OLD Hiram Hucksmith makes and sells green wagons with red wheels; and
merry as a string of bells in his old age he feels. For over all the
countryside his wagons have their fame, and Hiram sees with wholesome
pride, the prestige of his name.
He always tells his men: “By jings, my output must be good! Don’t ever
use dishonest things—no wormy steel or wood; use nothing but the
choicest oak, use silver mounted tacks, and every hub and every spoke
must be as sound as wax. I want the men who buy my carts to advertise
them well; I do not wish to break the hearts of folks to whom I sell.”
The farmers bought those wagons green, with wheels of sparkling red, and
worked them up and down, I ween, and of them often said: “You cannot
bust or wear them out, and if you’d break their holt, you’d have to have
a waterspout or full-sized thunderbolt. The way they hang together’s
strange, they ought to break but won’t, most earthly things decay or
change, but these blamed wagons don’t.”
Old Hiram’s heart with rapture thrilled, to hear that sort of stuff; he
worked and worked but couldn’t build his wagons fast enough. And now he
lives on Easy Street, most honored of all men who toddle down our
village street, and then back up again.
Old Jabez Jenkins long has made blue wagons with pink spokes, and once
he had a goodly trade among the farmer folks. With pride his bosom did
not swell, he knew not to aspire, to get up wagons that would sell—that
was his one desire. And so he made his wheels of pine, where rosewood
should have been, and counted on the painting fine, to hide the faults
within.
And often when this sad old top was toiling in his shed, a customer
would seek his shop and deftly punch his head. Wherever Jenkins’ wagons
went, disaster with them flew; the tires came off, the axles bent, the
kingbolts broke in two. You’d see the farmers standing guard above their
ruined loads, and springing language by the yard that fairly scorched
the roads.
This Jenkins now is old and worn, his business is decayed; and he can
only sit and mourn o’er dizzy breaks he made. Old Hiram’s plan should
suit all men who climb Trade’s rugged hill: Give value for the shining
yen you put into your till.
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