Responding to the already clamorous demand, the pedler, with a calm and composed front, said that if the gentlemen pleased, he would take the liberty to exhibit a specimen of flaxseed. He had paid a large price for it, and not having a great quantity, he would sell only a spoonful of it to an individual. In this way he could give them all a chance; but mark it, gentlemen, if you please, said he, “I sell only one spoonful to an individual; one spoonful—not a thimbleful more.”
“Price?” inquired a farmer, who thought much of choice seeds.
“One dollar, gentlemen, per spoonful,” said the pedler. “I know it’s high—but such flaxseed, gentlemen, you don’t see every day.”
“A dollar for a spoonful of flaxseed!” exclaimed a man—one of the old settlers, with a long pendent queue to his back—“I have been a long time in these parts, but I never heard such a price for a spoonful of flaxseed.”
“A fair price, I dare say,” said a man standing by, “a fair price, if it’s the genuine—the genuine—there, now, I can’t think of the kind—it’s the new sort. I’d give five dollars, if I couldn’t get a spoonful without. Only for seed, sir—for seed.”
“Pray, Mr. Pedler,” said another, “is this seed imported?”
“Why I rather think it was. I imported it.”
“From what country did it come?” asked another.
“Well, that’s more than I can say, whether from Flanders, or Ireland, or New Holland.”
But these names were enough; and as the last seemed to linger longest on some one’s mind, he immediately exclaimed, “New Holland! yes, I dare say—a grand country for flax,” and presently the multitude had improved upon these hints—in part facts, and in part surmises—and round it went, that there was flaxseed of a choice kind, just in from New Holland; and one man, who seemed to know something of geography, and whose logic was about equal to what he knew of the face of the earth, declared that as it had come some thousands of miles, it was, therefore, probably a very long or tall kind.