After allowing me a sufficient time to inspect the puppets , he advanced with a bow and drew my attention to some books in a corner of the wagon . These he forthwith began to extol with an amazing volubility of well-sounding words and an ingenuity of praise that won him my heart as being myself one of the most merciful of critics . Indeed , his stock required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman . There were several ancient friends of mine -- the novels of those happy days when my affections wavered between the Scottish Chiefs and Thomas Thumb -- besides a few of later date whose merits had not been acknowledged by the public . I was glad to find that dear little venerable volume the New England Primer , looking as antique as ever , though in its thousandth new edition ; a bundle of superannuated gilt picture-books made such a child of me that , partly for the glittering covers and partly for the fairy-tales within , I bought the whole , and an assortment of ballads and popular theatrical songs drew largely on my purse . To balance these expenditures , I meddled neither with sermons nor science nor morality , though volumes of each were there , nor with a Life of Franklin in the coarsest of paper , but so showily bound that it was emblematical of the doctor himself in the court-dress which he refused to wear at Paris , nor with Webster 's spelling-book , nor some of Byron 's minor poems , nor half a dozen little Testaments at twenty-five cents each . Thus far the collection might have been swept from some great bookstore or picked up at an evening auction-room , but there was one small blue-covered pamphlet which the pedler handed me with so peculiar an air that I purchased it immediately at his own price ; and then for the first time the thought struck me that I had spoken face to face with the veritable author of a printed book . The literary-man now evinced a great kindness for me , and I ventured to inquire which way he was travelling . `` Oh , '' said he , `` I keep company with this old gentlemen here , and we are moving now toward the camp-meeting at Stamford . '' He then explained to me that for the present season he had rented a corner of the wagon as a book-store , which , as he wittily observed , was a true circulating library , since there were few parts of the country where it had not gone its rounds . I approved of the plan exceedingly , and began to sum up within my mind the many uncommon felicities in the life of a book-pedler , especially when his character resembled that of the individual before me . At a high rate was to be reckoned the daily and hourly enjoyment of such interviews as the present , in which he seized upon the admiration of a passing stranger and made him aware that a man of literary taste , and even of literary achievement , was travelling the country in a showman 's wagon . A more valuable yet not infrequent triumph might be won in his conversations with some elderly clergyman long vegetating in a rocky , woody , watery back-settlement of New England , who as he recruited his library from the pedler 's stock of sermons would exhort him to seek a college education and become the first scholar in his class . Sweeter and prouder yet would be his sensations when , talking poetry while he sold spelling-books , he should charm the mind , and haply touch the heart , of a fair country schoolmistress , herself an unhonored poetess , a wearer of blue stockings which none but himself took pains to look at . But the scene of his completest glory would be when the wagon had halted for the night and his stock of books was transferred to some crowded bar-room . Then would he recommend to the multifarious company , whether traveller from the city , or teamster from the hills , or neighboring squire , or the landlord himself , or his loutish hostler , works suited to each particular taste and capacity , proving , all the while , by acute criticism and profound remark , that the lore in his books was even exceeded by that in his brain . Thus happily would he traverse the land , sometimes a herald before the march of Mind , sometimes walking arm in arm with awful Literature , and reaping everywhere a harvest of real and sensible popularity which the secluded bookworms by whose toil he lived could never hope for . `` If ever I meddle with literature , '' thought I , fixing myself in adamantine resolution , `` it shall be as a travelling bookseller . '' Though it was still mid-afternoon , the air had now grown dark about us , and a few drops of rain came down upon the roof of our vehicle , pattering like the feet of birds that had flown thither to rest . A sound of pleasant voices made us listen , and there soon appeared halfway up the ladder the pretty person of a young damsel whose rosy face was so cheerful that even amid the gloomy light it seemed as if the sunbeams were peeping under her bonnet .
We next saw the dark and handsome features XXXXX a young man who , with easier gallantry than might have been expected in the heart of Yankee-land , was assisting her into the wagon .
Though amid between from in like of that up while