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 knowl