_Dear Father_:
The tone of your last letter isn't altogether pleasing to me, nor does
it reflect credit on yourself. You hint that because I am patient under
this life of hardship and abuse, spent in trying to convince people that
what they know about Graham & Co's. stuff is all wrong--you hint, I say,
that I am a mule. If that is so, your knowledge of natural history ought
to show you that you are not patting yourself on the back to any great
extent; you are my father, you know. You remind me of what Johnny
Doolittle, who used to live next door to us, once said to his father
when the old man remonstrated at his lack of table manners.
"Johnny, you are a perfect pig!" shouted old Doolittle.
"Well, pa," replied Johnny, as innocent as could be, "ain't a pig a
hog's little boy?"
I mention Johnny merely to remind you that the sort of reviling I have
been getting of late out here in this God-forsaken country; on duty for
the house, has its recoil and you're the fellow who's getting hit. It's
worse than old Elder Hoover's famous gun that Uncle Ephraim used to tell
me about. According to him, there was a big rabbit hunt one day, and the
Elder was persuaded to join. Some of the backsliders had rigged up a gun
for his special use, loaded with a double charge of powder and shot and
rammed tighter than glue. At last Doc drew a bead on a big jack and let
go. When the roar had ceased and the smoke lifted, the Elder was seen on
his back, pawing the air with hands and feet and shouting for help.
"Did the gun kick, Elder?" asked one of the bad hunters.
"Kick," roared the good man, "it nearly kicked me into hell, for if I
hadn't been so stunned I'd have taken the name of the Lord in vain, as
sure as I'm a miserable sinner."
Now if you want me to kick, dear father, I can do a job that would make
a Missouri mule look like a grasshopper. I'm shod with good hard facts
which you know as much about as I do. If decency doesn't suit you, I'll
give you an exhibition of bag-punching that will make your head swim.
I now beg leave to report on the result of one of your pieces of advice
as to ways and means in selling. A little while back, you remember, you
said that I was pretty sure to run into a buyer who would bring me a
pail of lard which he would say was made by a competitor, and ask what I
thought of such stuff. Then, when I had condemned it by and large, you
allowed he would tell me it was our own lard and the store would have
the grand cachinnation on me. What I ought to say, you observed, was,
that I didn't think So-and-So could produce such good stuff. That would
clinch an order, sure enough--still according to you.
Well, I ran into the identical thing at Higginbotham Bros., in this
town. Just as I was nailing an order for 200 pails with Lige
Higginbotham, his brother Nat blew in with some lard that he said was
made by Skinner & Co., our big rivals, and asked me what I thought of
that for a bucket of slush.
I had presence of mind enough to remember what you had said, and I told
him that it was a blamed sight better lard than I thought Skinner & Co.
were capable of putting out. Then I waited for the laugh at Nat's
expense, but there wasn't any. It was very, very quiet, a stillness
relieved only by the working of Lige's jaws on his quid.
"Well," said he, after a pause that I knew was deadly, "if you, a
competitor, say it's good lard, why, gosh dang it, it _must_ be all
right. And seein' that Skinner's always treated us white, I guess I'll
telegraph that order for 200 pails instead of givin' it to you."
You see the lard _was_ Skinner's, as I saw a minute afterwards by the
cover on the pail. This little incident gives me serious doubts whether
you can safely regard all men as liars.
There happens to be quite a jolly crowd of drummers of various
persuasions at this hotel just at present, and last night we had a
little _seance_ in the smoking-room for mutual inspiration and
advancement. The talk naturally got rather shoppy at last, and the
fellows began bragging of the business they did. A drummer for
grindstones said that he thought he'd average up about six sales a day,
and a fellow in whiskey allowed that he would make at least ten. Then a
Hebrew, who travelled with neckties, declared that he could take in
about a dozen orders, and so it went. I modestly admitted that I was
handicapped, and that two sales per diem were about all I could attain
to under the circumstances. Of course that's more than I do make, but,
as you say, you've got to impress the world with the fact that you're
some pumpkins or you won't get assessed at even cucumbers.
They'd all got through their little yarns, except one thin-faced, quiet
chap who sat in a corner and didn't have much to say. Finally the Hebrew
pounced on him, thinking he'd have some fun at his expense.
"You hafn't told us vat you do, mein frent," he said to the quiet
fellow. "Eferypody must speak in this exberience meeting. How many sales
do you make?"
The man looked up with a sort of weary expression on his face and
replied:
"Well, if I make one sale a year, I think I'm doing pretty well."
"Von sale a year!" exclaimed the descendant of Aaron, with a pitying
smile. "Von sale a _year_! Vy, vot do you travel for?"
"Suspension bridges," replied the quiet man, and we all regarded our
cigar ashes in silence. After a while we suspended the Hebrew from the
association for not making good at the bar.
One of the crowd is a Boston fellow who is out selling encyclopedias. He
has the usual Hub classicism, aided and abetted by a desire to ask
conundrums. He hit everybody good and hard, and then landed on me.
"Why are you so different from Circe?" he asked.
Of course I gave it up. Does anybody ever guess conundrums they don't
know?
"Because Circe turned men into hogs, while you are trying to turn hogs
into men," he replied, and I started for bed then and there. Always on
the hog, always! When will it end?
This town is full and boiling over with drummers. I never saw so many in
one day in my life. There is more shop talk going on here to-night than
occurs in a week in all the Siegel-Cooper stores. I verily believe that
there are ten men here to try and sell something, for every man there is
to buy. Somehow or other the town has assumed the proportions of a
junction, or a drummers' fair. The townspeople, they say, are much
excited over it, and the village constable is at the town hall swearing
in two deputies. As Job Withers has made himself very conspicuous during
the day, I think the reason for the reign of terror is evident.
Job, by the way, had a bit of the conceit taken out of him at the depot
this evening. Several of us were down there to inquire about trains,
etc. As no train would stop for nearly an hour, none of the station
hands were about. Withers took the fact as a text and delivered a short,
but exceedingly ornate, sermon to the crossing flagman on the moribund
condition of the town. He fairly tore its reputation to shreds. Finally,
with one finger laying down the law in the palm of his other hand, Job
fired this at the defenceless old flagman:
"I tell you, sir, this town needs more life and energy. Something needs
to come along and shake things up."
Just then the Inter-state Express dashed by at sixty miles an hour, and
"something" came along. It was a heavy mail bag tossed from Uncle Sam's
car, and it took poor Job plumb in the centre of gravity. Over he went,
like an Arabian acrobat. When we picked him out of the ditch he looked
like what's left after a Kansas cyclone. But he was game.
"Boys, this time the laugh's on me," he cried. "The evening's artificial
irrigation will be charged to my house."
I hate to do it, but I must. When Job tries to cut me out of a trade
with his stories, I'll make him the hero of one of mine. Then I guess
I'll coax a little business by his fat sides.
Speaking of trains, reminds me of the laugh some of the boys had on Sol
Lichinstein the other day. He was to take the 3.30 out of Michigan City,
and about quarter of three his great bulk--he is very corpulent--was
seen dashing down the street at furious pace. A half hour later two or
three other drummers, who had proceeded leisurely to the station, found
him still out of breath. "What made you run so, Sol?" asked one of them.
"Hang it all!" he answered, "the clock in front of the jeweler's store
in the hotel block was wrong. It said 3.20."
"The clock on the post, Sol?" asked one of the party.
"Yes; confound it!"
"Well, Sol, that clock's said 3.20 every time I've been here for four
years. The hands are painted on."
When the story was told to a party of us, one man spoke up after the
laugh and said: "Well, it's not surprising. Lichinstein is always chock
full of business."
I met him to-day for the first time and found this statement is true. He
_is_ chock full of business--liquor business is his line.
Apropos of business, I may state that I think you must find some cause
to congratulate yourself on the gains I am making. As you say, new
methods _are_ better than old and I am beginning to believe I have
discovered a few of them. It has taken me some time, for it's hard to
teach an old dog new tricks and, although I'm not so old, still I'm
somewhat removed from the young pup you once called me. Still, an old
dog can learn new tricks--by himself. Old Gabe Short, of Harrod's Creek,
says the only reason you cannot teach an old dog new tricks is because
he has got on to the game and refuses to learn 'em, knowing that he will
be called up to perform for company. Old Gabe knows, for he has heaps of
opportunity for observation. He hasn't done any work for over thirty
years. The story goes that he was such a coward at the outbreak of the
Rebellion that he said, that rather than go to war he'd stay at home and
lick stamps. And he did it, too. After all the men went to war he got
the postmastership.
Gabe has a fat old water spaniel who is too lazy to do anything but eat
and chase fleas. The latter task is usually performed in half-hearted
fashion. One day--but I'll try to tell it as old Gabe does.
"One day an out-of-town dog was friendly with Neb and after he left
there seemed to be a heap o' worry on my dog's mind. He just couldn't
keep still. It was scratch here and nibble there. Fleas never seemed to
stir him up like that afore and I made up my mind that the strange cur
had imported a new brand of the critters. Finally the old fellow was so
bad that I gave him a dose of flea powder. Seems like it druv the
varmints all into his tail, fur he chased it fur hours, as he hadn't
done since he was a purp. I was busy and anyway I'd used all the powder
I had. He's so fat he couldn't catch that tail and it was funny an' a
bit pitiful, too, the way he went after it.
"Finally, just as he seemed driven to desperation, he stopped short. He
stood and looked around at that tail. Then he slowly backed up against
the counter till his tail laid alongside. Then he pushed hard and
grabbed. When he got through chewing that tail if there was a flea left
it was mincemeat."
I merely mention this in passing to illustrate that experience is a
pretty good teacher, and that it must be your own experience--no one's
else will do. Your counsels and rules of life are very enlightening and
all that, but they are really of little value compared with the hard
knocks of actual experience. You may explain to a boy till you're black
in the face that fire is a dangerous element to monkey with, but it
takes a few burnt fingers to instill real dread of a cannon-cracker. You
are giving me the experience and I have no doubt that it's the best
thing that could happen to me. But really, father, you may overdo it.
Your anxiety for my future may make my present unduly uncomfortable.
In this connection I am reminded of a story told by the pastor of
Tremont Temple in Boston, Dr. George C. Lorimer, in a lecture that I
attended. He didn't vouch for the truth of the story, but thought it
enforced a moral. "A nestful of linnets," he said, "were in a field in
India. Their mother had flown away and left them. They were cold and
hungry and flapped their wings and cried. An enormous elephant chanced
to note their plight. 'Poor little things,' said the elephant. 'No
mother, no one to keep you warm and nestle you. My mother's heart aches
for you. I will nestle you and keep you warm.' And the elephant, in pure
goodness of heart, sat down upon the nest of poor little linnets."
It may not be out of order to mention that you quite frequently sit
upon
Your loving son,
PIERREPONT.
P.S. Just a suggestion. A leading grocer here says, that if the labels
on our canned goods did not display the name "Graham" so prominently, he
thinks he could sell some of them.
LETTER No. XIII.
_A farmhouse, a farmer's daughter and bucolic pleasures and pastimes
give Pierrepont a respite from commercial activities, but not from the
study of pig._