entrance into our kitchen of half a dozen Mohegan Indians, with their squaws and pappooses.

The age of clock peddlers had not come then. Wooden clocks are plenty as blackberries now; and you can buy one for a song, almost. But Connecticut clocks were quite unknown in my childhood. Now, I suppose, the peddlers sell more clocks than tin ovens and sauce pans. But the peddler of clocks and the peddler of tin ware is, in all important particulars, one and the same.