THE COUNTRY ROAD 125 



me and deciding what I will have plucked out 

 for me to carry back to the house. 



Besides the routine visitors, there are 

 others peddlers with wonderful collections 

 of things to sell (whole clothing shops or furn 

 iture stores some of them bring with them), 

 peddlers with books, peddlers with silver, 

 peddlers with jewelry. In the course of a few 

 months one is offered everything from shoe 

 strings to stoves. There are men who want 

 to buy, too, buyers of old iron, of old rags, 

 of old rubber. &quot;Anny-ting, anny-ting vat 

 you vill sell me, madame, I vill buy it,&quot; said 

 one, with outspread hands. 



Cattle go by, great droves of them, being 

 driven along the Road and sold from farm to 

 farm until all are gone. I love the day that 

 brings them. A dust haze down the Road, 

 the mooing of cows and the baaing of calves, 

 the shouts of the drovers, the sound of many 

 hoofs, and the cattle are here. The farmer 

 and the &quot;hired man&quot; leave their work and 

 saunter out to the Road to &quot;look em over,&quot; 

 the children come running out to watch the 

 pretty creatures, sleek or tousled, soft-eyed or 

 wild-eyed, yearlings with bits of horns, stocky 



