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FACTS, HEARSAY AND MEMORIES - Page 16 A seasonable peddler was Joseph Artingstall who came along Tuesdays in winter with hot hulled corn in wash boilers. I never recall seeing my mother eat anything else between meals, but as soon as the hulled corn came she sat down with a bowl of it with milk and sugar. The store of Charlie Gifford at the Head had quite a line of Dry Goods. His well filled cart came Monday afternoons once a month. It was driven by Elmer Sisson. The red tablecloth which covered the big table afternoons was left off in preparation for his coming as he would bring in armsful of goods for display. He carried bedding, towels, table linen, underwear, stockings and all kinds of sewing supplies. Besides ginghams and calicoes he had one bolt carefully covered in paper of black silk warp Henerietta. This, in case you don'' know, was as the name indicates fine material for a black dress, one at least of which every woman must have. It was considered improper for anyone to go to a funeral in any other dress, and older people felt they must have a good one hung away to be buried in. I have heard Amy Wing, our dressmaker, say that you couldn't buy better Henerietta in New Bedford than at Charlie Gifford's. Then there were the itinerant Pack Peddlers. Some were considered untrustworthy and not allowed inside, but everyone, I think, trusted Abram Isaac. He was an elderly Jewish man, bent nearly double by carrying his huge pack, wrapped in bed ticking, on his back. He had a waterproof covering too, for it and his basket which he carried as he trudged the country roads. He carried many of the same goods as Elmer Sisson, but of cheaper quality. The black dress goods was missing from his pile. In place he had a pound calico. Much of it was hideous in color and design. My great aunt Olive, whom I have spoken of as deaf, was a very good customer of his, and thought I should be beginning to engage in the useful occupation of making patchwork. She bought several pounds as a beginning for me. She even cut and basted quite a few squares and these I laboriously finished. I was never ambitious enough to prepare more for sewing, and Mabel and I appropriated the few really pretty pieces for doll clothes. Mabel was designer and cutter placing the doll on the cloth and cutting two squares for front and back, then cutting off diagonal pieces for shoulders. There was the waist ready, and the skirt was a straight one to be gathered. It was ready for me to take over, and to escape the time spent for hemming a piece with a selvage edge was selected. I have digressed from Abram Isaac. He was a very devout Jew, and always returned to Fall River Friday night. It he hadn't finished his route in our section, he would sometimes leave his heavy pack and basket until the next week. Mother used to make tea for him to soften the hard unpalatable looking biscuits which he carried. There was Billy the Barber with his sharp shears and his bottle of wonderful smelling bay rum. I, who only employed him to cut my bangs, was favored with a few drops. Then too, scissors' grinders made their rounds. There were none of these for whom there was any personal friendship as for Abram Isaac. A tin cart made its rounds and a new broom for spring house cleaning, a dust pan, stove pipe cover holes in summer could be bought. Ours had a picture of General Sheridan in the center. Then, too, a new coal hood, shovel or square of oilcloth, the predecessor of linoleum, could be purchased to put under the air tight stove. If any of these peddlers came while I was at school I felt much chagrined to have lost the chance to see their goods and to try and impress my mother with out desperate need of some article which took my fancy. In the spring the ladder man's two horse drawn vehicle came along bringing ladders, step ladders, porch settees and rockers, and alter the wonderful lawn swing. I presume the porch settee which we had was purchased of the ladder man. My oldest sister said she could not remember when we didn't have it. If everybody had been as careful as we the ladder man would have had little business in that article. My father announced to me, as I presume he had to each older child, that it was to sit on and never to stand on. I do not think it ever occurred to me to stand on it any more than it would have to stand on the dining table. This care probably accounted for the fact that after eighty years of use it was in perfect condition. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
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