"What? You brought up in the country, an' not know what a 'throw-in' is? Why, when a man buys somethin', he gen'rally says, 'What ye goin' to throw in?' That means, 'What are you goin' to give me for comin' here instead of buyin' somewhere else?' When it's stuff for clothes, there's no trouble, for any merchant throws in thread and buttons to make it up if it's men's goods, or thread an' hooks an' eyes if it's women's. Up at Bustpodder's store they throw in a drink o' whiskey whenever a man buys anythin' that costs a quarter or more, an' it draws lots o' trade; but your uncle never worked for drinkin' men's trade, unless for cash, so we've never kept liquor, but that made him all the keener to get other throw-ins. One year 'twas wooden pipes for men, an' little balls of gum-camphor for women. Then 'twas hair-ile for young men an' young women. Whatever 'twas, 'twas sure to be somethin' kind o' new, an' go-to-the-spotty. Shouldn't wonder if your wife, havin' been in a big store, might think of a lot o' new throw-ins for women-folks. But that's only a beginnin'."
"H'm! Now tell me everything I ought to do that I haven't been doing."
"Well, in the first place, when you meet a customer, you want to get a tight grip on him, somehow, 'fore he leaves. Then you want to get into your mind how much each one owes you, an' ask when he's goin' to begin to bring in his produce. None of the men on our books mean to be dishonest; but if you don't keep 'em in mind of their accounts at this time o' year, some of 'em may sell their stuff to somebody else for cash, an' country folks with cash in their pockets is likely to think more of what they'd like to buy than what they owe. I reckon, from some things I've heerd, that some city folks are that way too."
"Quite likely. Well?"
"Well, if say a dozen of your biggest country customers sell for cash an' don't bring you the money, you'll find yourself in a hole about your own bills, for some of your customers are on the books for three or four hundred apiece. Your uncle sold 'em all he could, for he knew their ways an' that he could bring 'em to time."
"H'm! Suppose they fail to pay after having been trusted a full year, isn't the law good for anything?"
"Oh, yes; but sue a customer an' you lose a customer, an' there ain't any too many in this county, at best. Now, your uncle made sure, before he died, about all of 'm whose principal crop was wheat; but the wheat's then brought in an' sold, an' most of the money for it, after his own bills were paid, was in the check the lawyers sent you. The rest of the customers raised mostly corn an' pork,—most gen'rally both, for the easiest way to get corn to market is to put it into pork; twenty bushels o' corn, weighin' over a thousan' poun's, makes two hundred pound o' pork, an' five times less haulin'; besides, pork's always good for cash, but sometimes you can't hardly give corn away. Queer about corn; lot's o' folks that's middlin' sensible about a good many things seems to think that corn's only fit to feed to hogs an' niggers. Why, some o' 'em's made me so touchy about it that I've took travellin' business men up into my room, over the store, an' give 'em a meal o' nothin' but corn an' pork, worked up in half a dozen ways, an' it seemed as if they couldn't eat enough, but I couldn't see that the price o' corn went up afterwards. I'd like to try a meal o' that kind on you an' your wife some day. If the world took as easy to corn when it's ground into meal as when it's turned into whiskey, this section o' country would get rich."
"I shouldn't wonder if it would. But what else?"