The huckster wagon, which at one time linked American farms to the crossroads store, has passed into limbo along with the buggy, the buffalo robe, and the bustle. In its heyday, during the century preceding the early 1900's, it was indispensable. While it brought the goods of the general store to isolated farms, and was run for profit by the storekeeper, it was much more than that to the lonely housewife tucked away among the endless fields.
There may be a few tough survivors in the Tennessee hills, or in the Ozarks but most children today would not recognize a huckster wagon if they saw one. There are modern grocery stores on wheels, luxurious vehicles on rubber, stocked with every- thing the inner man can desire. But these effete equipages are not to be confused with the old-time horse-drawn wagon piloted by a rugged, versatile individual who was more than a peddler-he was an institution, a cog in the wheel that brought America from the pioneer's log cabin to greatness. The roads he traveled were either ankle deep in dust or they were knee deep in mud. Through heat and cold and storm he made his appointed rounds. He was resourceful and hardy, and he had hair on his chest.
Such a huckster was Matt Fichter of Fichter Bros. General Store. The Fichter store was, and still is, the hub of the little universe of Reily, a quiet village among the rolling hills of Butler County, Ohio. The Fichter Bros. at one time operated huckster routes six days a week and kept three teams, which they used on alternate days, in their stables.
Matt, the younger of the two Fichter brothers, was the huckster. On huckstering days he'd roll out of bed at three in the morning. The night before he stocked the shelves of his wagon and filled the special orders from the previous trip. The wagon jolted out of Reily before dawn and drove into the first farmhouse before the morning milk pails stopped rattling.
When Matt's wagon turned in at the end of the lane the housewife put on a clean apron, slicked up her hair, and went out to the barnyard to meet it; the children appeared out of nowhere, the dogs barked, and father tied his team to the fence at the end of the corn row and walked up to the house.
Matt knew what was expected of him. He was a talkative and gregarious man, and as he wrapped the reins around the whip and climbed down from his seat, he began a discourse on the state of crops on the other side of the county, the health of the neighbors up and down the line, the arrival of new babies, national and local politics, and what to do in case of sunstroke in the hayfield. He passed along the gossip he had collected along his route. He was in a hurry, for he had to cover a ten-mile circuit before dark, but he knew that if he didn't throw in a bonus of gossip his customers would be disappointed.
He weighed the week's butter, loaded the egg crates, and stuffed a half-dozen culled hens into the crate hung beneath the tail gate. He dived into the dark recess of the wagon and filled the grocery order, drew a gallon of kerosene from a tank beneath the seat, and made a memo of next week's wants. As a parting gesture he gave each of the kids a stick of candy, climbed into the seat, and clucked his ponies into a trot. The wagon disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.
Matt's morning passed with trading and talking from kitchen to kitchen. He made his noonday stop at a big elm tree beside a creek on a solitary stretch of dusty road. In the deep shade at the side of the road Matt ate the lunch prepared for him at home. He fed his horses, and watered them from a bucket filled at the creek. Then he readied his accounts and set out on the afternoon run.
His bookkeeping was important, for most of his customers paid their bills just twice a year-when the hogs were sold in the spring and when harvesting was over in the fall. The farmer and his hired hand were carried on credit. If a bad year came along, the accounts were carried for the next year. Most people paid as soon as they got the money. Sometimes a ne'er- do-well took his family and skipped the county, but these risks were expected. Honest folk could not be penalized.
The liberality of credit during the huckstering days of the Fichter Bros. is written through the pages of their heavy, leather-bound ledgers. Scarcely anyone was refused if he asked to be "put on the book for a spell." There was no high-pressure collecting. Back in 1929 Jim Wilkes had a bad year, like so many others. His bill mounted to several hundred dollars as one streak of hard luck followed another. Jim made a slow recovery, but Matt continued to stop at his place every week. Finally he was paying his bills regularly again, but nothing was ever said to him about his 1929 debt. Twenty years passed; the 1929 ledger had a thick coating of dust on it, and the paper was already yellowed. Then one day two years ago Jim walked into Fichter Bros. store and put down the money he owed. It was correct to the penny.
Matt Fichter was more than a huckster. He played cupid for a hired girl and a bachelor farmer for several years, and not only carried their love letters but helped compose them. When the wedding day came the groom rode to the bride's house in the huckster wagon.
Matt dosed out simple medicines for the sick, wrote letters for those who had never learned the art, cashed the checks of Civil War veterans, diagnosed the ailments of cows and horses, and settled line fence feuds; he found jobs for workers and workers for jobs. Some folks set butchering day for Matt's visit, because he knew how to sledge a hog between the eyes and when to take off the kettle of lard. He was an expert at seasoning sausage and mixing the sugar cure for hams and bacon.
It was surprising how many of the day-by-day wants Matt's light wagon held within its crowded interior: the staples-sugar, coffee, flour, spices, salt; drugs such as Castoria, Epsom salts, cough syrup, castor oil, camphor, liniment for man and beast; small items of hardware, nails, hinges, buckles, scythe blades, horse collars; dry beans, rice, corn meal, breakfast oats; overalls, candy, bolts of muslin and calico, clothespins, a bucket of salt mackerel, a jug of turpentine, machine oil, straw hats in season, oranges at Christmastime, plug tobacco, cheese.
There was a seasonal variety too. In the spring he loaded up heavy with onion sets, garden seeds, and seed potatoes; in the summer there were big grocery orders for the threshing rings and Mason jars with extra lids and rubbers; in the autumn there were husking pegs, double-thumbed gloves, and sausage seasoning. He was a keen merchandiser. If there was a shelf-worn item at the home store he carried it along on the wagon and moved it as a special; he usually added a sale or two in the luxury class—a hair ribbon for the little girl, a bag of marbles for the small boy, or a bottle of toilet water for the young lady. Father got his Sunday afternoon cigar from Matt, either a Pittsburgh stogic, three for a nickel, or even, when the hogs had been sold, an expensive five- cent panatela.
His books show that fifty years ago he paid 10 and 12 cents a dozen for eggs and 20 cents for an old rooster; fryers were 7 cents a pound; butter was 15. He sold a pound of sugar for 5 cents, salmon for 10 cents a can, and calico for 5 cents a yard. Bologna and salt mackerel were 10 cents a pound.
A great deal of the trade was barter. When the hens were laying well and the cows freshened, the housewife paid for the week's supplies with chickens, eggs, and butter, and had some change left over to drop into an old sugar bowl on the top shelf of the pie cupboard. Then the wagon usually carried more weight on its homeward trip than it carried out, for the huckster was the sole channel through which country produce moved from the farm to the city markets. Refrigeration being what it was fifty years ago and before, city people had only a vague notion what fresh country butter was actually like, and their eggs had often lost the bloom of youth.
The huckster wagon was a light-wheeled rig, either with roll-up canvas sides or with wood sides which supported shelving. It was usually drawn by two horses, light enough to make good speed. The so-called Western ponies were favorites, for they were tough and could trot along all day without tiring.
In the early days of auto trucks the progressive storekeeper sold his horses and bought a Reo or a Mack. This improved his speed and widened his territory, but the farmer no longer could set his clock by the huckster, for the engines in the early trucks were cranky and unreliable.
Fichter Bros. invested in a red Reo, which was known far and wide as "The Red Truck." The Red Truck was retired scarcely twenty years ago, when huckstering finally withered on the vine. About this time Fords, Maxwells, Essexes, and other passenger cars came within the reach of the farmer's pocketbook, roads were improved, and the huckster went into a swift decline. The whole family went to town on Saturday night to do the week's shopping and get an ice cream soda. The days of huckstering were numbered; the tempo of country life quickened, and horizons widened to the modern-day supermarket.
Appalachia's Peddler's were stores on wheels!
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