Take It from Dad

by George Griswold Livermore

The next winter, I had a hunch that women's fall styles would run heavy on calfskin, so I loaded up with a hundred thousand pairs of heavyweight cut soles and patted myself on the back that I had put one over on the trade. A few weeks later, the buyers made so loud a noise about Vici Kid a deaf mute could have heard 'em.

There I was, caught flatfooted with a hundred thousand pairs of soles stored in the basement, and the market on them dropping every day so fast I got dizzy when I tried to figure out how much I stood to lose.

I tried to take a loss and turn them back to the manufacturer. Nothing doing, nor would any other cut sole house take them except at a price that would have come near to busting me. Next I tried the manufacturers of women's shoes, not a chance. Then as the soles ran pretty heavy I tried boys' makers, again nothing doing.

I was getting desperate, for I had a lot of money tied up in those soles, and so far as I could see I was liable to own 'em for some time unless the sheriff took 'em.

One morning, I happened to think of Al Lippincott. You know his factory in Dover, the red one you can see from the station? Al makes a line of boys' and youths', but he is the hardest buyer in the whole trade, a regular rip tearing snorter who begins to yell the minute a salesman steps into his office, and keeps it up until the salesman either wants to lick him or to beat it.

I got Al on the long distance, and finally, after his usual outburst that nearly melted the wire, he allowed he was going to be in Lynn that afternoon and would drop in.

I went home feeling somewhat better, but while I was eating lunch the telephone rang, and I learned your Ma had been badly smashed up in an automobile accident, and had been taken to the Salem Hospital.

I never thought of Al again until I was going to bed that night, and then I was so worried about your Ma I didn't care much whether he'd called or not.

The next morning, when I rolled back the top of my desk, I found an order for the whole hundred thousand pairs of cut soles made out in Charlie Dean's handwriting and billed to Al Lippincott at two cents a pair more than I had paid for 'em.