PUSH & PULL.
We have long been acquainted with a business firm whose praises have never
been sung. I doubt whether their names are ever mentioned on Exchange. They
seem to be doing more business and have more branch houses than the
Stewarts or Lippincotts. You see their names almost everywhere on the door.
It is the firm of Push & Pull. They generally have one of their partners'
names on outside of the door, and the other on the inside: "Push" on the
outside and "Pull" on the inside. I have found their business-houses in New
York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston, London and Edinburgh. It is under my
eye, whether I go to buy a hat, a shawl, or a paper of pins, or watch, or
ream of foolscap. They are in all kinds of business; and from the way they
branch out, and put up new stores, and multiply their signboards on the
outside and inside of doors, I conclude that the largest business firm on
earth to-day is Push & Pull.
When these gentlemen join the church, they make things go along vigorously.
The roof stops leaking; a new carpet blooms on the church floor; the fresco
is retouched; the high pulpit is lowered till it comes into the same
climate with the pew; strangers are courteously seated; the salary of the
minister is paid before he gets hopelessly in debt to butcher and baker;
and all is right, financially and spiritually, because Push & Pull have
connected themselves with the enterprise.
A new parsonage is to be built, but the movement does not get started.
Eight or ten men of slow circulation of blood and stagnant liver put their
hands on the undertaking, but it will not budge. The proposed improvement
is about to fail when Push comes up behind it and gives it a shove, and
Pull goes in front and lays into the traces; and, lo! the enterprise
advances, the goal is reached! And all the people who had talked about the
improvement, but done nothing toward it, invite the strangers who come to
town to go up and see "our" parsonage.
Push & Pull are wide-awake men. They never stand round with their hands in
their pockets, as though feeling for money that they cannot find. They have
made up their minds that there is a work for them to do; and without
wasting any time in reverie, they go to work and do it. They start a "life
insurance company." Push is the president, and Pull the secretary. Before
you know it, all the people are running in to have their lungs sounded, and
to tell how many times they have had the rheumatism; how old they are;
whether they ever had fits; and at what age their father and mother
expired; and putting all the family secrets on paper, and paying Push &
Pull two hundred dollars to read it. When this firm starts a clothing
house, they make a great stir in the city. They advertise in such strong
and emphatic way that the people are haunted with the matter, and dream
about it, and go round the block to avoid that store door, lest they be
persuaded in and induced to buy something they cannot afford. But some time
the man forgets himself, and finds he is in front of the new clothing
store, and, at the first gleaner of goods in the show window, is tempted to
enter. Push comes up behind him, and Pull comes up before him, and the man
is convinced of the shabbiness of his present appearance--that his hat
will not do, that his coat and vest and all the rest of his clothes, clean
down to his shoes, are unfit; and before one week is past, a boy runs up
the steps of this customer with a pasteboard box marked, "From the clothing
establishment of Push & Pull. C.O.D."
These men can do anything they set their hands to--publish a newspaper, lay
out a street, build a house, control a railroad, manage a church,
revolutionize a city. In fact, any two industrious, honorable, enterprising
men can accomplish wonders. One does the out-door work of the store, and
the other the indoor work. One leads, the other follows; but both working
in one direction, all obstacles are leveled before them.
I wish that more of our young men could graduate from the store of Push &
Pull. We have tens of thousands of young men doing nothing. There must be
work somewhere if they will only do it. They stand round, with soap locks
and scented pocket-handkerchiefs, tipping their hats to the ladies; while,
instead of waiting for business to come to them, they ought to go to work
and make a business. Here is the ladder of life. The most of those who
start at the top of the ladder spend their life in coming down, while those
who start at the bottom may go up. Those who are born with a gold spoon in
their mouth soon lose the spoon. The two school bullies that used to
flourish their silk pocket-handkerchiefs in my face, and with their
ivory-handled, four-bladed knives punch holes through my kite--one of them
is in the penitentiary, and the other ought to be.
Young man, the road of life is up hill, and our load heavy. Better take off
your kid gloves, and patent leathers, and white vest, and ask Push, with
his stout shoulder, and Pull, with his strong grip, to help you. Energy,
pluck, courage, obstinate determination are to be cultured. Eat strong
meat, drop pastries, stop reading sickly novelettes, pray at both ends of
the day and in the middle, look a man in the eye when you talk to him, and
if you want to be a giant keep your head out of the lap of indulgences that
would put a pair of shears through your locks.
If you cannot get the right kind of business partner, marry a good, honest
wife. Fine cheeks and handsome curls are very well, but let them be mere
incidentals. Let our young men select practical women; there are a few of
them left. With such a one you can get on with almost all heavy loads of
life. You will be Pull, and she Push; and if you do not get the house built
and the fortune established, send me word, and I will tear this article up
in such small pieces that no one will ever be able to find it.
Life is earnest work, and cannot be done with the tips of the fingers. We
want more crowbars and fewer gold toothpicks. The obstacles before you
cannot be looked out of countenance by a quizzing glass. Let sloth and
softliness go to the wall, but three cheers for Push & Pull, and all their
branch business houses!