Part 7
He who hesitates is sold. I hesitated, and the next thing I knew a smart young salesman was selling me a new suit, then I noticed the shoes I was wearing were patched. Well, sir, before I finished I had a complete new outfit, and that store had $150 of my money. It didn't worry me any until I was passing the Savings Bank at home. Then it struck me all of a sudden that in a week I had spent what it had taken three years of back-twisting work to save, and that the net result of my labor I could show in money was exactly nothing.
Ever since I have spent a little less than I earned, and that is a bully principle for you to imitate. I hate a tightwad, Ted, as much as you do; but I hate what is commonly known as a good spender a blame sight more. I don't want you to grow into a man who groans every time he spends a cent, and neither do I want you to feel that money is like the smallpox to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible.
A good spender is usually a man who believes in giving himself a good time, and who leaves his wife to take in boarders and his children to shift for themselves.
Now I'm going to pay your food bills, this time for I don't believe the Exeter townspeople will get much to eat until the storekeepers collect the money owing them, and can lay in a new stock; but you are going to pay for those silk shirts, pajamas, and other dodads, at the rate of three dollars a week until you've paid me back what I advance. Then after you have paid in full, if you want to buy more on the same terms all right.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS., _May 10, 19--_
DEAR TED:
If I'd had time before I left Exeter last week, you and I would have had a heart to heart talk about some of those freak books and magazines I found strewn all over your room.
"Equalization of the Masses," "The Worker's Share," and "The Exploitation of the People," are heavy-sounding titles, and the contents, I should judge from my hurried examination, would be about as easy to digest as a bake-shop plum pudding.
Your study table also seemed to be carrying more than its share of long-haired magazines, and although I read some of their foolishness just to see how foolish they really were, I was afraid all the time I was looking at them, some one would come in and catch me.
Now I've read a considerable number of fool articles in my life, but that one on "Soviet Government for the United States," wins in a walk. How anybody outside of Danvers could believe in such nonsense is beyond me, especially after what has happened in Russia, but as old Jed Bigelow used to say, "There ain't nothin' so foolish but some critter will believe it," and Jed was right.
When you told me a few weeks ago you had joined the Radical Club, I thought it was just a kid fad you'd taken up to have a little something extra to do, but I didn't imagine you'd started in to support all the crack-brained, long-haired, wild-eyed writers who are making a living out of the good nature of this country.
Radicalism is mighty dangerous business Ted, about as safe as smoking cigarettes in a patent leather factory, and if I really thought you believed you were in sympathy with all that nonsense I'd whale you good.
The trouble with you is you're just beginning to think a little for yourself. Now thinking for yourself is fine, but until you begin to direct your thoughts in the right direction you're a good deal like the cannon Uncle Abijah invented during the Spanish War. It was a first-rate gun when he could control it, but it was as likely to kill the people behind it as those at whom it was aimed, so Uncle Abijah gave it up as a bad job after it had blown off most of his whiskers and a couple of fingers.
These radical galoots who want to tip everything in the country upside down from the constitution to the movies get under my hide, and if I had my way I'd make everyone of them work at least eight hours a day and bathe oftener than every thirty-first of February.
It makes me mad clear through, to see these snakes who leave their own countries because the sheriff wants 'em, busy before the immigration authorities can disinfect 'em, plotting to overthrow the government who gives 'em the only chance they ever had.
In a republic all men are born equal, but that's all. It's nonsense to suppose that a good for nothing loafer who makes his living by stirring up hatred against law and order, is the equal of a decent, God-fearing, hard-working citizen, who minds his own business, pays taxes, and tries to raise a family of straight Americans, and if anyone tries to tell me two such men are equal, I'll let him know mighty quick I think he's either a liar or a blame fool.
A lot of children cut open their dolls to see what's inside, and a lot of folks who ought to know better are monkeying around with this radicalism business to see what's in it. I can tell you what's in it: "Nothing!" and working to promote nothing is a fool's job.
Now you may think I'm too conservative, but I believe that when Thomas Jefferson & Co. wrote the constitution of the United States they did a pretty fair job, and until some one can improve on it, which hasn't been done yet, I'm backing up the old constitution with every bit of my strength.
Whenever I hear of anyone becoming interested in radicalism, it always reminds me of an old fellow by the name of Charlie Gabb who lived in Epping. Now Gabb was rightly named, for he used to hang around Sol. Whittaker's store filling the place with hot air, until Sol. nailed chicken wire over the top of his cracker barrels.
Gabb was against everything as it was. Nothing was right, work included, I guess, for he was never known to do any, and was supported by a long-suffering wife who used to earn their living by going out working by the day. He was agin the government, and agin all law, and claimed all wealth should be divided equally among the people. There wasn't anything he couldn't improve on, but as he was harmless in spite of all his talk, no one paid any serious attention to him.
Gabb went on talking for a number of years, without exciting any of the Epping folks over much, and then the woolen mill was built, and a lot of Poles came to town to work in it.
They were hard working, saving sort of people, but as they had only just come over from Poland where I imagine they had a pretty rough time with the Germans on one side and the Russians on the other, both trying to rob them of everything they had, they were down on all governments on general principles, and it wasn't long before old Gabb had made a big impression on them. I don't know as they could be blamed for Gabb could talk louder, and longer, and faster, than anyone else I ever heard, and I'll admit that some of the stuff he had to offer sounded pretty well, until one sat down and started to figure out what it really meant.
Those Poles couldn't have understood much Gabb said, but it sort of flattered them to have an American take any notice of them, so in a short time Gabb became their leader, and used to gather them all together twice a week, on the common, and give them a harangue that would make your hair curl.
Then Epping got the surprise of its life, for one day the Poles quit the woolen mill in a body, and under old Gabb's leadership hiked over to a deserted village five miles back in the hills, where they lived a community life sharing everything alike.
This was a splendid arrangement for Gabb, for never having had anything, when it came time to divide up what there was, Gabb got a little something from each family, and owning nothing himself he didn't have anything to give away. Then, too, as chief of the tribe, he was allotted the best house, and was altogether much better off than he had ever been in his life.
For a time, the village prospered, for the Poles were workers, and weren't afraid to put in a little overtime when their farms needed it, and old Gabb whenever he drove over to Epping used to crow over the success of his socialistic experiment.
Now Gabb had a brother who lived at Bristol Centre, who was a regular fellow, and couldn't see the Epping member of his family with a telescope. The Bristol Centre Gabb had worked hard all his life, and owned one of the largest hog ranches in New England. One day, this brother who was a bachelor died, and Charlie suddenly found himself the owner of a farm and about two thousand hogs.
Now if Charlie Gabb really believed what he'd been preaching for years, he'd have divided up his farm and two thousand hogs among the Poles, who'd been more or less supporting him, but he did nothing of the kind. He left his socialistic friends and moved over to Bristol Centre, taking possession of his brother's farm, hogs, and all.
The Poles heard of their leader's good fortune and waited patiently for him to divide. Nothing doing. Finally, a committee went over and asked old Gabb when the grand division of pigs was to take place, and he chased them off his farm with a pitchfork.
A week later, in the middle of the night, Epping was awakened by the greatest yelling, and squeaking, and grunting, that was ever heard in one place in the history of the world.
The Poles had raided old Gabb's hog farm, and were driving through Epping what they considered their share of his property.
Old Gabb was trailing along behind, cursing and howling for the sheriff, who when he heard what had happened couldn't be found, although I remember seeing him hanging out his window in his night shirt, laughing so hard I thought he'd bust.
Old Gabb started about a hundred lawsuits, but everyone sympathized with the Poles, and as one pig looks about as much like another as two peas do, Gabb couldn't swear to his property, so he lost every case. From the time of the great pig raid until he died, Gabb was the staunchest conservative in the country, and if anyone mentioned socialism to him he nearly had a fit.
Now, Ted, you are going to cut out this radical business pronto, toot sweet, and at once, and if I don't hear from you within a week that you have resigned from that Radical Club and severed diplomatic relations with that sort of nonsense, you'll leave Exeter so quick you won't know what hit you, for as long as I'm head of the Soule tribe, no member of my family is going to do anything that can in any manner be regarded as harmful to the country that our grandfathers fought for from Bunker Hill to Gettysburg.
I know that it is curiosity that has interested you in radicalism. Well, try to realize that in these trying days when the whole future of the world is at stake, every American no matter how young, has as stern a duty to perform in upholding law and order as ever our continentals had at Valley Forge.
Organize an American Club. Get together the biggest boys you can and start a club to teach the young foreigners who work in the mills and factories that America gives a square deal to all.
Show these young fellows through teaching them our American sports, that clean playing and good sportsmanship are two of the biggest things in life. Help teach them to build up, not tear down. You Exeter boys are only boys, and yet as Americans there is nothing you cannot accomplish; and God knows that to help in every possible way, the newcomers among us, to understand our American ideals is as great a privilege as was given to the boys who went "over there," that liberty might not perish from the earth.
Make me proud of you my boy, not ashamed. Make me feel that when I take down the old family Bible and turn to its fly leaf, where the history of our family has been written for generations, that in time your name will be worthy of a place beside those of our men who did their part in making the United States the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Play up Ted! You're one of the country's pinch hitters, and I know you can be depended upon to deliver.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS., _May 26, 19--_
DEAR TED:
You can't imagine how proud I am of this new American Club of yours, and the school is too, if the letters I received from the principal, and most of the professors are good indications of what they feel. The Boston papers have taken it up, and as you have probably seen, Andover is forming an American Club for the young foreigners in the Lawrence mills, and yesterday when I met the Governor, he asked to be introduced to you when he speaks in Lynn next week.
This sort of work is so much more worth while than the radical business, I know you can't help feeling you're a better American for having undertaken it, and you may be sure that when you are older, you'll get a heap of satisfaction out of the thought, that there are a lot of good Americans who might have grown up to be trouble makers, if you and your friends hadn't helped to steer them into good citizenship.
If I were you, I'd accept the principal's offer for the use of the vacant room in the Administration Building. Fit it up as a reading room with a lot of the best magazines, histories of the United States, and lives of famous Americans for the young foreigners who can read English, and get some of the instructors to help teach the ones who can't. Thursday I'll send you a check for $200 which I've raised among a few friends. This will help buy the books, so in the fall when school reopens, you'll be ready to start things with a rush.
As to where you are going to college when you finish school, I wouldn't worry about that now if I were you. Finish school first, by then you'll probably know where you want to go.
I've always found it a pretty good rule to follow, never to worry about another job, until I've finished the one I'm working on. There are lots of people who make themselves sick worrying about things that never happen, when they might as well save their doctor's bills and enjoy life.
Personally, I think it doesn't make much difference where you go, as long as you go to college to do a fair amount of work, and not just to play football and have a good time.
There are a lot of advantages in going to one of the big universities, where you can study anything from Egyptian Hair Dressing in the fourth century B. C., to the vibrations caused by an airplane flying at one hundred miles an hour, and where you have the advantage of wonderful libraries, museums, and laboratories, to help you in your work.
Then again, the small college with its solid academic course, based principally on honest to goodness horse sense, is a pretty good place, for not having fifty-seven varieties of courses, it's apt to rub thoroughly into a boy's hide what it does have to offer.
When the time comes for you to go to college I'm not going to interfere, I am going to let you make your own choice; but as that time is nearly two years away, I'd do a little more thinking about how you are going to pass your final exams, this year, than worrying about what college you are going to enter a year from next fall.
You remind me of a clerk, by the name of Charlie Harris, I once had in the factory. Charlie was a good, hard working boy, came to me right from high school, and as he didn't seem to have a grudge against the hands of the clock because they moved slowly, and was always willing to do a little more than his share of the work, I became interested in him.
Charlie had one queer trick, though, he was never satisfied with finishing the job he had on hand, but was forever worrying about the next bit of work he might have to do, not worrying mind you, because he had the next job coming to him. As I said before Charlie wasn't afraid of work, but he was always afraid something was going to queer the future job, before he could get to it, and get it finished.
One winter, when you were a little chap, my shipper got the grippe and was out for three months. I wished his job on Charlie, and Charlie made good although you never would have thought so from the length of his face. Our shipments were sent out on time, well packed, and properly routed, but Charlie was as doleful as a rejected suitor at a pretty girl's wedding.
There wasn't a day, he didn't come in and spill gloom all over my office, prophesying that soon every thing would go wrong. Nothing happened though, so I used to laugh at him, and tell him to forget it.
Early in February, I was due to make a big shipment of shoes to a jobbers' warehouse on or before March first.
Everything had gone smoothly. I'd had no labor troubles, had bought my stock right, and stood to make a nice juicy profit, for on the first day of February all the shoes were in cases in the shipping room, ready to start on their journey to Chicago.
On the night of the second, it started to snow, for three days it came down in perfect clouds burying Lynn four feet deep.
For three days traffic was completely stalled, for although the snow was wet and sticky when the storm started, along in the afternoon of the second day, it turned cold, with the result that the whole mass turned into ice, and made it impossible to clear the streets.
Still I wasn't worrying any, for Jim Devlin my old truckman, I knew, would be among the first to do business as soon as it was possible to get through the streets, and I still had several days leeway before my shoes must start for Chicago.
On the morning of the fifth day when pungs were beginning to get around, Charlie gloomed into my office, and informed me that Devlin hadn't a single team on runners, having the previous fall traded off all his pungs for drays. Devlin had been so sure he could hire enough pungs to take care of our big shipment, he hadn't even told us the fix he was in, until having tried every teamster and livery stable within miles of Lynn, he found he couldn't get a single one. Everybody wanted pungs, and the truckmen who owned any were rushing theirs night and day to take care of their regular customers.
I tried to borrow from everyone I knew, with no luck, for all the shoe manufacturers had use for every pung they could get their hands on to get their own shoes to the freight yards. Finally, I gave up in disgust, and sat down to figure out my loss, when I happened to glance out the window of my office, that looks out on the alley that leads to our shipping room door.
There were about three hundred kids lined up there, each one with a sled, and I wondered what in the world they were up to, when one staggered around the corner of our building, dragging a sled after him, on which was perched a shoe case with "The Princess Shoe," stencilled in red letters across the top.
I let out a whoop, and dove for the shipping room, where I found Charlie and his crew as busy as ants, tying cases of shoes onto the kids sleds as fast as the boys backed them up to the shipping-room door.
Before night, every case of shoes had been delivered to the freight yards, and Charlie's pay had been increased $10 a week, but the next morning when I reached the factory, I found him almost weeping because he was afraid that when the snow melted it would flood our shipping room which in those days was level with the street.
For five years after that, I used Charlie as a sort of pinch hitter around the factory giving him all sorts of work, but never letting him know what his next job was to be, and as he couldn't worry about what was coming, he more than made good.
Ted, any real college is a good college. It's all up to you, for so far as I know, there's nothing to prevent you learning a lot in any one of them. The thing for you to do for the next two years, is to study hard at Exeter, then when it comes time to take your exams, you needn't be afraid about being able to get into any college you choose.
I'll be in Exeter Saturday to have a look at your American Club, and at his special request I'm bringing the Governor's private secretary with me. So long old boy.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS., _June 8, 19--_
DEAR TED:
If the super. had come in, and told me the hands were going to strike, unless I lowered the piecework rates, I wouldn't have been more surprised, than I was at your last letter. It was some shock; and at first I couldn't believe you were serious; after re-reading it I see you are, and I guess a few hints from the old man may help relieve the pain a bit, for it's as plain as your Aunt Sarah you're going to suffer, no matter how your love affair turns out.
To me, the idea of your really being in love, seems as impossible as Trotsky being elected Alderman by the Beacon Hill Ward of Boston, but it doesn't take a specialist to diagnose the symptoms, and from the stuff you have spilled all over the pages of your last letter, I should say you had an acute case with a fever going on 105 degrees.
Now, I say no matter how things turn out it is going to be painful, and at your age and vast experience of life, it can only turn out one way, and that's a broken heart for you for about a week, and then a gradual interest in life, until two weeks from now the outcome of the baseball game with Andover, will be even more important to you than how to get enough to eat between meals.
There's one thing you have done though Ted, you've played fair with the old man, and that's entered on the credit side of your ledger, although you may not think so when you've finished this letter. I am glad you introduced me to the girl at the game last Saturday, and I assure you I enjoyed every minute of her society, and would again, for she and I had a lot in common, both of us being practical business men. But when it comes to having her for a daughter-in-law, I can think up more reasons for not wanting her, than a jobber can for refusing to stock a line of shoes he feels may be out of style, before he can unload them on the retailer.
In the first place, Ted, I should judge she is slightly older than you, about eight years is my guess, and although eight years is all right when it's on the man's side, it's apt to be pretty awkward when your wife is constantly referred to by strangers as your mother; likely to make you feel foolish, and the lady peevish; and about the time you'll be thinking of changing from tennis to golf, she'll be changing from one piece dresses to wrappers, and wrappers never yet kept a man's eyes from straying in other directions.
Miss Shepard is good looking, I'll admit; real attractiveness though in spite of the soap advertisements and beauty doctors, is more than skin deep, and you must remember that no matter how perfect a surface a thing has, it's the quality underneath that counts.
After all there's not much difference between girls and sole leather. A run of leather on the warehouse floor, may look like nice profits, and when it's cut you find it didn't figure out at all as you expected; and a girl may look like a June morning before marriage, and turn out an equinoctial storm afterwards.
A smart shoe man, doesn't buy a block of leather without sizing up what's under the grain, and a young man when looking around for steady company can well do likewise. I don't want you to think I have anything against good looks, I haven't and if you can get them with other qualities, all right. It must be tough, to have to sit opposite a face at breakfast, that curdles the milk in your coffee, but better that and sizzling ham and eggs, than a rose bud for looks, and cold oatmeal.
Your lady-love didn't strike me as a young woman of means, and as for your capital, it consists principally of some loud clothes and a fair knowledge of football, neither being what you might call liquid assets, when it comes to setting up housekeeping. And speaking of housekeeping, do you think she is the kind of girl, who would enjoy getting three squares a day, running the vacuum cleaner in between, with dish washing and mending as side lines?