icient to send weeping and death into every family in an empire.
So I must go back a few years in the history of our young friend, and
see where he was, what he was, and what sort of a bringing up he had,
before the time of his father's unfortunate failure.

CHAP. II.

PEDDLERS AND PEDDLING.

I have more than half a mind to give you a rough sketch of the _Yankee
Peddler_.

"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