endless purchases, for he had heard of every death, marriage, and birth
within fifty miles. He recollected the precise piece of calico from
which Mrs. Jones bought her last new dress, and the identical bolt of
riband from which Mrs. Smith trimmed her "Sunday bonnet." He knew whose
children went to "meeting" in "store-shoes," whose daughter was
beginning to wear long dresses, and whose wife wore cotton hose. He
could ring the changes on the "latest fashions" as glibly as the
skilfulest _modiste_. He was a _connoisseur_ in colors, and learned in
their effects upon complexion. He could laugh the husband into
half-a-dozen shirts, flatter the wife into calico and gingham, and
praise the children till both parents joined in dressing them anew from
top to toe.

He always sold his goods "at a ruinous sacrifice," but he seemed to have
a depot of infinite extent and capacity, from which he annually drew new
supplies. He invariably left a neighborhood the loser by his visit, and
the close of each season found him inconsolable for his "losses." But
the next year he was sure to come back, risen, like the Phoenix, from his
own ashes, and ready to be ruined again--in the same way. He could never
resist the pleading look of a pretty woman, and if she "jewed" him
twenty per cent. (though his profits were only two hundred), the
tenderness of his heart compelled him to yield. What wonder is it, then,
if he was a prime favorite with all the women, or that his advent, to
the children, made a day of jubilee?

But the peddler, like every other human "institution," only had "his
day." The time soon came when he was forced to give way before the march
of newfangledness. The country grew densely populated, neighborhoods
became thicker, and the smoke of one man's chimney could be seen from
another's front-door. People's wants began to be permanent--they were no
longer content with transient or periodical supplies--they demanded
something more constant and regular. From this demand arose the little
neighborhood "stores," established for each settlement at a central and
convenient point--usually at "cross-roads," or next door to the
blacksmith's shop--and these it was which superseded the peddler's
trade.

We could wish to pause here, and, after describing the little depot,
"take an account of stock:" for no store, not even a sutler's, ever
presented a more amusing or characteristic assortment. But since these
modest establishments were gen