Dawson Black: Retail Merchant

We started our profit-sharing plan, as arranged on June 1, the beginning of my fiscal year. I had thought we had so thoroughly threshed out the plan that it would work like a ch...

As soon as I had time, I went to Boston and saw Alex Cantling, as Barlow had suggested, to find out how much money it would take to start an automobile accessory department.

"_Good_ morning, Mr. Black," he said heartily, as he entered the store. "Well, I _don't_ think we'll have much difficulty in getting this little matter fixed up to-day. It is go...

The New England Hardware Company were to open their store on Macey Street on January one. I knew because I had received the following letter from them, which evidently they had...

I would like to be able to say that there were big sales on the first day of the automatic sale. All the goods on those four sales' counters had been reduced one cent in ten--te...

The next day, I wrote to Hersom, the salesman for Bates & Hotchkin, and asked him to give me the names of one or two good firms from whom to buy toys. I had just mailed the lett...

When I joined Betty at the table I told her about my automobile arrangement with him. She seemed very pleased at that. Betty thought a lot of Barlow, and I thought more of him t...

The next week I went with Charlie Martin and Fred Barlow to Boston to buy the automobile accessories which we had decided upon when old man Barlow and I had fixed up that gasoli...

Our weekly meetings had certainly cultivated a better spirit among my small staff. Even in the case of Wilkes it had had quite an effect. He was only a boy, but we allowed him t...

I had delivered the eighteen, that Downs sold, when they arrived, and since then I had sold only one other. I had begun to wonder whether I had done right in buying that eightee...

I had pledged myself to a profit-sharing plan with my small staff for the year beginning June 1, since my fiscal year would end with the last day of May.

We had been increasing our sales on men's toilet articles, and were selling anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 worth of those goods a week. Mind you, not razors, but soap, and talcum...

The secretary of the hardware association had been in town, and I had asked him around to the house for lunch; and while there, I had told him about our weekly meetings. He thou...

"Of course I can't afford to go, because it comes the same day as we get married, and you remember, Betty, we agreed that we would not have our honeymoon until we had 'turned th...

As soon as possible, I visited the landlords of all the empty stores in town, and contracted to rent the windows in seven of them for two weeks beginning the first of October.

A salesman came in one morning from the Cincinnati Pencil Sharpener Company to offer me the local agency for the firm's pencil pointers. He walked into the store with what I sai...

The plan of making people state how much credit they wanted seemed to be working out well. The deadbeats flew up in the air and said they wouldn't do business with any one that...

When the Mater got back, I felt more like a human being again. What a wonderful thing a mother is! A fellow doesn't realize how much his mother means to him until he wants her b...

How work does pile up on one when he is away from business for a day or two! I was away less than two days; but it took me practically a whole week to get caught up. I suppose t...

Soon after my talk with Barlow, I planned a big sale to reduce my stock. I was most anxious to reduce it $2,000.00 worth, and at the same time I wanted to see if I could not hit...

When I was a boy I had been great chums with a lad named Larry Friday. Larry used to sleep at our house every other night, and I would sleep at his house every other night. We c...

When I told Fellows about my trading stamp idea, he suggested that I think over the question once more, before taking them up, and he asked if he could be present at the intervi...

I took it up to Barrington and asked him what to do about it. He gave me a paper to sign, and I put my name to it without bothering to read it. He then spoke sharply to me, and...

I had thought of a great idea to profit by agitation against the high cost of living. The idea had come to me when reading a story in a business paper which had said that it was...

I had suggested to Wilkshire, the electric appliance salesman, that, in place of his demonstrators, we should get a couple of local girls to handle the demonstration. "People wi...

The sun had begun to shine once more. I had a feeling as if a little dicky-bird were singing in my heart. There was blue again in the sky and the wind didn't always come from th...

The next evening, Jock McTavish and I had a long pow-wow over a plan to check credits. It is always a good idea to talk over such matters with an accountant, and Jock was _some_...

I was dreaming about a new advertising scheme wherein I had copied the old town crier plan by having a man go about the town ringing a bell and then calling out, "Dawson Black's...

I had thought out a novel way to fight the mail-order competition. It had come to me from an article I had read in a magazine about how a druggist in a small town in the Middle...

Our total sales for the second week were $401.75, over a hundred dollars better than the previous week. Nothing like the $560.00 a week that Jim Simpson had led me to believe th...

Larsen was a bully good fellow, but I found that in one way he was hurting the help, as his habit of swearing seemed to have been caught by the other fellows in the store.

When I totaled my sales for the month, I was somewhat gratified to find that they were $2,280.00. The best month the store had had for a long time, I fancied.

I had promised to get to Barlow's as soon after eight as I could, and I was there at ten minutes past. Barlow welcomed me and led me to his office in the rear, and there I met w...

In ten minutes I knew the truth, I learned that the transfer was made properly to me and that I was responsible for that $3500.00, and, according to the deed of transfer which J...

When I got down to breakfast one morning the Mater was there with a letter in her hand which had a Florida post-mark on it. Her face was very grave.

Betty had become seriously ill. The doctor said she ought to go South until spring, and then take a sea voyage. I told him I didn't know where the money was coming from to do it...

Our next Monday evening meeting had proved quite interesting. We had sold one bread mixer, but, thank heaven, no one had inflicted a loaf of bread upon us! I was hoping that tha...

When we reached the city I called on Bates & Hotchkin, ordered some goods, and told them about the sale. I had a talk with Mr. Peck, the credit man who called on me the time I h...

I used to think that old Barlow had an easy time as boss of my former store, but the first day, there seemed to be so many things to do, so many things to decide, that my head w...

I hadn't seen Aunt Emma for five years, and, candidly, I had never thought a great deal of her; so you can imagine how surprised I was when a long-whiskered chap blew in at the...

I met Barlow one morning taking his "constitutional." While I was working for him we fellows always used to laugh at his plan of going for a walk every day for fifteen or twenty...

About this time Betty was taken sick, so that I used to go into the Élite Restaurant for my lunches. This was a place frequented by a number of business men. Stigler was in the...

Mother had a talk with me about the store, in the morning and asked me to try to get my money back from Jim. She said she had never liked Jim, and that he was a bit careless in...

On the following Monday, I was in the store, feeling kind of blue over the general muddle I had made of things, when who should go by but Betty and Stigler! If there was one man...