"If you want my opinion," said the grocer, when he was called upon, "I think Ab Morgan has worked the hardest for this prize. He has proved the truth of his motto beyond a doubt, for he has made a success of his garden, and has never slacked up a day. He has made a nice little pile of money, too, and I would recommend him to any business man in this town as an example of diligence. I'll be glad to have him clerk for me any time he gets ready to come."
"I think that little Todd Walters has made the best choice," said the druggist. "You see, he has been selling fly-paper for me all summer on commission, and I've had a chance to see the inner workings. People are always coming to me with some pleasant thing to say about him. He's certainly won the 'loving favour' of all he's had anything to do with, whether they were his customers or not, and the good name he has made for himself will stick to him all his life.
"He had a lemonade stand at the baseball game last week, and I heard Doctor Streeter say to a friend: 'Come on, Bill, let's go over and get a glass,—patronize the little fellow.' The man said, 'No, thank you, doc, none of that weak circus stuff for me,—acid and colouring matter and sweetened water. I've been an enterprising boy myself, and know how it's done.'
"'I assure you it's all right if Todd Walters made it,' answered the doctor. 'I'm willing to guarantee him to any extent. He's "all wool and a yard wide" in everything he does, and, if you don't find his lemonade is pure stuff, made of real lemons, my name is not James Streeter. That little fellow has the respect and confidence of everybody who knows him, and I'd trust him with anything I've got.'"
"That's all right as far as it goes," interrupted the grocer, "but he hasn't made as much money as Ab. Ab has furnished straight goods, too, and has never misrepresented things."
"Yes," answered the druggist, "but the almighty dollar has been his sole aim and ambition. He has been selfish and miserly in the pursuit of it, and money is all he has gained. Now Todd has been industrious enough, and gone about his business quite as faithfully as Ab, but instead of putting his head down like a dog on the scent of a rabbit, he has had some thought of the people he passed. I like that in a business man. Aside from any ethical consideration, a man makes more in the long run if he cares for the good-will of his customers as well as their cash."
"What have you to say on the subject, Mr. Brown?" asked the judge, turning to the proprietor of the livery-stable.
"Well, my choice is for Chicky Wiggins," answered the man, tipping back his chair and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "I may not have as much book-learning as these other gentlemen, but there's one thing that I do know when I see it, and that's a good steady gait either of a horse or a man. Now Chicky is no thoroughbred, and he'll probably never beat the record of them that is, but I've kept an eye on him this summer, and I tell you he's developing the traits that win every time. Last spring, when the judge made this offer, he was as skittish and unreliable as a young colt. I wouldn't have trusted him around the corner to do an errand for me. I've known him ever since he put on the district messenger uniform, and I wouldn't have given one of his own brass buttons for him. I've come across him too many times, when he'd been sent on an errand, stopping to play marbles and fly kites with the other boys.
"But since he's took up with that motto of his, he's settled down in the harness as steady as a ten-year-old horse. Now I notice if there's anything specially important to be done, Chicky's the one they pick out. There's something almost pitiful in the way he's been trying, when you recollect he has never had any raising, and has shifted for himself all his life. I don't really believe that it's to get the wheel that has made such a change in him as the idea of being faithful in every little thing has taken such a holt on him. I've known him to walk two miles to straighten out the matter of a penny or a postage-stamp.
"I'm not saying but that the other fellows' mottoes are best for them that likes them, but, if I was a-hunting somebody that I could tie to through thick and thin, in any kind of business, and under every kind of circumstance, I'll be blamed if I wouldn't rather choose somebody that was a-living up to Chicky's text in dead earnest."