OTHER SIDE.

If I should stop here, in my sketch of the New England peddler, I am
not sure but I should give a false view of that class of people, and I
should be sorry to do that. I must throw some _lights_ into the
picture, in order to make it more perfect and truthful.

I have said before, that the peddler has been charged with a great
many sins which probably he never dreamed of, and certainly never
committed. But a great deal more than this is true of that large class
who make their living by selling merchandise from house to house.
There are hosts of men engaged in this business, who are strictly
honest and fair in all their dealings. They never cheat any one. They
have no disposition to cheat, any more than the merchant who sells his
goods in his own store. Besides, the business, though a great deal has
been done to make it _seem_ anything but respectable, is well enough,
in itself. There is nothing disgraceful about it. It is, or may be,
an honest calling; and it is one of Uncle Frank's doctrines that any
business that is lawful, and honest, and does nobody any harm, ought
to be considered respectable. Why not? Why ought not the boy, even,
who brushes my boots, if he knows as much, and his character is as
good, why ought he not to be respected as much as the one who sets the
types for my daily newspaper? I can't see why, and it would puzzle
anybody to see why, I guess.

I know of peddlers, good men and true, who would as soon part with
one of their fingers as to cheat any of their customers. They want to
make good bargains, when they sell anything. Of course they do. But
they want only that. They would not take advantage of a person's
ignorance of the price of an article, and sell him or her that article
for ten times as much as it is worth, just because they _can_ do it.

CHAP. IV.

DEACON BISSELL.

DEACON BISSELL--Deacon Abijah Bissell, was a peddler of this sort. I
should not wonder if some of my readers had heard of the deacon. He is
in heaven now, I doubt not. But his fame, which, while he was living,
had spread over quite a large section of country in the commonwealth
of Massachusetts, is not dead yet. I dare say scores and scores of
housewives are now on the stage, within a good deal less than a
hundred miles of Boston, who could show you milk pans still on duty in
their cheese room, which came from Deacon Bissell's wagon.

Deacon Abijah Bissell--_Buysell_ a great many people had it--oc