[CHAPTER II—SECRETS OF SUCCESS]
| “I envy no man what he fairly wins; In life’s hard battle each must fight his fight; But some, methinks, are honoured for their sins, And some ignored because they do the right; Some seem to find their fortune ready-made, And others miss it, howsoe’er desired— The man’s a fool who thinks that he can grade Society by what it has acquired: The noblest souls are often least renowned; In humble homes God’s greatest men are found.” Prairie Born. |
A month’s experience in the general store business brought much new light to Burton. He had imagined that a man who stood behind the counter, wearing good clothes, talking pleasantly to ladies and joking with men, commencing work at eight in the morning and quitting, well, he didn’t just know when—such a man surely was a favoured individual. He had contrasted a business career with life on the farm: Up at five; breakfast by lamplight; cows and horses to care for in evil-smelling stables; innumerable chores before the day’s work was properly begun; then the long, heavy labour, in crackling frosts, in suns that burned the flesh like a searing iron, in miserable, damp, murkiness; in dust laden winds that filled the eyes and choked the lungs, in all the numberless vagaries of climate; the coarse clothing demanded by such a vocation; the plain fare and simple home comforts; and then, tired to the point of exhaustion, bed, which was alike the end of one day’s labours and the starting point of another round of continuous toil, irksome and often ill-requited. Such comparisons had, to some extent, influenced his decision to seek his future in a life of commercial activity; and, while he had not admitted any regret, there now were nights when he felt that a good day’s labour in the harvest field or on the plough would be a welcome and refreshing diversion. He had not guessed that a business career demanded so much physical energy; it was a new discovery to him that the closing of a difficult sale was more exhausting than forking to the top of a stack. Nevertheless, he had set his hand to the plough, and he was determined to finish the furrow, and the very knowledge that physical energy played so great a part in the commercial battle of the age came to him as an encouragement and a fresh hope. But where bodily strength and a fair degree of intelligence might, unaided, win success in agricultural pursuits, he had discovered that another element was absolutely essential in the business world. It was tact. No energy was sufficiently indomitable, no brain sufficiently farseeing and alert, to win success in the surroundings in which he now found himself without the magic touchstone of tact. Energy, intelligence, and tact; these three, but the greatest of these is tact.
It was in the middle of winter, the dull season after the Christmas trade, and before the spring activity begins, and Gardiner had allowed a higher priced clerk to go, believing that he could handle all the business with the assistance of Burton. This, although it entailed more work, was to the young man’s advantage, as it brought him into close and almost constant contact with his employer, and forced him to attempt many things that he would otherwise have left to more experienced hands. Already he found it unnecessary to summon Gardiner when a lady asked for three-quarters of a yard of velvet, cut on the bias; could discuss the merits of Dongola and calf with the assurance of an expert, and tell at a glance whether goods would “wash.” But there were other things he found more difficult to learn.
Mrs. Mandle was in search of cotton—good, strong cotton, not too dear. Burton showed her an eight-cent web which he thought conformed to her specifications. After a lengthy examination, the good lady admitted that it satisfied her in some ways, but not in others. “The price is about what I wanted,” she said, “but the quality is very poor.”
“Indeed, we have sold a great deal of that cotton, and it seems to give good satisfaction.”
“Oh, so it might, for some work, but it hardly suits me. I guess I will just step around to the Sempter Trading Company and see what they can let me have.”
“Well, look at this,” said Burton, producing another web.
“Yes, that’s about what I wanted. And what will the price on that be?”
“Ten cents.”