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.ToC

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—occupied a snug little house, with ever so many flowers in the door yard, and ever so many tufts of moss on its old shingles. He did not spend more than half his time at home. The rest was devoted to peddling. No wandering Arab ever moved oftener from place to place than Deacon Bissell. Still he had his orbit, and he traveled in it as regularly as the moon, and Jupiter, and our own planet, travel in their orbits. Every family he visited knew almost the exact day of his arrival. The deacon had a great deal of method in everything he did. He was one of the most punctual and precise men you ever met. An anecdote at this moment occurs to me, which goes to show what a value he placed upon punctuality.

Patty Bissell, his eldest daughter, was to ride over to Boston with the old gentleman. She had been wanting to go to the city for a long time, and she was delighted when her father invited her to go.

"Patty, how long will it take you to get ready?" asked the deacon.

"Half an hour," the girl replied.

"Well, say an hour," said the deacon. "But don't fail to be ready at the moment. I want you to learn to be punctual, my dear."

"Oh, I shall be ready in an hour, father, and in less time, too."

"Very well."

The hour passed. The deacon was in his wagon, ready to start. "Well, Patty," he shouted, so that his daughter could hear him in the room where she was busy putting herself in a trim for the city. She was not quite ready. I think she had forgotten where her gloves were, and was ransacking every drawer in her bureau for them. The deacon spoke again.

"In one minute," said Patty.

The deacon waited one minute more, a very long minute, according to his watch—and off he started for Boston.

Poor Patty! The disappointment was a sore one for her. But it taught her a lesson in punctuality which was worth more to her than a quarter's schooling at the Roundhill Academy.

Mr. Bissell, you will please to take notice, was a real deacon. In the country, it is a very common thing, I presume you are aware, for almost all the folks to have some handle or another fixed to their names; and very often the handle is put on, nobody knows how, or why, or when, or where. One man is known as a military officer, a captain, perhaps, or a general. But when you come to inquire into his history, you find that he never rose to a higher rank than that of a corporal in the militia, and possibly not quite so high as that. Another man is a squire. But how he came to be one, and, indeed, what is meant by the title in his case, are questions which would puzzle the wisest heads in the neighborhood. There are, also, in almost every part of the country, sundry men whom everybody calls uncle. Each one of them is everybody's uncle in general, and nobody's uncle in particular. Deacons, too, scores of them, may be found, who have no other claim to the title than this—that they are called so, by nearly all the men, women and children in the parish.

But Mr. Bissell, as I said before, was a real deacon. The title had been given to him by the little church in his native parish. And he was a good man, too. Some people make up their religion into a sort of a cloak, which they regard as too nice for every day use. They put it on and wear it every Sunday, and take it off every Monday morning, and keep it off until Saturday night. You never get a sight of their religion, when they are about their business. They wear long faces, to be sure. But a face as long as a broom handle is not worth much to Uncle Frank, as a sign of a man's piety. People may say what they will about religion—and in this country, especially, where everybody can think for himself, and very few get other folks to think for them, there must be a great many different notions as to what religion is—but people may say what they will about it, I think more of actions than I do of words. I don't care if a man's creed reaches as far as from the Battery to Grace Church. If he is not fair in his dealings, and a good neighbor, in every respect, I don't think much of his religion.

The piety of Deacon Bissell did not all fly off in words, as a glass of soda water flies off in foam. He was a good man on Saturdays and Mondays, as well as on Sundays, at home as well as at church, in his worldly business as well as out of it.

Deacon Bissell had a brother, who did a large business in Boston, and was supposed to be very rich. Rich people, however, sometimes get a little cramped in their business, and find it hard to get along. Deacon Bissell's brother happened, at one time, to need some thousands of dollars more than he had at command. He knew that the deacon had saved quite a snug sum from the profits of his small trading, and so