A druggist advertised for an assistant, and he had applications from a score of young man. He invited them all to come to his shop at the same time, and set them each to make up a pennyworth of salts into a packet. He selected the one that did this little thing in the neatest and most expert manner. He inferred their general practical ability from their performance of this smallest bit of business.
Neglect of little things has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises. The ship which bore home the merchant's treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom. For want of a nail the shoe of the aide-de-camp's horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp himself was lost, for the enemy took him and killed him; and for want of the aide-de camp's intelligence, the army of his general was lost: and all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in a horse's shoe!
"It will do!" is the common phrase of those who neglect little things. "It will do!" has blighted many a character, blasted many a fortune, sunk many a ship, burnt down many a house, and irretrievably ruined thousands of hopeful projects of human good. It always means stopping short of the right thing. It is a makeshift. It is a failure and defeat. Not what "will do," but what is the best possible thing to do,—is the point to be aimed at! Let a man once adopt the maxim of "It will do," and he is given over to the enemy,—he is on the side of incompetency and defeat,—and we give him up as a hopeless subject!
M. Say, the French political economist, has related the following illustration of the neglect of little things. Once, at a farm in the country, there was a gate enclosing the cattle and poultry, which was constantly swinging open for want of a proper latch. The expenditure of a penny or two, and a few minutes' time, would have made all right. It was on the swing every time a person went out, and not being in a state to shut readily, many of the poultry were from time to time lost. One day a fine young porker made his escape, and the whole family, with the gardener, cook, and milkmaid, turned out in quest of the fugitive. The gardener was the first to discover the pig, and in leaping a ditch to cut off his escape, got a sprain that kept him to his bed for a fortnight. The cook, on her return to the farm-house, found the linen burnt that she had hung up before the fire to dry; and the milkmaid, having forgotten in her haste to tie up the cattle in the cow-house, one of the loose cows had broken the leg of a colt that happened to be kept in the same shed. The linen burnt and the gardener's work lost were worth full five pounds, and the colt worth nearly double that money: so that here was a loss in a few minutes of a large sum, purely for want of a little latch which might have been supplied for a few halfpence. Life is full of illustrations of a similar kind. When small things are habitually neglected, ruin is not far off. It is the hand of the diligent that maketh rich; and the diligent man or woman is attentive to small things as well as great. The things may appear very little and insignificant, yet attention to them is as necessary as to matters of greater moment.
Take, for instance, the humblest of coins—a penny. What is the use of that little piece of copper—a solitary penny? What can it buy? Of what use is it? It is half the price of a glass of beer. It is the price of a box of matches. It is only fit for giving to a beggar. And yet how much of human happiness depends upon the spending of the penny well.
A man may work hard, and earn high wages; but if he allows the pennies, which are the result of hard work, to slip out of his fingers—some going to the beershop, some this way, and some that,—he will find that his life of hard work is little raised above a life of animal drudgery. On the other hand, if he take care of the pennies—putting some weekly into a benefit society or an insurance fund, others into a savings bank, and confides the rest to his wife to be carefully laid out, with a view to the comfortable maintenance and culture of his family,—he will soon find that his attention to small matters will abundantly repay him, in increasing means, in comfort at home, and in a mind comparatively free from fears as to the future.
All savings are made up of little things. "Many a little makes a mickle." Many a penny makes a pound. A penny saved is the seed of pounds saved. And pounds saved mean comfort, plenty, wealth, and independence. But the penny must be earned honestly. It is said that a penny earned honestly is better than a shilling given. A Scotch proverb says, "The gear that is gifted is never sae sweet as the gear that is won." What though the penny be black? "The smith and his penny are both black." But the penny earned by the smith is an honest one.
If a man does not know how to save his pennies or his pounds, his nose will always be kept to the grindstone. Want may come upon him any day, "like an armed man." Careful saving acts like magic: once begun, it grows into habit. It gives a man a feeling of satisfaction, of strength, of security. The pennies he has put aside in his savings box, or in the savings bank, give him an assurance of comfort in sickness, or of rest in old age. The man who saves has something to weather-fend him against want; while the man who saves not has nothing between him and bitter, biting poverty.
A man may be disposed to save money, and lay it by for sickness or for other purposes; but he cannot do this unless his wife lets him, or helps him. A prudent, frugal, thrifty woman is a crown of glory to her husband. She helps him in all his good resolutions; she may, by quiet and gentle encouragement, bring out his better qualities; and by her example she may implant in him noble principles, which are the seeds of the highest practical virtues.
The Rev. Mr. Owen, formerly of Bilston,—a good friend and adviser of working people,—used to tell a story of a man who was not an economist, but was enabled to become so by the example of his wife. The man was a calico-printer at Manchester, and he was persuaded by his wife, on their wedding-day, to allow her two half-pints of ale a day, as her share. He rather winced at the bargain, for, though a drinker himself, he would have preferred a perfectly sober wife. They both worked hard; and he, poor man, was seldom out of the public-house as soon as the factory was closed.