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Mari Tomas i
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&nil, a season rolls by tbe Winooski valley wAhrut the homely
aiTsaranee of Peddler Jou,. in sleet, anew, rain, or scorching sun, few
have not heard her high,vitched„ nasal ohant. "You buy something today?"
she sings. "A s
1 of tread, maybe? Everybody need treed to home. Blank
tread for the memesuits, white tread for the ladies and babies. You buy
today, heir
bbs pass ploughin down the business street, her ruVoir-solied, canvas
shoes scuffng the slush. She las au ageless, brown, dumpy creature in
yards of ankle length, printed salioo„ and the pushed an antique wicker
baby oarriage that ems piled hiifi with sores. A rusty safety pin held to..
cether the collar of faded ooat sweater, the lower half coped over her soft
abdomen. A scarf, the brown of her skin, bound her heed to skull-emorth-
nese, and the powdery November anew that was felling progressed unhampered
froz- crown to faoe. The mow olung for a moment to the hairy upper lip and
the creases of her pudgy noetrilso and than subdued by skin -heat it eettlod
to s lotohes of shiny clot.
The carriage wheels creaked to a stop. he wiped her moist cheeks and
nose with groen mittened hands, and propelled the cool= palms for a little
time to the dark pull's that encircled her black eyes.
She bargaineds "You buy one spool of blank tread, one vitae, and one
blue. I make four cents profit and I talk to you all you went. You don't
lose nothing anyway everybody :,ot to need treed to home sometime. All
right?"
After she had unwound the scarf, shook it, and spread it over the
bulging carriage, we meat into the hallway of a nearby building and sat on
a
the stairs idiom Jamey could keep an eye an the oarriage through the glass
doers.
"That carriage I got for nothing. The owner throw it away; 1 pick it
up." Her flabby mouth smiled, her eyes stared straight ahead, black, cynical,
shrewd. A half dosen gaucy rings pressed into the fleet of her fat fingers.
On the back of her left LSM4 a blue cross les tattooed. She sat on the step
with her lege wide apart, each hand gripping a knee, and half buried in the
folds of calico. "I fled the carriage two years ago in the city dump. I
go near there that day to pick blsokberries. homebody don't vent it: I
put mv two pails of berries in it sod I wheel it home. After that I use
it all the time sumwer and 'inter. It is better than to carry the suit•
eases, they pull to area out o es. I go around from town to town to sell.
Limit the time the busman let me take the oarriage to ride with me, but
sr-metime I leave the oarriage with a friend•- I got friends in all the towns
and take only the suitcases. Lhsn I come back the next tIne the earriage
in waiting for ele.
"In the smeller it's nloe to travel ar-und to earn money, but in the
winters no. I get colc. tinter for old people is a4pod chair MC a hot
fire. Dut not for me. I got to work to keep alive. I learn a lot from
the thirty-five years I ped(le around here. I learn it is the poor people
that i;let the pee hearts. in the vdnter I go to the poor people a lot to
sell. If I go to the hose near dither or supper time they offer me sem-
thiez hot. '-offee, or tea, rr soup. It helps me to save qv own army,
and it warm up ivy trims.
:o mv emu peoples the Syriene here, I don't go
so mch. te see ,Aflerent. aley're hi :b cleat, I'm low class. They
don't sey so, but I feel they +ley so in their minds. in towns eown the other
end, .7,4 pretty good bunch of Syrians. They 6ot fruit stores or grocery
stores, most of then. They stay in one plage, them, and they build a
hriase and a family. ;bey don't le on the road like mfl. ;:bey ,Lot kids now
that are doctors, business nen, hairdressers. My kids, half of them 1
don't even know where they am, 4 husband, I don't know where be is
neither.
"I wasn't alloys with no money like I am now. Two years ago I have
$3000. All money I sera hard. One penny when I sell a spool of tread, two
cents when I sell yard of gestic. Mr husband vas never a healthy man.
Tall, skinny like a bean -pole, he never work', he mos at hems always just to
feed the kids and sleep. he let se work and earn the money. he never bother
with other gown, but, bah, just bemuse he is too lacy. mil he 6Ive ne in
thirtr.five years is kids and kids. After they are all cone, he Go, too.
Two years age he complains all the time that unless he 4o beak for a visit
to the old country he will di. Oot,hing all the tine. kit: isn't nuoh use to
hone with the kids grow' up and j,one„ so I give him $500, to Go and come
back. I give him the money tout I feel ail the tine that I won't see him
agein. It's true. Two years a -r in May he went away. Iskybe he's in Syria,
maybe he's just u few miles limey, meybe he's deed, I don't know."
She Shrugged off hr husband's memory, and yelled ol:t to two children
who vete linering beside her oarriage„ 'o rn, you kidst away. io
on homer
"lids lot* at no like Isa a may." Peddler Jenny said. "osoe of the
old people do, too. I don't care. Two fathers bask my family is Gypsies
In the old oountry, I 7,uess. My father, he sell on the road like I do. Ea
used to show as the 'p.y si rase lie leaves poiatin a certain way in the
path, or small branches, and little hills of sand like anthills with wo-d in
the top to point the way where the i:oople have !.,cliat. I drnet know them no
4,
more. It sees like audllion rare ago.
*I have an unole pedaer eto is killed outside the wells of Jerusalem
when I was a small kid. Be was a crooked peduler, ready to cheat all the
time. Over there each peddler zot a certain route to 5o„ *Wu one will
stick only to his own route. This uncle maybe be cheat on a routes I don't
know. Avow, they find bin otAside the mall of JerusaLma ems morning,* two
hundred miles froutmee. He was stuck to the ground, flat an the banks dead.
A long sharp .stone is stuck through his neck and into the ground. When they
find him, there is a mild doe on top of him lopping op the blood. soiebody
has steel all his peddling stuff, kettles, rope, cloth. knives. Be's
5ot rething, just his clothes. Lirty, old clothes. But he is such a °rooted,
bed man that they bury hisijust as he is in the old rags. Or father say,
'Geed for his toren if be is a brother, good for him. Be's °reeked.°
sily first boy is like that cheat uncle. Llood don't change. It co
from the first ones in the family all the may uown. If you zot a bad ono
in the family some day it will show. My first ot* start to steal and cheat
in school. They don't vent him there. Then he chops ice for the ice
company, but when he zo to *ell the ice be don't zive the noney to the
company, be keep it in his roket. Be is iut in a school JOr bau ones for
a year. When he come boxes he run elegy. I don't know where be is now.
MIAs deed, maybe alive; just tone Like his father.
*Leos* that first boy was tpern I know be was bad. I ache all the time.
In front, in baok, and in the head. I tolU his father, 'You gait. Ibis one
will be bad just like his cheat uncle. I feel it. I know it.'
"You're orasy,' he said to me.
*You wait an se,' I tell him. 'Look at my front, how it c -me out to
a point. Jost like adOwil earn. I seen Wait,' like that in the old country.
They're all boss bad. I know it.'
uhe said to mo. 'you're °rosy.' but he don't sant a bad role no more
than no, se together., wrsp no up ti lit in many yards at the cheapest
cloth I pedolo, so to push the point domn like this." Jenny demonstrated
by puehinc down hard on her soft abdomen. *It don't de no ..Aled. Ihat baby
is born ba. Es even cheat foe a born -day. he's born three vests before
he's got right to be, qulok in the night when it's snowing hard and blow,
g. Wo sot no time for the doctor. ley husband's sister is 000d for times
like that. Sere bap" a lot of babiail in the old country. Sho juet'put the
hot, not sloth on Er front all the time till the hoed and viten it's
all come shoe Just flor this baby up on my front and she sit and wait for the
rest.
"For r other OOVWD have the doctor. ws of them die as soon as
they're born. Soh, all that money to the doetor for nothing' It oucht to
5, the Immo halfsprise it the by don't live. or 4ve the nowt ens tree.
It I sell you rotten treed. I fl.ve you the mow haft nr you one spool
free, don't I? Why not the same if a baby is born dry?
"Atter that first bed baby the root cram easy. very time I go around
and peddle Er ;:oods till the day ripe. if it's born in the summer I opt
to work (riok and sorry the baby around wit,b no so I can nuroe it any time.
*Thorns kids are in kw ilsapshiree the other three I don't know. And
they don't know where I a I don't oar*. I got no steady home now. I
stay whatever I feel to stay. All Er lit. I peddle,. I don't mind to die on
tho 3ob. I got eneufh money for a °aria. like to fool I buy sr last house
with Er own money let somata else cive it to us liko I'm a beggar.
I'm poor, I peddle, but a begar„ no.
"I toll you or I have 42004 I give my husbanc 500 to Lo to the
old country, and that leave me 42600. Only two years ago. man I know
who I think ins honest and had a good business head ask me to lend it to his
ilk business. 14 make out papers with the lawyer. It says on the paper he
will pay )ood interest, so I hAve it to him. I don't see that mousy no
more. You thlyk I get back any? I don't see one cent again, No sir, he
lose it all, and I lose it all. oll the pennies I save) for over twenty yearst"
Peddler Jenny mad* low, mooninc sound, and rocked her head slowly in her
hands. ".ter over twenty roars I save all those pennies till they are
dollars. One penny on a spool triad, two cents or a yard of Ilastio, four
or tire cents on a yfIrd of cloth ;:sods„ two pen tea on a card of buttons.
Fannies, pennies, tyousands and ticusands of panLies Ao make MOO, and than
to lost it alit"
her mouth parted in a mirthless grin. "Now I'm back just like Ives
when I come to this country. KO husband, no kids, no seney. No nothing.
Just me and my peddling foods.
Tomorrow I go to Montpelier. I got streets there I don't go soar,
like here in this town. The rich houses I stay away from. They look at me
and my carriage like we are dirt. tilers ate 1 used to stay in this town
long*r than in other placers. 1 used to go to the houses up on the hill
where the quarries are. I make a little more money then. The women up
there always used to buy from c.o. Ihey don't cone down to town so much then,
and they were 0.ad to see a peddlor. They used to buy a lot. Now they rot
cars. They coma to town to buy. I don't blame them. If I have car I
wruld like to ride arrund the country all the time. It's better than to stay
7.
at home. lie, I don't like to be in four walls like a Jail. I got to be
out. I got to be on the read. That's why I like to peddle. I earn my
money on the road.
Jenny Gould not forgot the loss of her
and save pennies, and then to lose it all.
money. *All py life I save
Tau vent to hear something? Never
have I buy me a dress all made in the 'tore. No sir. About one dress a
year I have, and I make it myself from my own cloth ,,Ipods, and it cost me
not even a ?liar. I save and save for what? TO logrz it all. I milk the
street in rain, and snow, and I could have buy me a little oar with all
that money. If I think of it much I feel I will go crazy."
The street lights made faint areas in the early dusk. 5naw was still
falling. Larger, softer flakes that melted as they touohed the pavement.
°I got to go news° Peddler Jenny said. "I know a Spanish house where
maybe they will give me something hot. The women always buy 'cloth to make
hankerchief for her husband. He's a stonecutter and he wants the big,
big hankerehiefew She raised her bulk slowly, rubbing her haunches, and
standing there for a moment as if she vented to say more. Then with silent
shrug she pushed open the doors and wont out to her maw covered carriage.