AS A YANKEE TIN PEDDLER
At the Methodist Church just south of Wabbaquassett there were revivals each winter and with other I experienced religion, but mine, even though serious, sort of struck in and did not break out again for several years.
At the age of nineteen I had become sort of terror to my enemies, for I was quick, strong and fearless. One night I had my usual warning dream, of trouble ahead, and the next day I nearly killed a man as fearless as myself. The following day when I caught my father weeping I resolved ever after to avoid all personal encounters, which determination for self-control has carried me over many a rickety bridge in safety, and my warning dreams have never troubled me since.
Farming soon became too tame for me, and while nature's adornments which made up and surrounded our quiet home, often charmed my soul into serious dreamlike fancies, yet, somehow I enjoyed singing funny songs and telling stories, together with their proper amendments and legitimate construction—in fact, like my mother, I could tell an old story which every one had heard forty times in such a way as to cause laughter. Therefore, as farm life seemed to be an insufficient incubator for hatching out fresh productions, I mysteriously evolved into the seemingly exalted position of a Yankee Tin Peddler.
ALBUM OF SUNNY DAYS.
CENTRAL LOWER LIKENESS IS OF MY COUSIN O. M. RICHARDSON, NOW RETIRED MANUFACTURER OF ROCKVILLE, CONN. THREE GIRLS IN CENTRAL SCENE, LINA, ELVA AND JOSEPHINE NEWELL, DAUGHTERS OF MY SISTER JANETTE AT HER OLD WABBAQUASSETT HOME. 1890.
There were at that time at least ten firms in New England and York State who manufactured tinware, for which they loaned carts and gave credit to lively chaps who had teams. The peddler would go on the road and trade the tinware for barter, old iron, copper, brass, lead, zinc and all kinds of paper stock, besides cow hides and sheep pelts or anything of which he knew the value, and ship it in to pay his account. It was a lucrative business for a clever boy, often clearing $100.00 per week besides his expenses. Also it gave him a chance to study human nature, as a good peddler must be able to read his customer before he says the wrong thing, for a frolicsome Irish woman appreciates a tone and language with perhaps a friendly slap on the shoulder, which would frighten an elderly, sedate, bloodless maiden into spasms.