“Off on polysyllables!” thought his wife. She cut in briskly, with the effect of scissors snipping in two a slowly unwinding tape, “It’s the mail-order houses and the ten-cent stores we’re afraid of. It’s frightful how they steal the business of country people away from where it belongs. The first thing that has to be done is to give them our dust. And it can be done by making the store known for such good personal service and such real attention to customers’ needs that they’ll enjoy coming to the store. And once they’re inside the doors....”
“After all, how even the best of women see things in a little, narrow, concrete way!” thought Mr. Willing. “Nothing big and constructive in their minds.” Aloud he said with simplicity and dignity, “I was brought up on a farm myself, Mrs. Knapp, and a very poor farm. And I have a very special feeling about our country customers. I know how few occasions there are in farm life for civilized mingling with our fellow-men, how little brightness and color there is in country life. It is my ambition to make every trip to our store as educative as an afternoon tea-party for the women-folk on a farm. And I want every purchase at our counters to help every fine big farm-boy to shuck off his awkward countrified ways that put him at such a disadvantage beside any measly, little, cock-sure, tenement-house rat!” Experiences of his own past burned in his voice, “We’re counting on you, Mrs. Knapp, to train your girls to have just the right manner with country customers. You know, cordial, but respectful, friendly, but no soft-soap business.”
“I know just what you mean!” Evangeline burst out suddenly, with such an earnest conviction that they stopped talking for an instant to enjoy her oneness with them. Yes, she would do. She would do.
“My ideal,” said Jerome, “is service. What I want the store to be is a little piece of the modern world at its best, set down within reach of all this fine American population around us. I want to select for them the right things, the things they never could select for themselves for lack of training. With modern methods such as my wife and I are familiar with, a quicker turn-over with better salespeople, we can raise—not wages—but commissions to keep efficiency up to the notch. And we can lower prices and sell goods that will put our people on a level with big-city people. For I have long felt, Mrs. Knapp, that the alarming American exodus to the cities comes from a nagging sensation of inferiority that would disappear with the possession of really satisfactory merchandise. You see,” he said, smiling at her, “that in our small way, we will all be contributing to the highest interests of the country.”
“Of course on a sound business basis,” put in his wife.
“Oh, of course on a sound business basis,” repeated the proprietor of the store.
The three shook hands on it with unanimity.
Chapter 19
WITH her materials and patterns laid out on the dining-room table, Mattie Farnham was trying to cut out a dress for her Margaret, an undertaking which was going jerkily because of the arrival, seriatim, of the children from school. They came in at different times, as suited their different ages and their rank in the hierarchy of grades. Little Jim in the first grade was free at two, Loren in the fourth was turned loose at three, and Margaret and Ellen appeared soon after four. The hour of the arrival varied, but the manner was identical: a clatter of hurried feet on the porch, the bursting open of the door, and the questing yell of “Mother! Mo-o-other!”
Mattie always answered with an “Oo-hoo!” on two notes, adding, “in the di-i-ining-room!” but she never waited for them to come to find her. She always laid down her work and all thought of it and hastened to give the returned wanderer a hug and kiss and run an anxious eye over his aspect to see what had happened to him during his day out in the world.