Page images
PDF
EPUB

chisel.' The Messrs. Panckus, père et fils, who carry on the out-door operations of our place, were detailed to various minor duties here and there.

Ann had this day a source of grave disquiet. So soon as the doors were painted, she had promulged a decree that no one should touch them, to open or shut, otherwise than by the handles. This very reasonable edict had been disregarded, and finger-marks were plainly visible in the fresh paint. Therefore she had summoned one of our artists, had the damage repaired, and uttered her fiat with renewed energy. In vain, however; for this morning it was discovered that some one- and she fixed on me a glance that went through me like a gimlet — had pushed that door instead of opening it by the knob.

'Now,' said she, 'I shall get the brush, and paint that place over, and the first person that mars it, shall die without benefit of clergy.'

'Arn't you rather severe?' I asked. 'I should think a hundred lashes on the bare back might suffice for the first offence.'

'No,' she persisted; 'just as soon as the sting of the blows was over they'd forget, and do it again; but if they're dead they can't.' From which you may infer that sister Ann was 'rather of' a martinet.

Eight people at work will make things move. Our progress this day was very satisfactory. In the distant future we seemed to behold a time when things might be settled once more. A day or two would complete the outside of the house, and then the painters would come in-doors; after a while papering would be done, and we could finish up.

But one morning Ann said to me, 'Come here,' and going to the window I beheld a ladder against the carriage-house, and a painter mounted thereupon. This we thought was bad enough, but when our palatial wood-house, thirtythree feet by sixty-six, was begun, we felt really aggrieved.

‘John,' said I in a tone of injured feeling, 'when will they get at the inside of this house?'

'The very first day that it rains,' he responded cheerfully.

Must use all

the fine weather to paint out-doors.' There was nothing for it but to follow Mr. Longfellow's advice, and 'learn to labor and to wait.'

And at last the painters did get in. Ann and I contemplated with something like repining the magic improvements that they wrought.

'Oh!' exclaimed she, 'if we could just be renovated like that! Every wrinkle in our faces filled with putty; and then, by a few skilful strokes of the brush, all made over as good as new!'

'Alas!' I responded with eloquent pathos, 'there is no zinc-enamel for the restoration of youth! The man that patents that invention will do better than Elias Howe with the sewing-machine, or the catholic Spaulding with his glue. Yet, bethink thee, sister, of the good deacon's remark, 'The humbliest Christians are always the happiest '— surely 't is fraught with consolation to both of us.'

'Nonsense!' said she, 'you know he meant the humblest,' and so set at work with renewed energy.

[blocks in formation]

Time went on; the painters left, and we began to paper.

Oh! the trouble

it gave us! In the first place, we went five miles away to get it, and afterward discovered that we could have bought at home what suited us a great deal better. Then our ideas grew from day to day; while we were about it, such a room had better be done; and another and another were added. Then we could find no bordering to correspond with the colors of our carpets. Again, a room once papered lasts a long time; it is really not worth while to study economy in doing it; it is better to suit yourself entirely, without reference to cost. These considerations led to many changes in our selection; changes not decided on at once, but the result of deliberations held at intervals. John journeyed so frequently between our house and the 'Depo,' that his tolls would have been a comfortable provision for a small family. At about the fortieth trip his patience gave out, and he 'agreed' that he would not go again; no, not if every wall were half-bare, and every border went but 'part-way' round the room.

The climax of our grievances was reached when an inexperienced hand put on our prettiest paper, and by dint of mis-matching completely ruined the effect.

My spirits went down to zero; I don't know but I should have cried outright, but for the pleasing excitement of a visit from a peddler.

[ocr errors]

This gentleman's name is unknown to me, though his features are familiar. He has travelled our road for some years; in winter he carries a valuable assortment of tin and glass-ware, which he exchanges (at somewhat usurious profit) for rags-cotton, linen, silk, or woolen - hens' feathers, old copper, or Britannia-metal. In the spring he journeys with a supply of fish, cocoa-nuts, oranges, lemons, and other dainties, which are supposed to appeal most powerfully to the rustic appetite. His custom is confined entirely to the rural districts; villages and their inhabitants he ignores. He is a tall, stout man, of very fluent though slightly nasal speech; wears a long, drab surtout, and carries a wooden-handled whip, which he occasionally flourishes to illustrate or enforce his arguments.

'He's got ciscos,' said Mrs. Wells; 'had n't we better have some?' · I do n't know; are they good?'

'Oh! excellent, mum!' interposed the peddler. They'll keep from now till haying as sweet as a nut. The most satisfactory thing you can set before your hired men in haying; they 'll relish them wonderful.'

เเ

"Haying' is rather far off,' said Ann to me. 'I don't know that it is worth while to make provision for it yet. And as we do n't board our 'hired men,' perhaps we had better buy with reference to what we want ourselves.'

'They're already dressed,' continued our friend; in fact, you could cook 'em at once if you liked, but perhaps they'd be a little saltish. Best way is to soak 'em over-night, just as you would a mackeril. Roll 'em in flour, and fry 'em in butter, to a nice brown they're capital. You won't want no pork nor corned-beef so long as they last. Suppose, mum,' said he in a persuasive tone to Mrs. Wells, instinctively recognizing in that lady a chief of department, 'that you just step out to the wagon, and look at 'em.'

Mrs. Wells is partial to fish, and she was tempted; we adjourned, en masse, to the side of his conveyance, Bridget bringing up the rear with a pail for the reception of the delicacy.

I recal vividly this my introduction to that glory of the culinary realm, the cisco. We were rather taken aback at its diminutive size, the specimens averaging perhaps six inches in length; but, as Mrs. Wells remarked, it did n't make as much difference since they were already dressed. The peddler mounted into his cart a fine rain was falling-we stood expectant round. "How many will you have?' he asked.

[ocr errors]

"They 're fifty cents a hundred,' said Mrs. Wells to me in a low voice. 'That's cheap, should n't you think?'

'Oh! very,' I answered without the remotest notion whether it were or not, except that to get a hundred any things at that rate seemed reasonable. 'Well, I guess I'll take a hundred,' she said.

'A hundred? Oh! a hundred's nothing to what you'll want. You'll eat them up in no time, and when they're gone, and I'm gone, and you can't get at them, you'll be sorry you did n't have more. It an't no object to me, I can sell 'em any where: all the farmers' wives along this road know how good they be; but for your own sakes, I want you to have 'em. Always want my customers to be suited.'

After a good deal of conversation, two hundred were agreed upon, and our friend counted them out very expeditiously, lauding their merits all the while. This is perhaps as good a time as any to pay my tribute to the cisco. I am not aware whether fresh or salt water has the honor of giving it birth; its origin, its orthography, its habits, are all unknown to me; but of its flavor and consistence I can speak authoritatively. Given a corresponding quantity of brown paper, saturated with salt, and fried in a similar manner, and you have the cisco; except that brown paper could not be made to contain the infinity of needle-like bones, which the fish offers to the palate of the epicure. 'You'll take pork, of course,' said Mrs. Wells.

'Yes, mum; ten cents a pound.'

'Only ten cents?' in a tone of mingled amazement and incredulity.

'All I can sell it for again, mum; and these fish are so cheap. You see, you'd have to pay six shillings a hundred for 'em at your grocer's.

Mrs. Wells argued her cause at some length, but the man was firm, and ten cents it had to be. She went to the house for the pork, and we proceeded to the stoop there to await her movements, and consult what further purchases should be made.

'I thought when I first see you,' remarked our friend to me as we went along, 'that you was Miss Stanly, the preacher's wife down to Chemung.' How does 'Mrs. Stanly, the preacher's wife down to Chemung,' look, I wonder? Can any one enlighten me?

Now let us decide what we shall get,' said Ann.

'I have cocoa-nuts, figs, oranges, lemons, war-nuts, peanuts, raw and roasted

Now if I have a weakness on earth, it is for roasted peanuts; for them and

[ocr errors]

for onions. I know all the vulgarity, the awfulness of such a taste; I don't state it defiantly, but contritely. It is very seldom that I indulge in either 'beverage-vide Mrs. Bidott - but among the most humiliating recollections of my life is that of going to a circus, and eating peanuts during the performances. When he mentioned this dainty, temptation overcame me anew, and I asked: 'How do you sell them?'

'Five shillings a peck; and that's three shillings cheaper than you could get them of the dealers.'

'Could you sell half-a-peck?'

'At that rate? Well, I don't know; well, yes I will: but I had n't ought to. No, I won't,' he added on reflection. 'It would n't be right; would n't

be fair to the dealers to undersell 'em so.'

Excellent man! how considerate he was!

'But,' said Ann rather curtly, for she was not of a nature to appreciate such self-sacrificing uprightness, if we paid you the same price that they ask?' Oh! under such circumstances there could be no objection, and being provided with a basket, he went out to his cart, and brought them in. No one accompanied him to see to the measurement; one so regardful of the dealers' interests was certain to respect our own.

Further consultation developed a desire for lemons and oranges, on our part. Oranges cut up in sugar are excellent for tea, and if there is one thing that I can make better than another, it is a lemon-pie. Do not sneer at the words—there are pies and pies. Some people, I know, make them with tartaric acid and crackers, flavored with a little ' essence; ' 't is an economical receipt, and may be recommended without fear to the most frugal house-wives. Others slice the lemon, and sprinkle in flour; others, again, add a third crust to give it 'body.' My way is none of these, but a 'more excellent' one - I don't take any credit to myself—it is all my 'receipt;' which, in imitation of better-known philanthropists, I will forward to any applicant who sends me a post-paid envelope.

A large drum of figs was then added. 'My little boy,' I observed, 'will dispose of a few of these.'

'I should n't limit him in the least,' replied the generous peddler. 'Let him have just as many as he wants; they'll be excellent for him.'

Mrs. Wells was all this time in quest of pork; being an old lady, she was not very swift in her movements; indeed our friend facetiously remarked, that he 'guessed she was stopping to slaughter it;' adding, however, that he was in no hurry, and could wait. Going into the kitchen to hasten her a little, I found her just preparing to start, with a large 'chunk' of meat in her hand. 'That doesn't look nice,' I said. 'Why don't you take this other piece

that's on the table?'

"Sh!' she answered. 'I'll try him with this first, and if he won't take it, why then he can have the other. Here,' said she marching up to him, "I know how much I make it, but you can weigh it over again. I've brought out 'r own steel-yards, because I sold rags last winter to a peddler who had some hioned ones, and he cheated me two pounds with 'em.'

Ann and I looked at each other, well knowing that this was the very peddler, and shrewdly suspecting that Mrs. Wells knew it too. Their weighing was found to agree this time, but our purchaser objected to the quality of the meat.

'I can't give but eight cents for this,' he said, elevating his voice considerably, for Mrs. Wells was deaf. 'Good, sound, solid side-pork is what I pay ten cents for. This is I cannot state to ears polite from what locality he said it came, though he repeated the assurance without remorse. So Mrs. Wells produced her other piece, and accounts being carefully compared, he was found to be indebted to us in the sum of three cents, for which we agreed to receive a lemon as equivalent. That lemon, when he brought it, was a curiosity. It bore the same relation to the ordinary kind that pullets' eggs do to hens'. I wonder if there is any way of dwarfing lemons; the fruit, I mean, not the tree.

The peddler departed, and we were left to the discussion of our dainties. The oranges had a very large proportion of peel, but they were good, and we enjoyed them, as we did the lemons and peanuts. My little boy was entirely of the peddler's opinion, and declined to be ‘limited' in the quantity of figs, so that between hygienic scruples, and the troublesomeness of perpetually denying him, I was glad enough to see the bottom of the drum. The ciscos on examination were found not to be so thoroughly' dressed,' as could be desired; the majority of them retaining a very fair armor of scales. After a single trialmeal they were carefully packed away in brine, where they remain till this day. They will undoubtedly keep till 'haying,' and longer, if no one but ourselves disturbs them.

With what supreme contempt did John receive that evening the account of our barter and sale! If the family intended going into the huckster business, he remarked, they had better inform themselves a little of the market prices. The pork was worth a shilling a pound at any grocery, and we had paid considerably more than the current value of every article. However, he did not refuse to partake of the oranges, cut up in sugar, for tea, and accompanied by Bridget's lightest and tenderest biscuit.

I might lengthen to several pages the account of our remaining struggles, but forbear, lest the reader's patience should give out entirely. Suffice it to say, that a paperer was in time procured, who 'hung' the walls to our entire satisfaction. The border did indeed fall short in the parlors, and the paper in our spare bed-room; but John, considering that a bad promise is better broken than kept, made one last journey to the 'Depo,' and supplied the deficiency. Carpets in time were down, and fairly oppressed us with a sense of luxury after the long reign of bare floors. And there came a day when the last stairrod was in its place, and the last tack was driven.

'Now,' said Ann, 'we'll take the children, and go in the woods this very afternoon.'

Which we did.

« PreviousContinue »