Mr. Robbins, who had once been a poor boy, and who had earned every dollar he possessed by his own unaided efforts, thought that every youth ought to learn how to take care of himself; so as soon as Gus and Bob (that was the name of Gus’s younger brother) had completed the course at the High School, they were placed in the store, given the free use of the money they earned and assured that they would be promoted and their wages increased as fast as their services would warrant. They each received two hundred and fifty dollars a year, and that was fifty dollars more than inexperienced clerks had ever before been paid in that store; but Gus declared that it was but little better than nothing at all. He had some very grand ideas, and was frequently heard to say that he did not intend to be a dry goods’ clerk all his life.
“I don’t want you to be,” said his father, who one day happened to be standing near when Gus made this declaration. “Clerks are necessary, but if you have brains and energy enough to work your way up higher, I shall be only be too glad to see you do it. I hope you will some day be a prosperous merchant; but you never can be unless you know all about business. In order to learn it you must begin at the beginning.”
“And work for two hundred and fifty dollars,” said Gus. “How is a fellow to get rich on that, I’d like to know?”
“By saving; that is the only way.”
“But I have nothing to save. After I drew my wages last month I bought a suit of clothes, and a dollar—just one little dollar—was all I had to show for twenty-six days’ work.”
“And what did you do with that one little dollar?”
“I—I believe I spent it.”
“Of course you did. If you had saved it you would have been just a dollar ahead.”
“And if I saved a dollar every month, I should have just twelve dollars at the end of the year,” said Gus. “That’s a magnificent sum.”
“But you don’t need a suit of new clothes every thirty days, and most of the time you could save more than a dollar a month. The amount of your savings is not so important as it is that you should get in the way of saving something—no matter how small the amount may be. If you begin by saving four dollars every month, you will find it just as easy after a while to save eight; for good habits, like bad ones, grow stronger every day.”