A BLUFF FRIEND
The almanac had announced spring; nature appeared quite unaware of the
fact, but, so far as we were concerned, the almanac was right. Spring
was the era of hope, of change, and hope was growing in our hearts like
"Jack's bean," in spite of lowering wintry skies. We were as eager as
robins, sojourning in the south, to take our flight northward.
My duties to my employers had ceased the 1st of March: I had secured
tenants who would take possession of our rooms as soon as we should
leave them; and now every spare moment was given to studying the
problem of country living and to preparations for departure. I obtained
illustrated catalogues from several dealers in seeds, and we pored over
them every evening. At first they bewildered us with their long lists
of varieties, while the glowing descriptions of new kinds of vegetables
just being introduced awakened in us something of a gambling spirit.
"How fortunate it is," exclaimed my wife, "that we are going to the
country just as the vegetable marvels were discovered! Why, Robert, if
half of what is said is true, we shall make our fortunes."
With us, hitherto, a beet had been a beet, and a cabbage a cabbage; but
here were accounts of beets which, as Merton said, "beat all creation,"
and pictures of prodigious cabbage heads which well-nigh turned our
own. With a blending of hope and distrust I carried two of the
catalogues to a shrewd old fellow in Washington Market. He was a dealer
in country produce who had done business so long at the same stand that
among his fellows he was looked upon as a kind of patriarch. During a
former interview he had replied to my questions with a blunt honesty
that had inspired confidence. The day was somewhat mild, and I found
him in his shirt-sleeves, smoking his pipe among his piled-up barrels,
boxes, and crates, after his eleven o'clock dinner. His day's work was
practically over; and well it might be, for, like others of his
calling, he had begun it long before dawn. Now his old felt hat was
pushed well back on his bald head, and his red face, fringed with a
grizzled beard, expressed a sort of heavy, placid content. His small
gray eyes twinkled as shrewdly as ever. With his pipe he indicated a
box on which I might sit while we talked.
"See here, Mr. Bogart," I began, showing him the seed catalogues, "how
is a man to choose wisely what vegetables he will raise from a list as
long as your arm? Perhaps I shouldn't take any of those old-fashioned
kinds, but go into these wonderful novelties which promise a new era in
horticulture."
The old man gave a contemptuous grunt; then, removing his pipe, he blew
out a cloud of smoke that half obscured us both as he remarked,
gruffly, "'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"
This was about as rough as March weather; but I knew my man, and
perhaps proved that I wasn't a fool by not parting with him then and
there.
"Come now, neighbor," I said, brusquely, "I know some things that you
don't, and there are affairs in which I could prove you to be as green
as I am in this matter. If you came to me I'd give you the best advice
that I could, and be civil about it into the bargain. I've come to you
because I believe you to be honest and to know what I don't. When I
tell you that I have a little family dependent on me, and that I mean
if possible to get a living for them out of the soil, I believe you are
man enough both to fall in with my plan and to show a little friendly
interest. If you are not, I'll go farther and fare better."
As I fired this broadside he looked at me askance, with the pipe in the
corner of his mouth, then reached out his great brown paw, and said,--
"Shake."
I knew it was all right now--that the giving of his hand meant not only
a treaty of peace but also a friendly alliance. The old fellow
discoursed vegetable wisdom so steadily for half an hour that his pipe
went out.
"You jest let that new-fangled truck alone," he said, "till you get
more forehanded in cash and experience. Then you may learn how to make
something out of them novelties, as they call 'em, if they are worth
growing at all. Now and then a good penny is turned on a new fruit or
vegetable; but how to do it will be one of the last tricks that you'll
learn in your new trade. Hand me one of them misleadin' books, and I'll
mark a few solid kinds such as produce ninety-nine hundredths of all
that's used or sold. Then you go to What-you-call-'em's store, and take
a line from me, and you'll git the genuine article at market-gardeners'
prices."
"Now, Mr. Bogart, you are treating me like a man and a brother."
"Oh thunder! I'm treating you like one who, p'raps, may deal with me.
Do as you please about it, but if you want to take along a lot of my
business cards and fasten 'em to anything you have to sell, I'll give
you all they bring, less my commission."
"I've no doubt you will, and that's more than I can believe of a good
many in your line, if all's true that I hear. You have thrown a broad
streak of daylight into my future. So you see the fool didn't part with
his money, or with you either, until he got a good deal more than he
expected."
"Well, well, Mr. Durham, you'll have to get used to my rough ways. When
I've anything to say, I don't beat about the bush. But you'll always
find my checks good for their face."
"Yes, and the face back of them is that of a friend to me now. We'll
shake again. Good-by;" and I went home feeling as if I had solid ground
under my feet. At supper I went over the whole scene, taking off the
man in humorous pantomime, not ridicule, and even my wife grew
hilarious over her disappointed hopes of the "new-fangled truck." I
managed, however, that the children should not lose the lesson that a
rough diamond is better than a smooth paste stone, and that people
often do themselves an injury when they take offence too easily.
"I see it all, papa," chuckled Merton; "if you had gone off mad when he
the same as called you a fool, you would have lost all his good advice."
"I should have lost much more than that, my boy, I should have lost the
services of a good friend and an honest man to whom we can send for its
full worth whatever we can't sell to better advantage at home. But
don't mistake me, Merton, toadyism never pays, no matter what you may
gain by it; for you give manhood for such gain, and that's a kind of
property that one can never part with and make a good bargain. You see
the old man didn't mean to be insolent. As he said, it was only his
rough, blunt way of saying what was uppermost in his mind."