Part 2

But do not make too aggressively prominent the money part of the transaction. Be courteous and careful even to extremes in addressing your country people for purposes of china purchase. Never ask them to sell their china—_sell_ is a most offensive and brutal word—ask them if they are “willing to part with it.” Never hint, by word or deed, that you fancy they really need the money. Never disparage the desired articles, the shrewd country wives would see through your pretence at once—“Why, if it be so commonplace, do you wish it?” A base and deceitful, though clever, china hunter of my acquaintance declares that she has found it invariably to her advantage to say that the coveted article matched exactly, either in shape or decoration, something which she had at home. The staid country mind, liking to see things in “sets,” always appeared to be most immoderately and unaccountably influenced to sell by this disingenuous assertion.

We have many times during the past five years crossed the trail of a collector who appears to have wholly depleted of china the old farm-houses of the Connecticut Valley. We have found, through comparing the accounts of his visits, that he has a little slyness too. He always desires to purchase his particular bit of china simply to form a link in a chain. He either has a specimen of the entire succession of production of a factory except the very piece the farm-wife has, or he has a perfect list of historical plates except the very plate she owns, or he has a choice bit of every known color of lustre except her special pitcher. The satisfaction of supplying the long missing link, and the value that link will give to a history the purchaser is going to write of such china, seem to prove a powerful lever to effect the transfer to his catenulate collection.

The men are, as a rule, always willing to sell china—when did man ever reverence the vessels of his household gods? I always delight to ask a Yankee farmer, in field or road, whether he has any old crockery that he would be willing to part with. How he will skurry home “cross-lots,” over the ploughed fields, or through the rows of growing corn, eager to pull out and sell his wife’s pantry treasures! Not that he can sell them if “Mother” isn’t willing—in her realm she reigns supreme. Even in the midst of my sore disappointment I have thrilled with malicious satisfaction and delight to see the calm and authoritative way in which “Father” is turned out of the “butt’ry” when he tries to pull down from the shelf an old blue bowl or plate to sell. “Mother” has kept her cinnamon-sticks and nutmegs for her apple-pies in that “Blue Dragon” bowl for forty years, and she isn’t going to sell it now to please anyone. To hail the farmer in advance with china questions is not, therefore, so underhanded and despicable a proceeding as might be thought, nor so dangerous to the family peace; he really is a poor, uninfluential, unpowered vassal in kitchen and pantry, his advice is not asked, his word is not heeded, nor if he attempt to be at all bumptious will his presence be tolerated. I have found it to be an unvarying rule that the farmer is always willing and eager to sell his wife’s mother’s china, while the wife is always openly disparaging, and cares little for his mother’s china; and when once the source of inheritance is discovered, the rule of action and plan of attack are plainly defined.

It may be argued that it is neither very courteous nor very kind to walk into a stranger’s house and ask him to sell you his household goods and chattels. To such argument may be offered the reply that one can hardly judge a farm home by the same rule as one does a city home. The visit of a stranger is regarded with widely different eyes; it is a pleasure, a treat, to most farm-wives to receive such a visit, and the farmer will come plodding home from the distant fields, in order not to lose the chat with the stranger and the pleasant diversion. Who would attempt to enter and to lodge over night in a stranger’s house in the city? A police-station or a lunatic asylum would probably quickly shelter your intruding head. There is hardly a farm-house where such a suggestion would be unwelcome or resented, provided you look not like a bandit or horse-thief. Then, too, farmers and even farm-wives do not generally regard their old furniture and furnishings with quite the same feeling that we do ours. The old blue Staffordshire ware they consider almost worthless, and are often glad to sell it for ready cash; but their lilac-sprigged china, a wedding gift or a purchase with their few hard-earned dollars, they often value and cherish as we do Sèvres. A farmer handles very little money—his wife still less, and ofttimes the money paid by china hunters is a godsend in country homes. Much good is done, much comfort conferred by exchanging money for crockery. Carpers say: “But you do not pay city prices.” Sometimes, alas, we do, fired by our china mania, “the insane root that takes the reason prisoner,” though we never should. The farmer does not pay city rents, he has not the risk and expense of transfer to the city, he pays no salesman. If he could sell all his farm products as easily, profitably, and safely as he sells his china, lucky would he be. Sometimes the discovery that the “old blue pie-plates” are of any value is a delight and a surprise to him, but he sees at once that when they are worth so much he cannot afford to keep them. Hence he is far from being offended at the easy means of sale offered to him.

One piece of advice I give to china hunters—advice, the wisdom and advantage of which I have learned at the cost of much unpleasant and disappointing experience. Do not hurry prospective china sellers: bustling city ways annoy them, fluster them, and worry them, and in sheer bewilderment they say “No” to get rid of you. Be tentative and gentle in your approach. Do not—as we did—rush in upon a deaf and timid old lady and frighten her, by the bouncing and bustling inquiries we made, into vehement denials of china-possession and simultaneous refusals to sell anything. This dear old “Aunt Dolly” lived in the sole new house in a village of old colonial dwellings, and we rather contemptuously thought to pass by the brand-new French roofed intruder, but decided “just to ask”—and “just to ask” and receive a frightened negative answer was all we did do, and we left with self-important assurance, to hunt elsewhere. A tin-peddler (a “china runner” perhaps in disguise), with quieter voice and more truly well-bred manners, carried off her rare treasures about a week later—a canopy-topped mirror with Washington and Franklin mirror-knobs, a “Boston State-House” pitcher, four “Valentine” plates having Wilkie’s design, half a dozen Staffordshire plates with the “cottage” pattern, and two Wedgwood teapots; and Aunt Dolly took as payment two shining new tin milk-pans and a cheap wringing-machine that wouldn’t wring. We knew her well in after years when it was too late, and she confessed to us that at our first meeting we talked so fast, and talked together, and “hollered so she couldn’t hear,” and that she did not understand what we meant or what we wanted, and said “No” to obtain peace.

And oh! what an enviable advantage the ubiquitous tin-peddler, that “licensed vagrom,” has over every convention-trammelled china hunter! What a delight, what a dream it would be to go a-china hunting with a tin-peddler’s cart; what lonely out-of-the-way roads and by-lanes I would take, careless where I went, since wherever I wandered I should be welcome. How I would sit on my lofty seat and view the lovely country o’er, in the “sessions of sweet, silent thought,” with my strong and willing and safe horse to pull me up hill and down dale; with my stock of shining tin-ware, my brooms and notions and gaily painted pails, all ready for advantageous exchange; with my big, red, roomy wagon, in whose mysterious cavernous interior I could store in safety unwieldy china treasures, such as tureens and bowls and pitchers; with my air of ready assurance, of intimate familiarity with the family, my jovial raillery, my opportunities of kitchen and pantry investigation, my anxious health inquiries and profound medical advice, backed up by bottles of patent medicines which I should sell at half-price to curry favor and china; or, better still, exchange, giving a bottle of liniment for a “Landing of Lafayette,” or a box of pills for a Pilgrim plate—oh! next to being a gipsy living under the greenwood tree, who would not be a Yankee tin-peddler a-china hunting? But perhaps the farm-wife might wish me to take in exchange for my wares, eggs, or butter, or rolls of wool—what should I do with a pail of butter in summer-time on a tin-peddler’s cart? Or, worse still, old rags—just fancy it—instead of old china! I should then answer her with an air of deep and sombre mystery: “Madam, I would gladly take your readily exchangeable merchandise an’ I could; the old rags are particularly desirable and attractive, but I have sworn a vow—I have a secret which I cannot now divulge—it must be crockery or naught, especially dark blue crockery with American designs, else I and my glittering and uncommonly cheap wares must pass wearily on, homeless, chinaless, a wanderer on the face of the earth.” Alack-a-day! such happy peaceful joys are forbidden to me, not because of lack of inclination or capacity, but—thrice bitter thought—because I am a woman. Tin-peddlering is not for me, it is not “woman’s sphere.” Perhaps when I am old, too old to clamber up and proudly sit on that exalted driver’s seat (though never too old to go china hunting), perhaps when women have crowded into every other profession, calling, and business in the land, some happy, bold feminine soul will taste the pleasures of “advanced life for women,” the pleasures forbidden to me, and dare to go tin-peddlering, though there will then be no old china left in the country to buy.

Though I have never been china hunting with a tin-peddler I have been on the trail with a Yankee china dealer, and his unique method of management was delightful. He worked upon the most secretive, the most furtive plan. He never would have shared with us his coverts nor taken us to his haunts, save for this reason: he had run down a noble prey, an entire set of fine old English ware, and to his dismay the owner refused to let him enter the house. Again and again had he essayed to come to some terms, even to see the china, but without success. He felt sure, however, that if any woman asked she would not plead in vain, hence his divulgement as a favor to us. We made several stops at farm-houses on the road to our goal, and his way of carrying on his business of china buying deserves to be told as a matter of interest and instruction to amateur china hunters, for he was a professional, a star. He never, by any chance, told the truth about himself, and above all never gave his correct name and place of residence, nor drove away from the house in the way he really intended to go. He represented himself as an adopted son, this seeming to be more mysterious than ordinary family conditions; never gave twice alike the name of his adopted father, but had a series of noble parents, the most prominent and influential men in the country around. The reasons he assigned for wishing to buy the china were so ingenious and so novel that we listened to him in delight and amazement, and with keen anticipation as to what he would next invent; the glamour of romance was added to the delightful madness of china hunting. He was at one farm-house a tender-hearted, indulgent husband, whose delicate invalid of a wife had expressed a wish for a set of old china and he was willing to spend days of search in order to satisfy her whim. It is needless to add that he was a bachelor. At another time his adopted father was losing his mind and would eat off nothing but old-fashioned china; hence he was hunting to find a set to carry dutifully home. Again he was fitting out a missionary-box for the Western wilds, and wanted to buy a little old-fashioned crockery to send out to the minister to remind him of his New England home. At the next door he assumed an air of solemnity and dignity and announced that he was founding a museum, and was forming a collection of old New England house-furnishings as a nucleus. At another place he swelled with paternal kindliness, and wanted to get a few plates to give to his three little children to show them the kind of crockery he used to eat from at his grandfather’s. Once he boldly announced that he was a china-manufacturer and was dissatisfied with the quality of his ware and wanted some old china to grind up and thus learn the correct ingredients. Then he was collecting china for the Columbian Exhibition. At another door his wife turned into an accomplished china-painter who wanted these plates for patterns. He curried warm favor and won much china at one house by stating that his mother’s china set had been badly broken by her daughter-in-law and he wished to replace the broken pieces. An aged couple who were living with their son and his wife were easy victims to this specious invention. He bargained for hay, for potatoes, for a whole farm; we seemed at one time in imminent danger of being forced to buy a cow and to depart leading her behind the wagon. Let me be just to this inventive soul; his dishonesty lay in words only. He paid good prices for all the china he bought, neither undervalued nor disparaged it; and showed a thoughtful kindliness toward the dwellers in every house he visited. After a prolonged stay within one shabby kitchen he appeared with two little copper-lustre saucers which he rather shamefacedly acknowledged having paid two dollars for. We extracted from him that he had found a bed-ridden old woman alone, shivering, thirsty; that he had built a fire for her, pumped water, and paid for her only pieces of old china double their value because he pitied her so.

We suggested at one house that he should say plainly that he was a dealer and wanted to buy the china to sell. He scorned our dull, commonplace suggestion, and said it wouldn’t be any fun, and that they wouldn’t let him within their doors. “Half the places I go to anyway they look out the window afore they answer me to see if I aint got a sewing-machine in the wagon, and if they don’t see any, then they think I must have a cyclopedy.” China hunting was to him the romance of his life, his tournament, his battle-field. He told us of several narrow escapes he had had from detection, and exposure of his fables. In addition to vending old china, he sold old junk and farming tools; and thrice farmers of whom he had bought china recognized him within his own doors. But with the active imagination of a Dumas, he had an instant explanation. He had either just gone into the business, or else they were mistaken: he had a twin brother who had been adopted, etc. He developed to us a plan of action which we were to pursue at the special farm-house that contained the set of china. He would stop at the foot of the hill and lurk out of sight while we climbed to the door. Then we were to represent ourselves as relatives of the Republican candidate for Governor, as it was within a week of election and the farmer was a Republican. We were to tell little anecdotes of the candidate’s private life, to hint that it was to please the Governor-elect that we wished this china, and that it would be used in the gubernatorial mansion in Boston. He told us exactly how we were to work up the conversation and lead up to the purchase, what to pay and what to offer at first. All was well and carefully arranged when a dire suspicion seized him that Farmer Rice was a Democrat after all. This depressed him much, and he decided to sound a neighbor on this important point ere we committed ourselves within doors. His conversation with the guileless neighbor held us spellbound, he represented himself as a political census taker and hinted darkly that we were to be the candidates for high offices on the Woman’s Rights ticket at the next election. He found that farmer Rice was a bitter Democrat. This was a sharp blow, for neither he nor we knew one thing about the private life of the Democratic candidate—not even where he lived, nor indeed on our part one thing about politics anyway. Nothing daunted, he searched a newspaper which he chanced to have, and invented an imaginary home for the Democratic Governor, which would doubtless have answered every purpose, with the strong points on Free Trade and Protection which he drilled into us. We very prosaically, however, preferred our old honest plan, and whether because of our suspicious appearance on foot at such a great distance from any village, or because we made an extremely inauspicious entrance, awakening a very deaf old lady from a very sound nap, we could not buy the china either, but we saw it, a whole chest full, and the sight was well worth the long journey.

Thus it maybe seen that china hunting, like many another hobby, is not a wholly ennobling pursuit. Strange and petty meannesses develop in you, envious longings, you have “an itching palm,” you learn to be secretive and dissembling, “to smile and smile and be a villain.” You learn to hide your trail, to refuse to give information to other sportsmen, to conceal the location of your hunting-grounds, to employ any wile to gain attention and entrance. Two worthy young men, without a fault, save an overweening and idolatrous love for old china, can attribute their fall from the paths of honesty and truthfulness to china hunting. Searching one day in a country town, one of these china hunters descended from the carriage and pounded the knocker of a fine but somewhat dilapidated country mansion. A pompous and repelling old gentleman of extreme deafness and reticence opened the door. What was the amazement and mortification of the waiting friend in the carriage to hear the bold intruder roar in his loudest and most persuasive voice, “I have come to see whether you have any old china, or know of anyone who has old china to sell,” and as the door was about to be slammed, he added, “My friend, the late Judge V——, of Worcester, told me that if anyone in the country knew of old china and relics it was you.”

The way that proud and shy old man rose to that transparent bait was wonderful to behold. He ushered in the young deceiver, with Chesterfieldian bows of welcome. The “late Judge V——” had been a man well known and honored throughout the county, though he knew so little and thought so little of china that he might have dined off pewter and never known it—but he was dead, and could never be brought up as a refuting witness, which was a great point. The lonely watcher in the carriage sat shamefacedly waiting, cringing at the thought of his companion’s wickedness. He listened to the loud roars into the deaf old ears as the twain walked from room to room while “glozed the tempter,” and the specious sounds were wafted out on the summer air; he thought of possible treasures within, he listened and wondered and yielded—such is the contamination of wicked example—walked into the house, and added to the lie tenfold. As a result of their duplicity, and since the flattered one was a widower with no woman to say nay, they captured and brought away four Millennium plates, two Wedgwood pickle leaves, a silver-lustre teapot, and a glorious great flip-mug. But “things ill-got had ever bad success;” as they lifted the large and knobby newspaper parcel from the carriage, it slipped from their contaminating grasp, and all the pieces were broken save the flip-mug, which, being specially protected, escaped. Though warned by this plain rebuke, they persevere; and so hardened are they now become in their base habits of deception, that they have worked that “late Judge V——” scheme, with some slight variations, in a score of country homes. They always tell that abominable falsehood whenever they have a man to deal with, not only adding deception to deceit, but showing a most despicable lack of originality—a “most damnable iteration.”

They cringingly allege their intention to change the name of the imaginary recommender as soon as any one of sufficient note and widespread fame in the county dies, and thus through his death becomes eligible to the position in the fable. I only wish the wraith of the late Judge V——, a man of portentous ugliness in real life, such abnormal ugliness that the thought of the sight of his dematerialized ghost is really appalling—I only wish his indignant wraith would appear before them at the lintel of the door, at the portal of some china-besieged house, and demand, in the loud roars which characterized him in his lifetime, the meaning of this unwarrantable and presumptuous use of his name.

In the meantime, unchecked and undiscovered, this simple and transparent scheme invariably works to a charm—how proud the man always is to learn that the late Judge V—— recommended him as a connoisseur of anything! he hastens to sell his china, if his wife be willing and have any to sell, and he manages to think of someone else who will probably sell, should he chance to have none himself. The flip-mug has been filled many a time to the old-time toast, “Success to Trade”—and yet the base china hunters are really honest fellows enough in every-day life. Alas! that greed for things so beautiful should so deform the soul!

Such duplicity is, however, rare. I tell of it only to express my abhorrence, my condemnation. Dissimulation is seldom necessary. You are sometimes falsely accused of it when your motives are as open as the light of day. After telling with exact truth precisely what I intended to do with some pieces of china, I was answered, with an angry toss of the head, “Why didn’t ye tell me first-off ye didn’t want me to know.”

We are sometimes, in our china hunts, brought into close contact with baser crimes than falsehood and duplicity. We have a number of daintily-shaped pieces of sprigged china, with a graceful ribbon border, which are known to us by the name of “Beach ware,” but which would be generally and more correctly called “cottage china.” These six-legged teapots and creamjugs of “Beach ware” received their descriptive and pretty title from the simple folk of whom they were bought, not from the name of their maker nor from their place of manufacture. “Beach ware” was found in crates or boxes along the beach on the shores of Barnegat Bay at the beginning of this century. It was part of the cargo of a great English ship laden with china, which was lured to destruction and robbed by a notorious family of Barnegat “wreckers,” one of whose members died not many years ago at the age of ninety years, having served in his youth a well-deserved term of twenty years’ imprisonment in State Prison, the sentence received at his trial for cruel robbery and murder through “wrecking.”