TOM GAINS PROMOTION
That was the beginning of the friendship. Sidney, who had begun being
nice to Tom to please his mother, continued being nice to him because
he liked him. There was an earnest, downright quality to Tom that the
older boy was attracted by. Then when Sidney found that, in spite
of an inclination toward unusual seriousness in one of his age, Tom
had a perfectly good, if somewhat repressed, sense of humour, Sidney
took to him in earnest. The boys were quite unalike in many ways.
Sidney was small-boned, lithe, graceful, and dark. Tom was heavier,
less finely built, and light. Sidney was impulsive, Tom deliberate.
Both were capable of deep enthusiasms, but Tom’s were of slower birth
and, perhaps, of longer duration. It is not unusual for boys to form
friendships for those quite opposed to them both physically and
mentally. In such a partnership what one lacks the other supplies. This
explains to some extent the friendship that sprang up between Sidney
Morris and Tom Pollock. For a week Tom believed that when Sidney was
once more off the invalid list and free to seek the companionship of
his old acquaintances he would see very little of him. The reverse,
however, proved to be the case.
The friendship, instead of ceasing, grew. Sidney sought Tom at the
hardware store in the late afternoons, stamping in sweatered and coated
with his skating boots hung from a hockey stick over his shoulder and
his face flushed by the afternoon’s practice. Then he would perch
himself on the edge of a counter upstairs or on a box in the packing
room below and tell enthusiastically of the practice. Mr. Cummings
viewed him amusedly, Mr. Wright with deep scowls. He made friends at
once with Joe Gillig, and I’m not at all certain that duties weren’t
neglected sometimes when the three boys got together at the back of
the store. At least once a week, often twice, Sidney haled Tom home
to dinner with him. At first Tom went with misgivings, but when he
realised that both Mr. and Mrs. Morris were glad to have him, or anyone
else that Sidney wanted, he got over his shyness and enjoyed those
evenings immeasurably. After dinner they went up to Sidney’s room and
talked and talked on all the thousand and one subjects dear to a boy’s
heart. I think Sidney did most of the talking, however, which was to
be expected since he had much more to talk about. Tom’s existence was
rather hum-drum and few experiences or adventures fell to his lot those
days.
In school the boys saw little of each other since they were in
different classes, but notes passed between them constantly,
frightfully important notes making engagements for meetings after
school or at lunch hour or containing news that couldn’t possibly
wait to be told verbally. Of course Sidney did not give up his other
friends, but instead of spreading his friendship over a half-dozen
boys as he had done before, he gave most of it to Tom. They became
inseparable. As may be expected, a good deal of fun, some good-natured
and some malicious, was poked at the pair. Disgruntled ones called Tom
a “hayseed” and a “Rube.” This annoyed Sidney more than it did Tom,
however.
“I don’t mind,” he would say calmly. “I guess that’s what I am,
anyway.”
“I’d like one of them to say that to me,” said Sidney warmly. “I’d
punch him!”
Tom did not get the promised instruction in hockey that winter, for the
reason that he never could find an opportunity to go with Sidney to the
pond. Neither did he have a chance to see the hockey team in action.
But he heard all about it from Sidney, who had gained a much-coveted
position on it, and mourned with his chum over defeats and triumphed
with him over victories; and the two were very evenly apportioned that
year.
Meanwhile, Christmas came and went, and the New Year was rung in. The
holiday season made a deal of hard work for Tom, for the store kept
open every evening until Christmas and more than once he was forced to
delay his departure for Derry until Sunday morning. Christmas Day was
spent at home. He had purchased small gifts for everyone, including
Star, who got a new collar, and he received presents from all. Uncle
Israel gave him a five-dollar gold-piece, a deed of generosity as
surprising as it was welcome to Tom. Sidney had thrust a small parcel
into Tom’s hand the day before, and when Tom opened it Christmas
morning he found a pretty gold stick-pin set with a topaz that,
although he didn’t realise it, was exactly the colour of some of the
big freckles that adorned his nose! In the afternoon he took his skates
down to the creek and joined the merry throng of boys and girls. It
was the first time he had tried the skates and they proved wonderful,
besides being objects of envy to the other fellows. Jim Billings, whose
father Tom had worked for last summer, remarked sneeringly after an
examination of the new skates, that “Tom Pollock was gettin’ mighty
stuck-up since he’d gone to the city!”
The next evening Tom accompanied Sidney home and stayed to dinner and
saw the big Christmas Tree that was strung with tiny electric lights
of white and red and blue. And Sidney showed him all his presents, and
there was a whole big lot of them, too, Tom thought. One of them was
the toboggan that Sidney had expressed a wish for and another was a
little easel calendar in red paper that looked something like leather
if you didn’t get too close to it. Sidney told Tom, with an arm over
his shoulders, that it was “just bully” and that he liked it better
than almost anything he’d got. The calendar was Tom’s modest gift.
After New Year’s life settled down again into the old manner. Tom
studied hard at school and worked hard at the store, but he enjoyed
both. Having a friend like Sidney had done away with loneliness and he
no longer spent solitary evenings in his room. Once in a while Sidney
came down to Locust Street, but usually Tom went to Sidney’s house. His
comings and goings there were now matters of no comment. Mr. and Mrs.
Morris always greeted him warmly and made him feel at home and free
to come and go as he liked. Sometimes another fellow would drop in,
sometimes two or three, and they had very merry times up in Sidney’s
room. But Tom liked best the evenings when Sidney and he were alone.
Several of the boys he had met through Sidney he liked very much, but
he was apt to feel rather shy and constrained when they were around.
Very often Mrs. Morris joined them for a few minutes, much to the
pleasure of Tom, who still secretly adored her. Once, a month or so
after their first meeting, he asked Sidney what he supposed his mother
meant by her frequent allusions to his hair.
“She’s always telling me not to trouble about it,” said Tom, mystified.
“I suppose she’s just sort of making fun about it because it’s red.”
“I don’t call it red,” answered Sidney. “It’s a dandy colour. You never
know what Mumsie has in her head when she says things like that. She’s
always having little jokes to herself. She’s funny.”
“She’s terribly nice,” said Tom. “And--and she’s the prettiest lady in
Amesville, too, Sid.”
“You bet she is!”
One February morning, when Tom had trudged through a raging blizzard to
the high school only to learn when he reached it that the “no school”
whistle had blown a half-hour before, he decided to keep on to Sidney’s
house. It was a good mile out there from the school and the wind and
snow were cutting up high jinks, but Tom scorned the trolley cars, not
altogether from motives of economy, and walked, fighting every step of
the way. When he reached the Morrises the maid told him that Master
Sidney had just gone downtown. Tom was turning away when Mrs. Morris
appeared and insisted on his coming in.
“Sid won’t be more than a half-hour,” she said. “He went in to get
something for his wireless set.” (A wireless receiving set had been
amongst his Christmas presents and both he and Tom were greatly
interested in it.) “Come in and get warm, Tom.” Then, seeing his
condition, “Why, Tom Pollock!” she exclaimed. “I believe you walked!”
“Yes’m, I did,” answered Tom apologetically.
“Of all things on a day like this!” Mrs. Morris shook her head
hopelessly. “Well, boys have no sense, anyway. Now take that coat right
off and---- And no overshoes, either! Tom Pollock, you ought to be
spanked and put to bed!”
“Yes’m,” agreed Tom sheepishly.
Five minutes later, divested of his wet clothes and chastely attired
in a voluminous bath-robe of Mr. Morris’s, he was toasting in front of
a big fire in the library and drinking beef tea that Mrs. Morris made
by dropping a mysterious dark-brown tablet into a cup of hot water. It
was very nice, and its effect, or perhaps the combined effects of the
hard tussle with the blizzard and the warmth of the fire, was to make
Tom feel delightfully drowsy and comfortable. When, presently, he had
finished the beef tea and Mrs. Morris had returned from bearing away
the empty cup, an unwonted boldness came to him.
“I wish,” he said as Mrs. Morris sank into a chair at the other side of
the hearth, “I wish you’d tell me, please, what’s the matter with my
hair.”
She looked at it concernedly. Tom, however, saw the laughter in her
eyes. “Is it bothering you again, Tom?” she asked. “I’m so sorry!”
“It--it don’t bother me at all,” he responded desperately. “Only you’re
all the time telling me not to let it! Is it just because it’s red?”
Then Mrs. Morris laughed deliciously. “No, Tom, it isn’t,” she said. “I
suppose I’ve been horribly mean to tease you about it, haven’t I?”
“I didn’t mind,” Tom assured her earnestly. “Only--I wondered what it
was. I asked Sid and he said he guessed it was just one of your jokes.”
“Of course it was; a rather silly one, too, Tom. Do you remember
stopping one day in front of Sewall’s jewelry store and looking in a
mirror?”
“No’m, I don’t think so.” Tom shook his head.
“It was away last summer--or early in the fall, Tom. You looked in the
mirror and frowned and then you took off your hat and smoothed your
hair. And then you nodded at yourself quite satisfied and looked up and
caught me smiling at you. Don’t you remember now?”
“Yes’m.” Tom laughed shamefacedly.
“You scowled at me terrifically,” went on Mrs. Morris. “It amused me
because I thought I knew just how you felt at being caught primping.
And then when I saw you in Cummings and Wright’s that time I recognised
you at once and thought I’d have a little fun with you. So I asked
about your hair. That’s all there is to it. As to your hair being red,
why, it isn’t; not really red, you know. It’s a perfectly wonderful
shade and I wish I had it, Tom!”
Tom thought her own soft brown hair infinitely more lovely and
becoming, but he didn’t say so. He only grinned.
“Are you terribly angry with me?” she went on smilingly.
“No’m.” Tom shook his head again. “I--I guess I sort of liked it!”
Then Sidney burst in, laden with packages, and dragged Tom upstairs to
witness the installation of a new detector.
At the store Tom had been making strides. As yet there had been no
mention of a raise in wages; he was still receiving his two dollars
a week and being credited with fifty cents against the price of the
pump; but he had progressed wonderfully. To be sure, he still swept
and washed windows and ran an occasional errand, but he was at last a
real clerk when those duties did not engage his attention. It had begun
when Tom had acted on Sidney’s suggestion and explained to Mr. Cummings
that it might be a good plan to keep hockey sticks as well as skates.
Mr. Cummings had fallen in with the idea at once and had ordered
the sticks. Unfortunately they had proved, on arrival, to be rather
inferior and purchasers had objected to them.
“Well,” said Mr. Cummings when Tom reported the matter, “you find
out what make of stick the boys want and let me know. This is your
undertaking, Tom.”
So Tom found out where the best hockey sticks were made and a new
consignment was ordered. Gradually pucks and all the paraphernalia of
hockey were added and, in some way, the sale of those things became
Tom’s especial task. Boys who came for skates or sticks or leg-guards
or pucks sought him out and didn’t want to be waited on by anyone else.
Mr. Cummings laughingly referred to “Tom’s Department.” But “Tom’s
Department” made such a good showing by the middle of the winter that
Mr. Cummings was both surprised and gratified. After that Tom had only
to list an article wanted and Mr. Cummings sent in the order at once.
There was no question as to the advisability of carrying it.
The last of February, Joe Gillig caught a heavy cold and took to bed
with congestion of the lungs, and Tom suddenly found himself elevated
temporarily to the position of clerk. Mr. Cummings was at first
inclined to look for someone to take Joe’s place while he was out, but
Mr. Wright objected. “Let Tom do his work for him,” he said. “I guess
he can sell nails as well as Joe.” Mr. Cummings agreed doubtfully,
and for three weeks Tom was exempt from window washing, sweeping, and
errands. At first he was a trifle alarmed at the new responsibility,
but he got on perfectly well, and Mr. Cummings was forced to agree
with his partner that Tom could “sell nails as well as Joe.” At the
end of the fortnight he even went further than that and acknowledged
that Tom promised to become in time a much better salesman than Joe.
For Tom took a great deal of pains to please customers; and those who
looked askance at him at first on account of his youthfulness and
showed a preference for being waited on by one of the partners soon
changed their minds. Tom was somehow able to take a personal interest
in the wants of even the humblest patron and forked out two pounds
of ten-penny nails with as much care and attention as he would have
displayed in filling a hundred-dollar order. If a customer wanted
an article not in stock and which Tom believed he could obtain from
another store, he did not, as Joe would have done, carelessly inform
the purchaser that they were out of it. Tom said: “We haven’t that in
just now, sir, but I’ll see that you have it this afternoon, if that
will do. Where shall I send it?” Then at dinner time Tom scurried
around to one or another of the rival stores, found the article, paid
for it, and sent it out on the afternoon delivery. The first time he
did this he presented his bill to Miss Miller and was reimbursed. Not
long afterward Mr. Wright came across the item and made inquiries. Tom
was called in to explain. “But what’s the use of doing a thing like
that?” inquired Mr. Wright irritably. “You paid eighty-five cents for
the thing and sold it at eighty-five cents. Where does the profit to us
come in, young man?”
“There isn’t any profit, sir,” Tom answered. “But the customer gets
what he wants, sir. It doesn’t cost us anything and maybe we keep the
man’s trade. If we tell him we’re out of a certain thing, he might go
to Bullard’s or Stevens and Green’s for it and keep on going there.”
Mr. Wright said “Humph!” and rattled a pen-holder. Mr. Cummings,
however, nodded. “You’re right, Tom,” he said. “That’s well reasoned.
You evidently think it pays to please your customers, eh?”
“Yes, sir; don’t you?” asked Tom innocently.
“I do.” Mr. Cummings smiled. “But lots of employés don’t, son. You
keep on with that notion. It’s a good one. And whenever you can find
something at another store that we haven’t got you get it. Have them
make out a bill for it and get your money from Miss Miller. That right,
Horace?”
“I guess so,” answered Mr. Wright. “Seems to me, though, we’d ought to
have the thing and not be buying from other hardware stores.”
“Bless us, we can’t keep everything folks ask for! Nobody can. But, as
Tom here says, there’s no need to let folks know it!”
It was a day or two later that Tom was again summoned to the office in
a slack period. Mr. Cummings was there alone.
“Sit down a minute, Tom,” he said. “I want to talk about that
department of yours. It’s done pretty well this winter. Did you know
it?”
“I thought maybe it had,” answered Tom modestly. “I know we sold a good
deal, sir.”
“We certainly did. And the profits in those goods are high, too. Now,
look here, why don’t we go into the thing in earnest? I’ve talked
to Mr. Wright about it and he’s agreeable. Why not put in a regular
sporting goods department, eh? Aren’t there lots of things boys use in
summer as well as winter?”
“Oh, yes, sir! You see, they’ll begin playing baseball pretty soon;
and golf, too, although I don’t know if there’s much of that played
around here.”
“Of course there is! There are three clubs within ten miles of town.
What else?”
“I guess that’s all, sir, in summer, isn’t it?”
“You ought to know better than I, son. Well, could we sell bats and
balls and golf things, do you think?”
“I don’t see why not,” replied Tom eagerly. “I’m sure the high school
fellows would get their things here if they knew we kept them.”
“We’ll advertise then. We’ll announce in the papers that we’ve added a
sporting goods department, eh?”
“Yes, sir, and I think it would pay to put a small advertisement in the
_Brown-and-Blue_.”
“That’s the school paper?”
“Yes, sir, the monthly. Fellows would be sure to see it and, besides,
they like to trade with firms who--who patronise the paper.”
“All right, we’ll do that, too. Now I’m going to put this up to you,
Tom. You take right hold. Get in touch with the dealers, get their
catalogues, find out their trade prices and make up a list of what we
want to start out with. I wouldn’t go in very heavy as to quantity just
at first. We’ll find out how we stand, I guess, before we plunge very
deep. But get a good assortment of stuff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Now, another thing. After the first of next month you do
nothing but sell, Tom. We’ll get someone to look after the windows and
sweep up. Of course you’ll help Joe in the packing room, just as now,
but you’ll be a salesman instead of a--well, general utility man!”
“I--I’d like that, sir,” said Tom.
“Of course you would. You’ll have the sporting goods under your
management, son, and we’ll see if we can’t make them pay. Of course we
expect to make you a small raise, Tom. I haven’t talked that over with
Mr. Wright yet, but I’ll let you know in a few days. We can’t increase
your wages much just yet, but if you make good we’ll be fair with you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cummings. I--I’ll do my best.”
“That’s right. Do your best, Tom, and you’ll get on. It’s the boy who
does his best all the time that won’t stay down, son. Just as it’s
the fellow who tries to get along by giving his employers as little
as possible who never moves up. Remember that. Now you get busy and
get your orders in. You can have two sections of shelves on the left
of the door down there for your goods, and the cases in front. If you
have to have more space, I guess we can find it. There’s a lot of that
builders’ hardware that would be better placed back here, I guess.
Well, that’s all. Let me hear what you learn and keep me posted as to
how things are going. But don’t bother me with questions, son. This is
your affair. Make it go.”