What Happened to Another Junk Dealer
On another occasion a young scion of a prosperous junk dealer started out with a high powered automobile to make a quick collection of burlap grain sacks which at that time were in demand at very high prices. Naturally he did not care to pay much for these bags and he was not taken very seriously by the up-to-date farmers whom he visited. Passing into an unfamiliar section he asked the manager of a large farm whom he had been annoying by his persistent methods, as to how he could reach a certain neighborhood not far away where there were a group of large dairy farms. He received directions and shortly after appeared at one of these farms complaining bitterly of the state of the highway. The man who listened to his complaint could not understand why he had found such bad roads. A little questioning demonstrated the fact that in his disgust at the unwillingness of the opulent junk man to take “no” for an answer, the manager of the farm before mentioned had directed him to take a crossroad which was considered locally as practically impassable, even for a farm wagon. The commercial tourist succeeded in making his perilous way across to a place of safety but he narrowly escaped heart failure.
To those of rural districts who seldom travel far from the home fireside, there are suggestions of possible interest and entertainment in conversing with strange frequenters of the highway. This was especially true of earlier days when, because of frugal habits and rather unsatisfactory public roads, unfamiliar faces in the highways were few indeed.