"Well, you must get a square up-an'-down promise from each o' your customers that their pork's to come to you, you promisin' to pay cash, at full market price, for all above the amount that's owed you. You must have the cash ready, too."
"But where am I to get it?"
"Why, out of the first pork you can get in an' ship East or South. You must be smart enough to coax some of 'em to do their killin' the first week the roads freeze hard enough to haul a full load. They'll all put it off, hopin' to put a few more pounds o' weight on each hog, an' that mebbe the price'll go up a little."
"But how am I to coax them?"
"Well, there's about as many ways as customers. I'll put you up to the nature of the men, as well as I can, an' help you other ways all I can, but you must do the rest; for, as I said before, you're boss, an' they're all takin' your measure, agin next year an' afterwards. As to ways o' coaxin',—well, the best is them that don't show on their face what they be. Your uncle held one slippery customer tight by pertendin' to be mighty fond o' the man's only son, who was the old fellow's idol. Your uncle got the boy a book once in a while, an' spent lots o' spare moments answerin' the youngster's questions, for your uncle knew a lot about a good many things. There was another customer that thought all money spent on women's clothes was money throwed away—p'raps 'twas 'cause his wife was more'n ordinary good-lookin', an' liked to show off. One year, in one of our goods boxes from the East, was a piece of silk dress-goods that would have put your eyes out. Black silk was the only kind that ever came here before, and it had always been satisfyin'. Next to plenty o' religion and gum-camphor, a black silk dress is what ev'ry self-respectin' woman in the county hankers for most. Well, your uncle never showed that blue an' white an' yaller an' purple an' red silk to nobody till about this time o' year; he told me not to, too, but one day, when the feller's wife was in town, an' warmin' her feet at the backroom stove, your uncle took that silk in there an' showed it, an' he see her eyes was a-devourin' it in less than a minute.
"'There's only enough of it for one dress,' said he, 'an' I ain't sure I could get any more like it. You're the style o' woman that would set it off, so you'd better take it before somebody else snaps it up.'
"'Take it?' said she, lookin' all ways to once; 'why, if I was to have that charged, my husband would go plum crazy, or else he'd send me to an asylum.'
"'Not a bit of it!' said your uncle. 'Tell you what I'll do; I'll lay that silk away, an' not show it to anybody till your husban' brings me in his pork an' we have our settlement. You come with him, an' I'll wrap up the silk for you, an' if he objects to payin' for it—oh, I know his ways, but I tell you right here, that if he objects to payin' for it, I'll make you a present of it, an' you can lay all the blame on me, sayin' I pestered you so hard that you had to take it.' Well, your uncle got the pork; the wife gave the man no peace till he promised to fetch it here, an' she got the dress, an' her husband—Hawk Howlaway, his name was,—was so tickled that he told all the county how he got the best of old Jethro."
"Pretty good—for one year, if the dress didn't cost too much."