For a short time Mose was apprenticed to a plumber, which "was really more a tinsmith. You fixed pots, stove pipes, kettles. But half a year after we got there, my plumber died and there was no one else to teach me. That was the end of my plumbing career."
Amy Godine continues, "That left peddling. As Ginsberg says, 'There was nothing else.' His first backpack, made of mattress ticking, carried 70 - odd pounds of soft goods - housecoats, woolens, tablecloths and lace. The front portion, a sort of satchel called a telescope, held additional 25 pounds of mostly dry goods - pins, buttons, apple corers and the like. Farmhouses were so isolated it could take the boy peddler half a day to trudge from one to the next, so he quickly learned to plot his route so as to take advantage of the friendlier households that let him stay the night. Inns, of course, were off limits to 'Hebrew' peddlers in those days, and anyway they cost too much. Far better to trade 50 cents worth of goods for a night's sleep and a farm-fresh breakfast in the cozy kitchen of some woodsy homestead - like the Coxes' farm in Keene, where the missus washed Mose's blistered feet in a basin of hot water with alum. Or the Wynn's home in Jay, where the weary boy could rest the weekend through, all meals included, for two dollars.
"Mostly, though, the first part of the weekend was spent back home in Buck Mountain with his family, or at nearby Franklin Falls with his Uncle's family, the Feinbergs. The Feinberg's house was a favorite meeting place for the Jewish peddlers of the North Country: Mr. Feinberg had five sons; add four more men, and you had a minyan and could have a legitimate hour or two of Friday prayer. Then come Sunday, it was time to hit the road.
"'Oh, I have many stories, but the stories are so sad,' says Ginsberg quietly, in half apology. 'I used to say to myself, if I could only be home.... I recall some very bitter days.' It wasn't just the dog bites or the shotgun blast that almost took his head off or the suspicious husbands who'd come home drunk and toss him out on his ear. It was the plain American strangeness of it all - a snake coiled in the middle of a country road that took Mose hours to get up the nerve to pass...the shadows dancing on the headstones in the moonlit graveyard that he thought must surely be ghosts.
"Only once did anyone ever offer him a lift. It's a tale he relates with relish. 'This fellow had what they call a traveling store in the back of his carriage. He offered me a ride from Placid to Keene, so I put my packs in and got up. Then we heard some noise behind us. A coach with six horses wanted to pass us. The driver called, "Give us the road!" My driver said to me, "There's a rough crowd. Why don't they say 'Please?'" So he made them follow us for three hours. Then a lady called out, "Please give us the road!" - and my driver said, "Sure!" And he pulled over, and let them pass. Then we saw that it was President Grover Cleveland and his wife! We made the president follow us for three hours!'
"Winter spelled relief: you couldn't peddle in the snow. Only logging sleighs could manage the rough roads. Everybody else stayed at home and hunkered in. Mose studied English with a neighbor woman, and drew up plans with his new brother-in-law for a store of his own.
