NECESSARY GOODS
So many folks are selling things we really do not need! They sell us pups and spiral springs, and patent chicken feed. A dozen times a day or more I have to drop my pen; some chap is ringing at the door, to sell a setting hen. A gent of rather seedy looks came to my shack today, to sell me fifty-seven books—the works of Bertha Clay. And one is selling china eyes, one deals in pewter spoons, and one would sell me whisker dyes, another, musty prunes.
I never waddle through the woods but some one comes along, and tries to sell me useless goods, with tiresome dance and song. I’m weary of the man who yells of jimcracks gone to seed; how stately is the man who sells the goods men really need! I watch the lumberman go past, upon his useful chores, to sell a mariner a mast, or fit a house with doors; his boards and beams, of seasoned wood, for helpful arts are made; he does our social fabric good when he builds up his trade.
There’s nothing in the lumber store superfluous or vain; you do not seek that dealer’s door fool doodads to obtain. And every time he sells a bill, improvements there will be; the coin he puts into his till helps the community. And when his goods are in demand, the better times have come, your town will flourish and expand, the wheels of commerce hum.
I’m tired of buying pumpkin trees, and postholes by the crate, and ostrich eggs, and swarms of bees, and tinhorn real estate. Hereafter I shall blow my roll for articles worth while, a peck of lime, a load of coal, a good large lumber pile.
THE MIXER
I know a man who deals in planks, and he has money in nine banks. He has a busy lumber booth, where he makes business hum, in sooth. And when the day of toil is o’er, he might go home and rest and snore, and put his feet upon a chair, and talk about his load of care. But when he’s had his evening meal, and read the valued Daily Squeal, he says, “Methinks I’ll go down town, and see what’s up, or maybe down.”
He takes a hand in everything that makes our home town move and swing. If boosters hold a jamboree, this lumber dealer there you’ll see, and he will on his hind legs stand, and help to boost, to beat the band.
If there’s a wedding at the kirk, this lumber man will leave his work, and reach the scene with active stride, and he’s the first to kiss the bride.
When we arrange a big parade, you see this lumber man arrayed in all his panoply and pomp, and down the street he’ll proudly romp.