When he had passed through a settlement once, he had a complete knowledge of all its circumstances, history, and inhabitants; and, the next year, if he met a child in the road, he could tell you whom it most resembled, and to what family it belonged. He recollected all who were sick on his last visit--what peculiar difficulties each was laboring under--and was always glad to hear of their convalescence. He gathered medicinal herbs along the road, and generously presented them to the housewives where he halted, and he understood perfectly the special properties of each. He possessed a great store of good advice, suited to every occasion, and distributed it with the disinterested benevolence of a philanthropist. He knew precisely what articles of merchandise were adapted to the taste of each customer; and the comprehensive "rule of three" would not have enabled him to calculate more nicely the exact amount of "talk" necessary to convince them of the same.
His address was extremely insinuating, for he always endeavored to say the most agreeable things, and no man could judge more accurately what would best please the person addressed. He might be vain enough, but his egotism was never obtruded upon others. He might secretly felicitate himself upon a successful trade, but he never boasted of it. He seemed to be far more interested in the affairs of others than in his own. He had sympathy for the afflictions of his customers, counsel for their difficulties, triumph in their success.
Before the introduction of mails, he was the universal news-carrier, and could tell all about the movements of the whole world. He could gossip over his wares with his female customers, till he beguiled them into 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.