“To be sure,” replied Mrs Warner, “it will do well enough for young beginners. But I cannot say I feel quite free to buy a new coffee-pot at this time. I must consider about it.”
“And there’s the cullender,” said Orphy, “it has such a big crack at the bottom, that when I am smashing the squashes for dinner, not only the water, but the squashes themselves drip through. Better give it to Israel, and get a new one for ourselves. What’s this?” she continued, taking up a tin water-dipper.
“That is for dipping warter out of the bucket,” replied the tinman.
“Oh, yes,” cried Amy, “I’ve seen such a one at Rachel Johnson’s. What a clever thing it is, with a good long handle, so that there’s no danger of splashing the water on our clothes. Do buy it, mother. Thee knows that Israel can have the big calabash: I patched it myself, yesterday, where it was broken, and bound the edge with new tape, and it’s now as good as ever.”
“I don’t know,” said the farmer, “that we want anything but a new lantern; for ours had the socket burnt out long before these moonlight nights, and it’s dangerous work taking a candle into the stable.”
The tinman knowing that our plain old farmers, though extremely liberal of everything that is produced on their plantations, are, frequently, very tenacious of coin, and much averse to parting with actual money, recommended his wares more on account of their cheapness than their goodness; and, in fact, the price of most of the articles was two or three cents lower than they could be purchased for at the stores.
Old Micajah thought there was no actual necessity for anything except the lantern; but his daughters were so importunate for the coffee-pot, the cullender, and the water-dipper, that finally all three were purchased and paid for. The tinman in vain endeavoured to prevail on Mrs Warner to buy some patty-pans, which the girls looked at with longing eyes; and he reminded them how pretty the pumpkin pies would look at their next quilting, baked in scollop-edged tins. But this purchase was peremptorily refused by the good Quaker woman, alleging that scollop-edged pies were all pride and vanity, and that, if properly made, they were quite good enough baked in round plates.
The travelling merchant then produced divers boxes and phials of quack medicines, prepared at a celebrated manufactory of those articles, and duly sealed with the maker’s own seal, and inscribed with his name in his own handwriting. Amongst these, he said, “there were certain cures for every complaint in natur’—draps for the agur, the toothache, and the rhumatiz; salves for ringworms, corns, frostbitten heels, and sore eyes; and pills for consumption and fall fevers; beside that most valuable of all physic, Swain’s Wormifuge.”
The young people exclaimed with one accord against the purchase of any of the medicines; and business being over, the tinman was invited by the farmer to sit down and take his supper with the family—an invitation as freely accepted as given.
The twilight was now closing, but the full moon had risen, and afforded sufficient light for the supper table in the porch. The tinman took a seat, and before Mrs Warner had finished her usual invitation to strangers, of—“reach to, and help thyself; we are poor hands at inviting, but thee’s welcome to it, such as it is”—he had already cut himself a huge piece of the cold pork, and an enormous slice of bread. He next poured out a porringer of milk, to which he afterwards added one-third of the peach pie, and several platesful of rice pudding. He then said, “I suppose you haven’t got no cider about the house;” and Israel, at his father’s request, immediately brought up a pitcher of that liquor from the cellar.