my business. A year hence, if business prospers with me, you shall have
them.”
“A year hence,” pouted the wife.
“I must spend a hundred dollars in advertising the next quarter.”
“How foolish!”
“Very foolish, my dear; but it must be done.”
“That’s the way you throw your money away. You don’t catch Joe to do
such a trick as that.”
“True; but though he has the advantage of having a corner store, I paid
three hundred dollars more on my mortgage note than he did.”
“Then you can afford the table and chairs.”
“Nay, my dear, I will not spend a dollar for superfluities while I am
in debt.”
Mrs. Ben Weston felt very bad about it, but her husband was firm, and
she was forced to content herself with the plain furniture.
Mrs. Joe Weston enjoyed her nice parlor till the novelty wore away,
and then she discovered that there were a great many other articles
wanted to make things look uniform. The two windows must have drapery
curtains, a pier glass was needed, and some pictures were wanted to
relieve the walls. Her husband, who had once exceeded the limits of his
means, found no great difficulty in doing so again, and the things were
bought.
But Joe had some scruples about it. His notes began to be troublesome,
and every day he was in the street borrowing money. His business, too,
had not met his expectations. Instead of increasing in the ratio of his
first year’s experience, it hardly held its own, and the poor fellow
began to have some serious misgivings about the future.
Before the year had half expired, he was obliged to introduce a rigid
system of retrenchment into his family and business affairs, in order
to keep his expenses within his means.
_CHAPTER III._
Another year had passed away in the business experience of the young
merchants. The books had been balanced, and the results stood in black
and white before them.
Ben had followed up his system of advertising through the year. He
had expended large sums, but had made the outlay with judgment and
discretion.
The result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. His store was
crowded with customers; with genuine, _bona fide_ customers, and
with but a small proportion of gadders and fancy shoppers. The
newspapers had borne to the best families in the city and country full
descriptions of his stock. His name was as familiar as “household
words” in the dwellings of the rich and poor, of the farmer, the
mechanic, and the laborer.
Truly, the harvest was abundant, and Ben rubbed his hands with delight
as he cast his eyes over the figures which conveyed to him the pleasing
results of his year’s operations. He had the means, not only of
clearing himself of debt, but also of gratifying his wife by giving her
all the new furniture she required, besides a handsome surplus with
which to increase his business.
The new furniture was bought and set up; every debt was discharged, and
the importers and jobbers were eager to give him unlimited credit.
One day, while he was ruminating upon this pleasant state of things,
Joe Weston entered the store. For some months past, the intercourse
between the young merchants had not been as cordial as formerly.
Joe’s nice things had rather “set him up;” some of the upper ten had
condescended to visit him; and he had attended the “Almack” parties
with his wife.
He was getting ahead fast in his own estimation, and cherished a
supreme contempt for the slow motion of his friend. But when, in the
middle of the year, he found himself running down hill, and discovered
that Ben’s store was crowded with shoppers, while his own was empty, a
feeling of envy took possession of him. Ben must be underselling, he
concluded, and sooner or latter the consequences would appear.
The prosperous merchant could not but notice the sad and dejected mien
of his friend, as he entered the store.
“How are you, Joe? You are almost a stranger, lately. Where do you keep
yourself?” said Ben.
“Business, Ben; business!” replied Joe, demurely.
“Good! Business before pleasure.”
“Any thing over to-day?” asked Joe; but the query was not put in that
buoyant, elastic tone, which had distinguished him in former times.
“A trifle; how much do you want?” returned Ben, promptly.
“To tell the truth, I am ‘bang up.’ I have got a note of four hundred
to pay, and I have not yet raised the first dollar towards it.”
“You are late; it is half past one now,” replied Ben, consulting his
watch.
“Ben, I am in a tight place,” said Joe, in a low, solemn tone.
“Indeed! I am sorry to hear it,” and Ben’s face wore an expression of
sincere sympathy. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“I am afraid so.”
“What can I do for you?” and the young merchant took down his check
book, and examined the state of his bank account.
“I can give you a check for three hundred, if that will do you any
good,” continued he, taking up the pen to fill out the blank.
“Thank you, Ben; you are very kind; but I don’t know as I ought to take
it.”
“Not take it! Why not?”
“If I should pay this note, there is hardly a possibility that I could
get through the month.”
“So bad as that? ’Pon my soul, I am sorry to hear it.”
“Smith and Jones advise me to make an assignment.”
“How does it happen? I thought you were doing well?”
“Business has been very dull for the last six months. Haven’t you found
it so?”
“Well, no; it has been driving with me.”
Joe knew it had; indeed, his present visit was not to borrow money, but
to prepare his friend for the “smash,” which was now unavoidable.
“My sales have been light,” continued he; “I can’t account for it.”
“I can; look here, Joe.”
Ben took down his ledger, and pointed to the account “Charges,” where
the sums paid for advertising had been entered. On a slip of paper he
had footed them up.
“Five hundred and sixty-five dollars for advertising, Joe! That’s what
did the business.”
Joe was astonished. It was quite as much as he had paid for fine things
for his house, and for parties, and the opera; but the investment had
been vastly more profitable, inasmuch as, taken in connection with his
careful management of his business and his economical manner of living
it had laid the foundation of his future fortune. It had given him a
good start in business, and a good beginning is half the battle.
Joe Weston failed, and paid only twenty cents on a dollar. His fine
furniture was all sold, and he was obliged to board out. But in his
extremity Ben was his true friend. He received him into his house, and
when his business was settled up, took him into partnership.
The firm is now one of the most respectable and prosperous in the city.
Joe, ever since he was “bang up,” believes in advertising, and any one
who opens the Journal, or, indeed, any of the daily papers, cannot fail
to notice the conspicuous advertisement of “Weston & Co.”
THE NEW CLOAK;
OR,
“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
_CHAPTER I._
“There! I declare, if Mrs. Burton hasn’t got a new cloak!” exclaimed
Mrs. Waxwell to her intimate friend, Miss Viney, as they came out of
church one Sunday.
“I see she has,” replied Miss Viney, very quietly.
“I know her husband can’t afford it; she will be the ruin of him yet.”
“I suppose they know their own business best. At any rate, it is a
blessing that you and I are not accountable for her misdeeds,” said
Miss Viney, who, though what is technically termed an “old maid,”
was not of that class who have been slanderously styled gossips and
busybodies; and we have purposely introduced her to refute the foul
calumny that “old maids” are all meddlers, and we are sure that all
spinsters will be grateful to us for the service.
“I don’t know about that,” returned Mrs. Waxwell, with a dubious shake
of the head. “Mr. Burton owes my husband three hundred dollars, and I
don’t believe he will ever get his pay if things go on in this way.
That cloak couldn’t have cost less than thirty dollars.”
“I presume they could afford it, or they would not have bought it. At
any rate, they ought to know best.”
“Mrs. Burton is a vain, conceited, proud woman, and pride will have a
fall one of these days.”
“I hope not.”
“I hope she will have a fall; she would drop some of those airs then.”
“I never thought she was what might be termed a vain woman.”
“She is; she is an impudent minx, and the sooner she is brought down to
a level with her circumstances, the better for her and the world.”
“She has the reputation of being a very kind-hearted person and an
excellent neighbor.”
“I don’t care if she has; she likes to ‘lord’ it through the village,
and for one I won’t be ruled by her.”
“Really, I do not understand you; she is as amiable and humble as any
one need be.”
“Amiable and humble indeed! What did she buy that new cloak for except
to excite the envy of half the town, and make them think she is
somebody?”
“I hope there is no one so silly as to envy her;” and Miss Viney cast a
significant glance full into the face of her companion.
“I don’t, for one; but I should like to teach her that she is no better
than the rest of the world.”
“She don’t profess to be; she visits the neighborhood; and I’m sure
there is no better person in sickness than she is.”
“All that may be.”
“When you had the erysipelas, you remember she watched with you when no
one else would.”
“I know it; but is one to be tyrannized over forever because she
watched a few nights with me?”
“How strange you talk!”
“Do I? Didn’t she buy that cloak on purpose to cut a figure through the
town, and make every body feel cheap?”
“No, I am sure she did not; she had no such motive,” replied Miss
Viney, smartly.
“I don’t believe it, there!”
“She is not such a woman as that.”
“Yes, she is, just such a woman as that.”
“I have seen no one but you who feels bad about it.”
“But me! Lor’ sake! I wouldn’t have you think _I_ feel bad about it.
She can wear what she’s a mind to for all me; only I hope she can
afford it--that’s all.”
“I think she can; she has the reputation of being a pretty careful
woman.”
“I don’t care; but I feel it my duty to warn my husband to look out
about his debt. When folks get to be so awful extravagant, there’s no
knowing what may happen.”
“Mr. Burton is doing a very good business, people say.”
“Nobody knows any thing about what he is doing. All I know is, that
when Squire Smith sold him two cords of wood last week, and carried
in the bill, he couldn’t pay it. He actually put the squire off till
next week. That looks as though they could afford thirty dollar cloaks,
don’t it?”
With these sage reflections, Mrs. Waxwell turned down the lane that
led to her home, leaving Miss Viney to pursue her way and ponder the
extravagance of “some folks.”
_CHAPTER II._
Mrs. Waxwell loved fine clothes quite as much as any other woman of
the nineteenth century, and this is saying a great deal; but then her
husband was parsimonious, and she was parsimonious; and, though she
loved “nice things” very much, she loved money more, which, we take it,
amounts to nothing more nor less than meanness.
Mr. Waxwell was a farmer, and well off in the world. The advent of the
railroad into his native town had turned things topsy-turvy in general,
and “put the devil into the women” in particular, to use Mr. Waxwell’s
classic language. Time was when they were content to wear a straw
bonnet and a calico gown to meeting; but now they had to rig out in
silks and satins, with flounces and furbelows, and all sorts of rigging
hitched to ’em, for all the world just like a clown in the circus. Such
were Mr. Waxwell’s views of the social influence of the railroad.
Society began to be a little “select;” folks put on airs, and were so
“stuck up” that you couldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole.
Farmer Waxwell did not much like this state of things; it cost money
on the one hand, and he did not like to be thrown into the shade on
the other. He was about the richest man in the place; but ten dollar
bonnets and thirty dollar cloaks were abominations that he could not
tolerate. Mrs. Waxwell didn’t like to be outdone in the matter of
dress, and when she bought a new merino cloak the previous season, she
had not a doubt but it would be unsurpassed for two seasons at least.
When Mrs. Burton came out with the thirty dollar velvet, she found the
wind was taken entirely out of her sail, and she was as indignant as
the case demanded.
In the rise and progress of the village since the advent of the
railroad, two new stores had gone into operation, one of which was
conducted by Mr. Burton, an enterprising young man from the metropolis,
who had brought a city wife and a great many city notions into the
place with him.
As with a great many who go from the city to the country, he was
exceedingly annoyed by that disinterested, charitable attention to
other people’s business which so extensively prevails in many rural
districts. He kept his affairs to himself, and this bothered and
perplexed the gossips. His wife had a way of attending to her own
concerns; she had been brought up where people do not even know their
next door neighbors. If she wanted a new dress or a new bonnet, she
never deemed it necessary to consult the neighbors in regard to her
ability to afford it, or about the style and material.
But, in spite of these peculiarities, she was a popular person in the
village. She was amiable and kind to all, a friend and a comforter to
the sick, and quite a useful person in the society of the place. She
understood matters and things, had a larger experience of the world
than those who had seen nothing of it; and the consequence was, that
when a party was to be given, a picnic projected, or a ball got up,
she was consulted, and her advice followed. She understood all these
things, and was happy to explain the “fashion” in regard to them to all
who asked her counsel.
Poor Mrs. Waxwell! Her star began to decline when Mrs. Burton came
to the village. She was no longer the leader of the _ton_, and her
heart was bursting with envy. Though she had often received the kind
offices of the storekeeper’s wife, both in sickness and in health, she
would willingly have crushed her. That new cloak was the capsheaf of
the indignities which she fancied had been heaped upon her, and she
determined that her unconscious rival should suffer the consequences of
her temerity.
Her first demonstration was upon her husband, whom she found no
difficulty in convincing that Mr. Burton must be ruined by the
extravagance of his wife, and that, unless he immediately collected his
debt, he would certainly lose it.
As soon as she had done her washing on Monday, she “made some calls,”
and embraced the opportunity of commenting freely upon that new cloak.
The women told their husbands that Mr. Burton would certainly fail; and
before three days had elapsed there was quite a ferment in the place.
Nobody knew any thing about Mr. Burton’s affairs; he seemed to be
doing a good business, though no one knew of his having any money.
He did not even own the house in which he lived; he had no property,
apparently, but his stock. The careful old farmers, to whom in the
course of trade he had become indebted for produce which he sent to
Boston, began to be alarmed by these rumors.
It was in the State of New Hampshire; and at the time of which I write,
the “grab law” was in force, and is still, for aught I know.
One morning, as Mr. Burton returned from a journey to a neighboring
town, he found his stock attached on the claim of Farmer Waxwell, and
all on account of that new cloak which his wife had worn to meeting on
the preceding Sunday.
He had not the means to pay the note at that moment, and while he was
considering a plan to extricate himself from the dilemma, the news
that his goods had been attached spread all over the place. All the
creditors were in hot haste to follow the track of Farmer Waxwell; for
it was “first come, first served,” and in less than two hours a dozen
had fastened upon the stock of his store.
This was a tremendous result to follow in the train of a thirty dollar
cloak and a gossiping old woman.
_CHAPTER III._
“What do you think now, Miss Viney?” asked Mrs. Waxwell, as they met,
soon after the storekeeper’s disaster had been made public.
“I hope Mr. Burton will be able to pay his debts.”
“But he won’t--I know he won’t.”
“Probably, if they had given him any notice of their intention to
demand the payment of their claims, he would have been prepared to meet
them.”
“I guess Mrs. Burton will not feel quite so stuck up after this.”
“I hope _you_ have done nothing to bring about this sad result.”
“But I have; I made my husband sue his note, and when he put on, the
others did. Thirty dollar cloak indeed!”
“I am sorry you have done this; you may ruin Mr. Burton by it.”
“That’s just what I mean to do!” and Mrs. Waxwell’s malignant
expression betrayed the jealousy she had so long harbored.
“You did? It was very unkind and ungrateful in you to do so,” replied
Miss Viney, indignantly.
“Humph!”
“Any trader would be likely to come out badly to have all his creditors
pounce upon him without giving him a chance to collect his debts.”
“I don’t believe he has any to collect.”
“Even your husband, as well off as he is, might be embarrassed
if suddenly called upon to pay his debts;” and Miss Viney looked
significantly at her angry companion.
“I doubt it.”
“He may have a trial,” said the maiden lady, as she moved towards the
store.
“What can she mean by that?” thought Mrs. Waxwell.
Miss Viney had some property of her own, and it was all in the hands of
Farmer Waxwell, who had, on his own account, invested the greater part
of it in railroad stock.
This is what she meant. She would claim the three thousand dollars
her husband owed her, and a cold chill passed through her veins as
the thought struck her. Farmer Waxwell was rich in houses, lands, and
stocks, all of which yielded him a good income; but he had not three
thousand dollars in money, and it might cost him some trouble to raise
it.
* * * * *
“Don’t cry, my dear; I have enough due me in Boston to pay these debts
ten times over,” said Mr. Burton to his wife, who was much alarmed by
the storm which threatened them.
“What will people think?”
“What will they think when I pay them all? The whole amount is not
above nine hundred dollars.”
Just then Miss Viney entered the house. In a few words, she explained
the circumstances which had led to the sudden “strike” among the
creditors.
Mrs. Burton, kind soul, shed a flood of tears when she heard how cruel
Mrs. Waxwell had been--she whom she had nursed with all the tenderness
of a mother, when her frightened neighbors fled from the contagious
disease.
“Never mind it, my dear. We may expect any thing from a meddler, a
gossip, a slanderer,” said Mr. Burton. “I must start for Boston in the
noon train.”
“Allow me, Mr. Burton, to offer you the money to discharge these
liabilities. I have three thousand dollars in the hands of Mr. Waxwell.”
“You are very kind, and I accept your offer,” replied Mr. Burton, “and
next week I shall have the means of repaying you. I assure you I am
worth at least five thousand dollars.”
In proof of his assertion, he showed her various notes, mortgages, and
certificates of stock.
“I presume, if the people here knew that I was not a bankrupt, they
would not have molested me. In spite of all my amiable neighbor, Mrs.
Waxwell, may say, I think I am abundantly able to give my wife a thirty
dollar cloak.”
“I never doubted it,” replied Miss Viney, as she hastened to the
village lawyer to put her note in course of collection.
Farmer Waxwell was at dinner when the lawyer, who was a personal
friend, called upon him.
“Sorry to trouble you, but I am instructed to collect this note,” said
he.
“The devil!” exclaimed Farmer Waxwell.
“The ugly hussy!” added Mrs. Waxwell, as she perceived that Miss
Viney’s prophetic words had been burdened with a meaning.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the lawyer; “but if I understand it
rightly, you have publicly boasted that you brought about all this
difficulty.”
“I?”
“Yes, madam: that new cloak did the business. You set your husband on,
and all the rest followed him; so Miss Viney tells me.”
“My gracious!”
“And now she wants the money to assist Mr. Burton out of the difficulty
into which you have plunged him.”
“That’s plain speech, squire,” said the farmer.
“But true.”
“I can’t raise the money.”
“Then I must sue.”
“Can’t we compromise?”
“Burton is worth at least five thousand dollars, and when he gets a
remittance from Boston, will pay all.”
“I will dissolve my attachment, and be bound for the payment of the
others. Will that do it?”
“Yes, if Miss Viney will consent.”
Miss Viney did consent,--she was a kind-hearted lady--and the matter
was compromised.
“Now, wife,” said Farmer Waxwell, on the following week, as he put the
three hundred dollars in his pocket which Burton had paid, minus thirty
which he held in his hand, “here’s thirty dollars, and I think you’d
better go and buy one of them ’ere cloaks. Your foolish envy like to
have got me into the cu’sedest scrape I ever got into in my life.”
She would not take it; she was too mean to dress well herself, and
too envious to permit others who were able to do so in peace. But she
gathered from the events of our story a healthy experience of the
wisdom of that excellent maxim.--“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
“EVERY THING COMFORTABLE.”
_CHAPTER I._
“You have every thing comfortable, Maria,” said Mrs. Belladonna
Buttercup, to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Sparrow, at whose house she was
making a visit; “every thing _comfortable_.”
The speaker placed a very significant emphasis upon the last word,
which, in connection with her peculiar tone of voice, and the half
apparent sneer on her lips, was equivalent to saying, “You have all
that is absolutely necessary to make your house habitable; you have
beds, and chairs, and tables, but your furniture is of the most
ordinary description--plain, cheap, and old-fashioned. It would not
suit me.”
Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup was a New York lady; that is to say, she had
formerly been a shop girl in Boston, and, having considerable talent
at diplomacy, had captivated the senses of a dry goods clerk on four
hundred dollars salary, become Mrs. Buttercup, and moved to New York.
She was an ambitious person, and though she had been brought up in a
ten footer in an obscure street, she earnestly desired to become what
is technically called a “lady.” Fashion was her god. To dress well, to
live in a fine house, furnished _a la mode_, and to move in fashionable
society constituted her highest ideal of human happiness.
Mr. Buttercup entertained similar views. It is true, he was only a
poor clerk when he married,--he had married to redeem his wife from
the drudgery of her occupation,--and when he went to New York he had
a hard struggle to support her, even in a five dollar boarding house.
At the end of a year, circumstances so favored him that he was enabled
to go into business on his own account. In a small shop, which his
former employer stocked for him, taking a mortgage with interest at the
rate of twenty per cent. per annum, he rushed boldly into the stream,
assured it would bear him to opulence and an influential position in
society.
Fortune favored him, and the first year showed a gain of a thousand
dollars. The young man was elated, and having lived within his means,
he had a considerable surplus on his hands. Taking a larger store
and employing two additional clerks, he commenced his second year.
He was the biggest man on Broadway; talked magnificently about his
business operations, and innocently magnified his last year’s profits
to five thousand dollars. Things looked so promising with him that the
importers and jobbers gave him all the credit he desired. Mr. Buttercup
was perfectly satisfied that he was on the high road to fortune. As
Richelieu says in the play, there was no such word as “fail” in his
vocabulary.