At the store Tom had been making strides. As yet there had been no mention of a raise in wages; he was still receiving his two dollars a week and being credited with fifty cents against the price of the pump; but he had progressed wonderfully. To be sure, he still swept and washed windows and ran an occasional errand, but he was at last a real clerk when those duties did not engage his attention. It had begun when Tom had acted on Sidney’s suggestion and explained to Mr. Cummings that it might be a good plan to keep hockey sticks as well as skates. Mr. Cummings had fallen in with the idea at once and had ordered the sticks. Unfortunately they had proved, on arrival, to be rather inferior and purchasers had objected to them.
“Well,” said Mr. Cummings when Tom reported the matter, “you find out what make of stick the boys want and let me know. This is your undertaking, Tom.”
So Tom found out where the best hockey sticks were made and a new consignment was ordered. Gradually pucks and all the paraphernalia of hockey were added and, in some way, the sale of those things became Tom’s especial task. Boys who came for skates or sticks or leg-guards or pucks sought him out and didn’t want to be waited on by anyone else. Mr. Cummings laughingly referred to “Tom’s Department.” But “Tom’s Department” made such a good showing by the middle of the winter that Mr. Cummings was both surprised and gratified. After that Tom had only to list an article wanted and Mr. Cummings sent in the order at once. There was no question as to the advisability of carrying it.
The last of February, Joe Gillig caught a heavy cold and took to bed with congestion of the lungs, and Tom suddenly found himself elevated temporarily to the position of clerk. Mr. Cummings was at first inclined to look for someone to take Joe’s place while he was out, but Mr. Wright objected. “Let Tom do his work for him,” he said. “I guess he can sell nails as well as Joe.” Mr. Cummings agreed doubtfully, and for three weeks Tom was exempt from window washing, sweeping, and errands. At first he was a trifle alarmed at the new responsibility, but he got on perfectly well, and Mr. Cummings was forced to agree with his partner that Tom could “sell nails as well as Joe.” At the end of the fortnight he even went further than that and acknowledged that Tom promised to become in time a much better salesman than Joe. For Tom took a great deal of pains to please customers; and those who looked askance at him at first on account of his youthfulness and showed a preference for being waited on by one of the partners soon changed their minds. Tom was somehow able to take a personal interest in the wants of even the humblest patron and forked out two pounds of ten-penny nails with as much care and attention as he would have displayed in filling a hundred-dollar order. If a customer wanted an article not in stock and which Tom believed he could obtain from another store, he did not, as Joe would have done, carelessly inform the purchaser that they were out of it. Tom said: “We haven’t that in just now, sir, but I’ll see that you have it this afternoon, if that will do. Where shall I send it?” Then at dinner time Tom scurried around to one or another of the rival stores, found the article, paid for it, and sent it out on the afternoon delivery. The first time he did this he presented his bill to Miss Miller and was reimbursed. Not long afterward Mr. Wright came across the item and made inquiries. Tom was called in to explain. “But what’s the use of doing a thing like that?” inquired Mr. Wright irritably. “You paid eighty-five cents for the thing and sold it at eighty-five cents. Where does the profit to us come in, young man?”
“There isn’t any profit, sir,” Tom answered. “But the customer gets what he wants, sir. It doesn’t cost us anything and maybe we keep the man’s trade. If we tell him we’re out of a certain thing, he might go to Bullard’s or Stevens and Green’s for it and keep on going there.”
Mr. Wright said “Humph!” and rattled a pen-holder. Mr. Cummings, however, nodded. “You’re right, Tom,” he said. “That’s well reasoned. You evidently think it pays to please your customers, eh?”
“Yes, sir; don’t you?” asked Tom innocently.
“I do.” Mr. Cummings smiled. “But lots of employés don’t, son. You keep on with that notion. It’s a good one. And whenever you can find something at another store that we haven’t got you get it. Have them make out a bill for it and get your money from Miss Miller. That right, Horace?”
“I guess so,” answered Mr. Wright. “Seems to me, though, we’d ought to have the thing and not be buying from other hardware stores.”
“Bless us, we can’t keep everything folks ask for! Nobody can. But, as Tom here says, there’s no need to let folks know it!”