| | 1 | Author: | Ingraham
J. H.
(Joseph Holt)
1809-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Herman de Ruyter  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | It was a few minutes past nine o'clock
three evenings previous to the sudden disappearance
of the beautiful `Cigar-Vender,'
whose adventurous life, up to that time, has
afforded us the subject of a former Tale, when
the keeper of a miserable book-stall situated
in a narrow thoroughfare leading from Pearl
into Chatham street, prepared to close his
stall for the night. His stall consisted of
some rude shelfs placed against the wall of a
low and wretched habitation, with a sunken
door on one side of the shelves by which he
had ingress from the side-walk into a dark
narrow apartment that served him as a dwelling-place.
There were shelves against the
street wall on both sides of his door, a board
placed in front of which, encroaching about
two feet upon the pavement formed a sort of
counter. It was supported at each end by
rough empty boxes, in the cavity of one of
which, upon a bundle of straw as it stood on end,
facing inward, lay a small, ugly shock-dog with
a black turn-up nose, and most fiery little gray
eyes. In the opposite box, vis-a-vis to the
little spiteful dog crouched a monstrous white
Tom cat, with great green eyes, and a visage
quite as savage as that of a panther. Thus
with the counter and the boxes supporting it,
the keeper was enclosed in a sort of ingeniously
constructed shop, which he had contrived
to cover by a strip of canvass, which
served as a shade from the sun as well as a
shelter from the storms. The contents of his
shelves presented to the passer-by a singular
assemblage of old books, pamphlets, songs,
pictures of pirates and buccaneers hung in
yellow-painted frames; two-penny portraits
of murderers and other distinguished characters
in this line, with ferocious full lengths of
General Jackson, and Col. Johnson killing
Tecumseh! Rolls of ballads, piles of sailor's
songs of the last war, last dying speeches and
lives of celebrated criminals, were strewn
upon the counter, to which was added a goodly
assortment of children's picture books and
toys. Cigars and even candy were displayed
to tempt the various tastes of the passers-by,
and even gay ribbons, something faded, exposed
in a pasteboard box were offered as a
net to catch the fancy of the females who
might glance that way. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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