Jack wasn't home, and anyway he wore shoes about three sizes smaller than mine, and as for his wife she was out of the question.
I'd about decided to go to bed and play sick, when I happened to glance out of the window and saw a girl about fifteen riding a horse around the circular drive in front of the house.
She was a real friendly-looking kid, and grinned up at me as she passed, so the next time she came around I leaned out and beckoned to her. She rode up under my window, and I told her the fix I was in.
"What size?" she asked without any hesitation.
"Anything from nine up," I replied.
"Gimme some money," she said.
I dropped her a ten spot. She caught it and was off, tearing down the drive like a jockey, and twenty minutes later she shoved a pair of pumps through my door she'd bought in Pittsfield, and I sailed down to dinner a trifle late, but as dignified as a London alderman.
Now Ted you've had considerable more experience with society than I've had, and probably you won't make any break at that house party, but if I were you after you get your suit case packed, I'd go through it asecond time to see if anything's missing. Carefulness is a mighty handy habit to have around the house, whether it's a man's ability to look far enough ahead not to borrow on his insurance policy, or his wife's skill in keeping down the bills.
I've had clerks in the office who'd do a job in jig time and leave behind enough mistakes to make the Bolsheviki envious, and when it comes time to sweeten salaries they are always surprised and hurt, because they are passed by for the fellows who haven't such fancy windups, but do have better control.
Speed is a tremendous asset to-day, and when it's combined with control it's almost unbeatable. For example, Walter Johnson. Still, I've seen old Cicotte mow down the Red Sox with only two hits when he hadn't enough speed to break a window, and you'll find that a young fellow who can do a job in half a day, and get it right, is a better man to have on your pay roll than a chap who can do the same work in half an hour, and then spend a day correcting his mistakes.
Have a good time, and perhaps when you get back to school your eyes will feel better so you can make a creditable showing at your mid-years.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
P. S. The girl who bought me the pumps is Jack Hamilton's daughter. She's married and has three children so don't get excited.
Lynn, Mass.
February 28, 19—
Dear Ted:
I did considerable wondering while you were home last week, why it was your clothes carried a reek that seemed a cross between a tannery vat and a grease extractor.
Your Ma says "stink" is vulgar. Maybe it is, but it's good plain English, and it describes that poison gas you seemed to be carrying around with you, better than any such ladylike word as smell.
I wasn't wise until you stopped at the corner on the way to the station and lighted one. I was looking out the window at the time, and it made me plumb disgusted to see you swagger off polluting the air with a cigarette.
Now I never believed in raising a boy on "Don't." When you say "Don't" do a thing, the average person at once wants to do the very thing you tell him not to do, although before you had forbidden it, you probably could not have hired him to do it. "Don'ts" were what got the Germans in bad.
When I was in Berlin in '99 attending the International Shoe Manufacturers' Congress, there were "Verboten" signs on pretty nearly everything."Verboten" is German for "Keep off the Grass," or something like that, anyway it means "Don't," and every time I saw one of those blamed signs, I immediately wanted to do what was forbidden.
One evening Al Lippincott and I strayed away from the bunch, and wandered into a sort of open air garden. There was a theatre, with a vaudeville show that the Watch and Ward Society at home would have closed up the first night. But the music was fine, so we picked out a table and ordered a light lunch of pickled pigs feet and sauerkraut, and were attending strictly to business when the manager, followed by two German army officers, walked up, and informed us we'd have to give up our seats. Seems they had some fool rule about civilians having to clear out if army officers wanted their table.
Now Al has always had dyspepsia, and the pickled pigs feet and sauerkraut had not done his stomach any good, and I had been "verbotened" almost to death ever since I had been in Berlin so we told them to run away and play, and turned our backs.
The next instant someone grabbed Al by the coat collar and gave him a shake.
"Do you not understand pig dog it is verboten?" a voice said.
Al wrenched free, and saw it was the younger of the two officers who had given him the shaking. He was a pasty faced, pimperly, fair-haired young man,with a monocle in one eye, and a waist that looked like it was made that way by corsets, and he had a 45 calibre sword dangling by his side that was bigger than any the Crusaders ever carried.
If he hadn't said "verboten," Al might have given him a good bawling out and let it go at that, but "verboten" to us by that time was like waving a red flag in front of a he cow, so Al gave him a good shove. The officer tripped over his sword and sat down ker-splash in a plate of hot soup an old lady was eating at the next table.
Waiters came running from all directions, but Al and I grabbed up a couple of chairs and they danced around in a circle not daring to close, while the soup spiller and his friend sputtered with rage.
"I am disgraced," yelled the one Al capsized.
"I want to fight. I would kill you, but you are not titled. I'm disgraced."
"You're a disgrace, all right," Al interrupted, "but if you want a fight, I guess we can help you out. I'm the Earl of Dover," he continued kicking a waiter in the shin who had come too near for safety, "and my friend here is the Duke of Lynn, so if you know some nice quiet place where we can settle this without gloves, lead on, we're with you."
At the mention of our titles the officers quieted down, and whispered together, then the older one bowed stiffly to me and said, "My friend accepts your friend's challenge. Follow us if you please."
They stalked out. Al and I followed. We turned into a side street, and finally came into a quiet square with a watering trough in the centre.
"We will not be interrupted here," said the older officer.
"Fine," Al replied, peeling off his coat, while the soup spiller did the same.
"Here is a sword," said the older officer handing Al his.
"What's that for?" Al asked.
"To fight with," the officer replied.
"I fight with my fists," Al shouted.
"Fighting with the fists is verboten," the officer replied.
"Get out of my way" Al yelled, and, shoving him aside, he grabbed the younger, sat down on the edge of the watering trough, spread him across his lap, and gave him with his own sword a good spanking, while the older one danced around yelling like a wild man.
Ted, you never heard such a yowling and hollering as those two set up. It would have raised the dead, and it did raise about twenty police, who grabbed us just as Al was ducking the younger one in the watering trough for the second time.
Well sir, they carted Al and me off to jail, and dumped us into a cell, where there was a straw mattress on the floor. Al had hay fever, and, believe me, we spent a pretty miserable night.
In the morning, we learned the young officer Alspanked was Prince Pigestecher, a fourteenth cousin of an aunt of the Kaiser's. We were in bad. It took the American Embassy three weeks working night shifts to get us out of jail, and then we greased our way with a five hundred dollar fine each, and that's why I made nurses' shoes at cost for the British Government when the war started.
I only mentioned this experience of Al's, to show the danger of too many "Don'ts," and it's one reason why I am not going to say, "Don't smoke cigarettes." I want you to think it over carefully, and see if in your own mind you think a boy not yet eighteen is doing a fine, manly thing to go around with a scent on his breath like Moon Island at low tide. Is he setting a good example to the younger boys, who look up to him because he's a 'varsity end, and one of the big men of the school?
Ask your trainer if cigarettes will improve your wind. I have read a lot of truck written by men with a string of letters after their names, who try to prove that cigarettes do not hurt a man, but I never yet have read anything that proved to my satisfaction that they did anyone any real good.
Remember Ted that no matter how seriously you take yourself, you are not a man. I want you to grow up a clean, manly, two-fisted shoemaker, not a chicken-breasted, weasel-eyed manufacturer of cigarette ashes. Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and a few others who were not bush leaguers managedto do pretty well without smoking cigarettes, and they are good examples for a young American to imitate. Think it over, my boy.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.
March 12, 19—
Dear Ted:
The most welcome letter I found waiting for me on my return from St. Louis was the report of your mid-years. Ted, you did real well considering all the handicaps you were working under, and I'm more than pleased to see that the old Soule fighting spirit has been passed along to you.
We Soules have always prided ourselves on being able to do our best work when things looked blackest. That back to the wall, "Don't give up the ship," determination has pulled us through some mighty rough places, whether hauling trawls on the Grand Banks, or fighting our way up from the ranks in business.
You are just beginning to realize you have the same amount of grit engrained in your hide, and it's a mighty comforting thought to wear under your shirt, for the man who won't be licked seldom is, and the quality of never knowing when you are beaten has made more impossible things possible, than any other one thing in the world.
I remember how when my father died and left me my mother, two young sisters, and a big mortgage to support. I was mad clear through. Not at the idea of having to support my folks, I was glad enoughto do that, for no boy ever had better; but because I couldn't finish my schooling. I determined I'd work like blazes to cheat Fate for the nasty wallop it had handed me, and work like blazes I did. After all I think it was good for me. A boy who has to make his own way usually does, if he has the right stuff in him, and that's why I don't intend you shall step from school into a private office here in the factory.
It's so much more gratifying when the time comes to look back, to know that what you have, you alone have made possible, and not to have to give the credit to some one else. And that's why, when you go to work, I'm going to see to it that you learn shoemaking from tanning to selling, so that when your time comes to look back you can say to yourself, "My father left me a ten thousand pair factory, but I've boosted it to twenty-five."
There was one thing though in your recent letter I don't quite get, and that's the necessity for your spending so much of your time in Portsmouth. Now I know Portsmouth is a nice New England town, filled with quaint old colonial houses, and enough historical incidents to make a three volume series, but I never knew you to be wildly interested in such things, and since I got that bill of $24.25 from the Rockingham for dinners, I'm suspecting you don't go there to study history.
One evening last fall, on the way home fromOgunquit, the car broke down in Portsmouth, and while it was being repaired, I took in one of the movies. The show was quite good and I enjoyed it, until I came out when it was over, and found a crowd of Exeter boys hanging around the entrance speaking to any good looking young girl who was alone.
Then there was a general pairing off, and strolling up and down the main streets, looking in the shop windows, and much loud talking, giggling, and laughter, while the young townies stood on the corners making cheap remarks. Some of your schoolmates took their lady friends into the little lunch rooms with which Portsmouth is so plentifully supplied, and bought them suppers of ham and eggs, and ice cream, while a few with more money went to the Rockingham.
I moseyed around the town quite a bit watching these schoolmates of yours, and was thoroughly disgusted. Not that I saw anything really wrong. I didn't. Every one of the boys had taken the cars for Exeter by eleven, but there was such a general kissing and dumbfoolishness I'd like to have spanked the lot.
Perhaps it's heaps of satisfaction to a young fellow, one of the big men of the school, to hike for Portsmouth with a few dollars of his dad's burning holes in his pocket, cut the prettiest shop or factory girl out of a crowd, and carry her off for supper, spending his week's allowance in one evening, but I can't see it.
Now don't think I'm down on factory girls. I'm not. I've employed heaps of them, and with mighty few exceptions they've been respectable hard-working girls, who could hold their head up anywhere, and although as a rule they would scratch a fellow's eyes out who tried to get fresh with them, they don't mind paying for what they consider a good time with a few kisses.
Now I'm not a snob, and if I ever see any signs of your becoming one, I'll whale it out of you in jig time, for I hate a too-proud-to-speak individual, as much as I hate a crooked leather salesman. But I'd rather you spent your evenings in Exeter, on the piazza of those Eaton girls to whom you introduced me, than parading the streets of Portsmouth with a factory girl hanging on your arm.
I remember my first lesson in chivalry, and before the super. comes in to tell me there's an embargo on freight out of Lynn, I'll pass it along.
I was in the grammar school, and about ten years old. One day at recess, a little girl named Sally Perkins had a bag of peppermint candy and was treating the other girls, when Butcher Burch, a great hulking boy of twelve, snatched the bag out of Sal's hand and began to gobble it as fast as he could.
I was furious, for little Sally was a nice pleasant girl who never stuck her tongue out at me, and I should like to have whaled the Butcher, but he had soundly thrashed me on several occasions, and I knew he would repeat if I made any protest.
I stood hesitating. Sally was crying her head off, and the Butcher was cramming the candy into his ugly mouth as fast as he could, when along came my father.
"What's the trouble?" he asked.
I told him, suggesting he make the Butcher return the candy.
"That's your job," he replied.
"But he can lick me," I stammered, remembering former disastrous battles I had fought with the bully.
"That makes no difference," replied my father. "It's just as well for you to learn now, that whenever you see a girl or a woman insulted, it's the business of every decent man or boy to come to her rescue. I give you your choice of fighting that boy now, or taking a licking from me when you come home."
I took a good look at my father and saw he meant every word he said, and then because I hated the Butcher for what he had done to Sally, I lowered my head and sailed in, fists flying like a windmill.
Luckily, one of my first blows hit the Butcher full on the mouth and he let out a howl—and candy. He must have had half a pound in his mouth when I hit him. Knowing that my only chance was to bewilder him with my attack, I let fly everything I knew, and for a couple of minutes I had the best of it. Then his weight and strength began to tell, and hehammered me about as he pleased, finally landing a swing on my jaw that knocked me off my feet.
When I came to, I found my head resting on my father's knee, while Sally was mopping away at my bloody nose with her little, and not too clean, handkerchief, clutching in her other hand the remnants of her bag of candy. Young as I was I'll never forget the look of pride on my father's face, when later he handed me over to my mother for repairs, saying, "Patch him up, Mother, he's been fighting to protect a girl."
Ted, my boy, I want you to grow up with a reverent respect for all women, for the worst woman who ever lived, you may be sure, had some good qualities, and the best of them are far too good for any man. Besides you owe it to your Ma, for no sweeter, better woman than she ever breathed, and although there may be no real harm in the girls you meet in Portsmouth, the sort who let a fellow pick them up on the street and kiss them good night, are not the kind who are going to increase your respect for women, so my advice to you is, cut it out.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.
March 20, 19—
Dear Ted:
You didn't have to write me that those boys you brought home with you on last Sunday were wonders. They told me so themselves.
Seriously Ted, they didn't make much of a hit with me. I don't mind a young fellow holding up his head. It's a sign of spirit the same as it is in a horse. No man who wears his chin on his vest gets far in life, and no one but a tin horn who's trying to throw a bluff he can ride, wants a horse that hangs its head between its knees; but neither have I much use for the young chap who's nose is forever pointing skyward as though he were marching along the edge of a tanning vat on a hot summer day.
Spirit's all right now that we have prohibition, but superiority of manner isn't. If you really are a man's superior he knows it, and if you aren't and try to act as if you are, he's liable to laugh at you; and by superior I mean superior in brains or ability to accomplish worth while things.
Now one of your friends thought he'd impress me by saying that he was descended from the Earl of Hampton, and he didn't like it a bit when I told him I wouldn't hold that up against him, and that for all I knew the Earl might have been perfectly respectable.He also said his ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and wanted to know if any of my family had crossed on the same ship, and I'll bet he thought I was impossible when I told him it was more likely to have been the Cauliflower, for the Soules were always fond of New England boiled dinners.
The other was money superior. From what he said, I learned that his dad had made a mint out of raincoat contracts during the war, and has ever since been setting up autos for the family like the lumber jacks used to set up drinks for the crowd in Pat Healey's saloon on pay night.
Money's a mighty useful article to have around these days, and it's nothing against a man if he has plenty of it, nor is it to his discredit if he hasn't—and ancestors don't do a fellow any harm if he keeps remembering they're dead and can't help him earn a living.
Money will buy many things worth having, but not the things most worth while. For a poor man with a reputation for keeping his word is a better citizen any day than a millionaire who's a liar, and I'd much rather have a young man on my pay roll, whose family came over in the steerage and hasn't a grudge against work, than a fellow who can trace his ancestry back to the peerage and is trying to get by on dead men's reputations.
Now don't think I'm down on millionaires. I'm not; some of the biggest men in this country are alsothe richest. But when you and I took that trip to Washington, the men whose statues we saw in the Hall of Fame, were not honored by their states for the money they had made, but for what they had done, and I didn't notice any inscription reading, "John Jenkins Stuart, Great-grandson of the Second Assistant Royal Bartender."
It's usually a poor plan to criticise a person's friends, but I'm going to do that very thing in regard to yours, for I've had considerable more experience than you, and I know how dangerous the wrong kind of friends are. The right kind of friends never did anyone any harm, and the wrong kind never did anyone any good, and take it from me, son, the two boys you brought home over the week end are not the right kind.
Unless I'm much mistaken, one will try to get by on his ancestors' reputation, and the other on his father's money, and neither will be classed among the three hundred hitters when the great Umpire calls them out.
You don't have to be ashamed of your ancestors, or my money, and it did me a world of good to overhear you say to young Raincoats that I might not have made a million out of the war, but there wasn't a leather company in the country which wouldn't sell me any amount of stock I cared to order. That's the sort of a reputation I've always tried to deserve. It's the aim of every decent American business man,but just the same it's fine to feel my only kid's as proud of it as I am.
Now I've met several of your schoolmates I'd sooner tie up to than the boys you exhibited. That roommate of yours for instance. He's pretty green yet, and his taste in neckties is awful, although it's improving, but I'll bet that ten years from now you'll be more proud of what he's accomplished, than he will of what you've done, unless you scratch considerable dirt in the meantime. That other boy, the dark-haired one from Virginia, he'll get on too; he's worth while, cultivate him.
When I was a little older than you, I once made a mistake in a friend that had mighty serious results, and I don't want you running the same risks.
It was when I was working in the Epping National Bank, that a pretty slick fellow by the name of J. Peters Wellford blew into town, hired two rooms at the Mansion House, and the best rig Sol Higgins had in his livery stable, and settled down to live the life of a gentleman of leisure.
Now every man in Epping worked, except George Banes the town half wit, and Jim Spencer the town drunk, and a person who labored neither with his hands nor brains was considered not quite respectable.
J. Peters, however, didn't get drunk, and he had a wit that was sharper than a new-honed razor, and, as he wasn't curious, paid his bills, and seemed to mindhis business and no one else's, besides having faultless manners and a pocket full of ready money, the younger folks after a short period of probation welcomed him with open arms.
He never made much of a hit with the old people, and as I look back I can see it was their intuition gained by hard experience that warned them that J. Peters was not all he seemed, although at the time I put it down to pure envy.
From the first, J. Peters who was at least fifteen years older, took a great fancy to me.
He was forever hanging round the bank, inviting me to dinner at the Mansion House, driving me about the country and going fishing with me on Saturday afternoons.
J. Peters was extremely well read, seemed to have traveled everywhere, and knew men intimately whose names in the financial world were all majestic. I thought J. Peters a whale of a chap and tried in every possible way to imitate him, even to copying so far as I was able his slow drawling way of speaking.
My father couldn't see J. Peters with a spy glass, but neither could he prove anything to his discredit, and as I was then at the beautiful age of eighteen when one knows so much more than he ever does again, my father's warnings flowed out of my ears like water from a sieve.
One day, six months after J. Peters had arrived in Epping, he proposed that I accompany him on aweek end trip to Boston which I was crazy to do, but had to refuse on account of my finances being at low tide.
J. Peters wouldn't take no for an answer, however, and finally persuaded me to go as his guest.
We were to take the noon train on a Friday; but when Thursday night came he called to me from the piazza of the Mansion House as I was on my way home from work, and told me that something had come up which would prevent his going until Saturday.
He pushed a roll of bills into my hands telling me to go as we had planned, engage rooms at the American House, buy theatre tickets for Saturday evening, and wait for him as he would follow on the Saturday noon train.
His story sounded plausible enough so I followed his directions, and had a gorgeous time until six o'clock Saturday evening came and with it no J. Peters. I waited for him in the lobby of the hotel until midnight, and then went to bed feeling he must have missed his train but would show up the next day.
He didn't though, and I spent Sunday roaming around the city seeing the sights, returning to the hotel for supper. Just as I was pushing my way through the front door someone grabbed me, then I felt something cold and steely clasped around mywrists, and looking up saw Hen Winters, the sheriff of Epping County, scowling down at me.
When I recovered enough from my fright to understand what it all meant, I learned that I was wanted for stealing $20,000 in Cash from the Epping National Bank, and that explanations were out of order.
The bank had been robbed. J. Peters and I were missing, and the mere fact that all the money Hen found in my pockets after a painstaking search amounted to $9.75 didn't get me anywhere, for my intimacy with J. Peters was known to everyone in town.
Back I went to Epping handcuffed to Hen, and the fact that we reached home late when no one was at the station to see us, was all that kept my folks from dying of shame.
My father stood my bail, and in a few days the detectives put matters straight by discovering that on the night I left for Boston, J. Peters alone had robbed the bank and made good his escape to Canada, but, believe me, Ted, until that mess was cleaned up I felt about as joyful as a leather merchant who's carrying a big stock in a falling market.
Now I don't believe for a minute, that either of those boys you brought home with you over Sunday, will turn out to be a J. Peters. It takes brains to be a successful bank robber, and in my estimation neitherhas enough of that commodity to head the lowest class in a school for feeble minded. But I do think they have enough nonsense in their heads to get you into a peck of trouble if you continue to run with them, so if I were you I'd cut them out.
At the best those boys may be harmless. There are a lot of things that don't do a man any particular harm, but life is only a short stretch, so why clutter it up with a lot of harmless things, when every young American has the opportunity to enrich it with what is really worth while.
The friends you make during the next few years will be your friends through life, and if I were you I'd select them as carefully as you do your neckties for they will wear much longer.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.
March 28, 19—
Dear Ted:
Don't think that the old man has set up as a sort of a composite wiseacre, who believes he knows more than Solomon, Socrates & Company. A man can't knock around the shoe trade for thirty odd years without picking up a pretty general line of useful knowledge, and if he has a son, it's kind of up to him to see that the boy gets the benefit of what his dad learned in the School of Hard Knocks. That's why I have tried to give you some hints in my letters in regard to certain things I would not do. Betting is one of them.
When I read your last letter in which you said you cleaned up twenty bucks on the Indoor Games, I realized that although you were not yet slithering down the greased toboggan slide to perdition, it wouldn't do any harm to hand out a little advice you can use as a sort of sand paper seat to your pants, to keep you from exceeding the speed limit.
Speaking of sand paper, reminds me of something that happened one year on the train coming home from the Shoe and Leather Fair at St. Louis, and as I have a few minutes before Miss Sweeney brings in the figures on that last shipment of the Company's leather, I'll pass it on to you for what it's worth.
I was in the observation car, trying to write a few letters amid the chatter of a group of red hot sports, who I judged from their remarks, were on the way home from playing the races at New Orleans. One young fellow, in a sunset suit, was particularly noisy. Every few minutes, he would draw a huge wad of bills out of his pocket and waving them under his friends' noses would boast of what he was going to do to Wall Street when he hit little old New York.
Now I have considerable respect for Wall Street's ability to take care of itself, and somehow I couldn't picture all the old bulls and bears putting up the shutters and hiking for the tall grass, when that particular youth who had a chin like a fish's, landed in their midst.
The train stopped at a small town, and an old man who looked like the greenest rube in captivity came into the car. He sat down opposite the bunch of sports and pulling a country newspaper out of his pocket buried himself in its pages.
From where I sat, I could see the sporting fraternity sizing him up and presently the young loudmouth crossed over and sat down beside him.
"Nice country around here Uncle," young freshy began.
"Shore is," the old farmer answered. "So durned fine I hate tew leave it. I bean here nigh on forty years, and I hain't left Bington more'n twict. I sold the old farm a short spell back, and I'm going to Chicago now to live with a granddarter."
"Have a cigar?" asked the young sport.
"Don't keer if I do," replied the farmer biting off the end, and taking one of the safety matches from a holder on the wall of the car he tried to strike it on the sole of his boot.
Now at that time safety matches had not been used to any great extent, still I didn't suppose it was possible there was anyone who did not know what they were, although I knew that in some of those small mountain towns away from the railroad, the people were said to be a hundred years behind the times. When the old man tried to scratch another, and then a third, I was convinced he'd never heard of or seen a safety match, and I wondered what he'd do next.
"Powerful pore matches, these be," he said with a grunt, as he reached for a fourth and attempted to light it on the leg of his trousers.
A crafty, cunning look, spread over the young sport's weak face. "You can't light those matches that way," he said.
"I'll bet I kin," the old man replied doggedly, making his fifth unsuccessful attempt.
"What will you bet?" the young fellow asked, quickly, an evil light gleaming in his fishy eyes.
"Wal I never yet seen a match I couldn't light on my pants. I'll bet you a quarter."
The young man fished out his wad of bills. "I'm no tin horn," he replied, with a sneer. "But if you want to lose your money, I'll bet you $100 youcan't light one of those matches on your trousers."
"Land sakes!" cried the old farmer. "A hundred dollars?"
"That's what I said," replied the young fellow, grinning at his pals. "This gentleman will hold the money," he continued, peeling off a hundred dollar bill from his roll and thrusting it into my hands.
I had just about decided to spoil the game with a little history on safety matches, when the old farmer who had been fishing around in his wallet, darted a shrewd glance at me, then deliberately winked.
Finally, he counted out $100 in small bills, which he handed over to me, grabbed a safety match from the container, rubbed it on the leg of his trousers, and when to my astonishment, it burst into flame, calmly lighted his cigar and held out his hand for the $200 which I passed over to him.
Later, in the pullman, as the old fellow was mooching by my chair, he raised his coat enough to show me the side of a safety match box sewed to the leg of his trousers.
Now the only trouble with betting, Ted, is that it's wrong. It's wrong for several reasons. First, because it's trying to get something for nothing; second, because a man always loses when he can't afford it; third, because gambling of any kind will sooner or later get a young fellow into the kind of company he don't want to introduce to his folks; fourth, because if a fellow sticks to gambling all hislife he's pretty sure to die in the neighborhood of the poorhouse; and fifth, no matter how slick a gambler you become, you will always meet a slicker one, who will trim you to a fare-thee-well.
It's fine to back your teams to the limit, and I'd think you a pretty poor sort of a stick if you didn't yell your head off at a game, but do you think it helps to steady a players nerve in a pinch, to know that if he doesn't deliver, his schoolmates will have to live on snow balls or some other light refreshment for a couple of months.
No Ted, old scout, betting is not only wrong, it's foolish.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.
April 6, 19—
Dear Ted:
I agree with you, you do need a new hat. One about two sizes larger than you have been wearing, I should judge from the line of talk you turned loose when you were home last Sunday.
Now it's all right for a fellow to think well of himself. He'll never get far if he doesn't, but it's just as well to be careful how you sing your own praises, for some day your audience may consist of persons who know the folks who live next door to you.
You've done pretty well so far in making a decent showing in your mid-years under a big handicap, playing on the football team, and making the glee club, besides being elected to the Plata Dates and the student council, but you want to remember that even a vegetarian can't live long on his laurels and keep up the good work, for you haven't completed your school course by a good bit.
Sunday, you gave a pretty fair exhibition of enlargement of the cranium commonly known as swelled head. That's one of the most dangerous of all known diseases, and one you can't cure any too quickly. It's all right to be pleased with yourself for accomplishing something worth while, but it's all wrong to keep on being pleased with yourselfunless you keep on accomplishing things worth while.
Whenever you can look at yourself in the mirror and be satisfied, you should consult a conscience oculist, for as sure as shooting there's something wrong with your inner sight.
But worst of all, is to let people know you're satisfied with yourself, and it's just as well to remember that the word I is the most superfluous in the English language.
Hot air may be a necessity in the Balloon corps, but the private offices in the factory are steam heated, and the men who sit in them are not there because they talk about themselves, but because they think for the firm.
The reason I'm handing you a pretty stiff dose in this letter, is principally because you need it. I've seen a lot of promising young fellows start out with a rush, and then after they have made a moderate success, become so satisfied with themselves that they stick in a small job, when they have the ability to go much higher if they could stand prosperity.
There is always an over production of beginners but the supply of completers is never equal to the demand, and I want you to remember that the 31st of December is just as good a day on which to do business as January first.
It's all very nice to be considered the biggest man in your class, but you aren't going to be long if yougo around telling people how big you are. Keep from making liars of the friends who praise you, and remember that persons who try to show off their greatness usually end by showing it up.
A horse who rushes the field for the first quarter doesn't always finish in the lead. No one deserves much credit for starting out with a big splash. It's the fellow who's doing business at the finish who really counts.
You've been a little too successful so far this year in everything except your studies, and your success has settled in your head.
Now don't think I'm not glad you are popular with your schoolmates: I am, but I'd much rather you weren't quite so popular with yourself. I don't want to rub it in Ted, but I do want you to realize that it's a blamed sight easier to reduce a swelled head when it's young than after it begins to get bald.
I had my little experience when I was super. at Clough & Spinney's in Georgetown so I'll pass it along to you for what it's worth.
I'd started in as a boy in the shipping room, been promoted to shipping clerk, then I'd worked as a laster, going from that to the sole leather room. I'd married and been promoted to foreman, and having saved some money I'd bought a little house which was nearly paid for when I was made super.
I was about as happy a young fellow as you couldfind in all the New England shoe trade, for I'd been progressing steadily ever since I'd started work and it looked like a rosy future ahead.
As I look back now, I see that it was my help that made my success possible quite as much as my own efforts. Americans to the backbone, everyone of them! Steady going respectable men and women some of whom had been working in the shop when I was born, and who would have told any agitator to mind his own business, who might have undertaken to tell them they were working too hard.
Well, anyway, at the end of two years I had that little factory running as slick as a greased pig, and I was wearing a self-satisfied smile in consequence that I didn't even try to conceal, for old Hiram Spinney had taken to calling me William, and Ezra Clough used to invite your Ma and me to supper most every Sunday evening.
Then one day old Hiram landed a whopping big government contract, and it was up to me to make the shoes according to specifications and on time.
Well sir, there was a great bustle and hurrying around the little shop, extra hands were hired, new machinery installed, and then I started for Boston to buy the leather.
For the first time I was doing business in a really big way, and I was so full of the size of the order I was to place, I felt sure there was only one leather company that could handle my business, so I pooh-poohedseveral salesmen whom I met on South Street, and who having heard of our government contract assured me they had blocks of leather I could use to good advantage.
I bought my leather at what I considered a very good figure, had a good lunch at the old United States, and sat around the lobby for a while talking with the shoe and leather men I knew, letting it be pretty generally understood that as a superintendent I was some punkins.
Then on the strength of my wonderful ability as a buyer, I went up town and blew in about $100 on a new outfit for myself and some presents for your Ma.
When I took the train for Georgetown that evening, I ran bang into old Hiram Spinney and as we settled down in the same seat, he began to quiz me about the orders I had placed.
Full of pride because I considered I had bought to the best advantage, I started in to tell the old man what a great superintendent he had, poking a good deal of scorn at the foolish salesmen who had tried to interest me in their small blocks of leather, when I was out to buy a large quantity.
Old Hiram didn't say anything until I got through praising myself, which took some time as I was thoroughly sold on the idea.
When I'd finished, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
"Didn't even bother to look at those small lots of leather?" he asked.
"Nope, couldn't waste my time on 'em," I replied.
"I did," he answered, "looked pretty good to me too."
He went on telling me the prices quoted on each lot, describing the leather so accurately I knew I had passed by some mighty good things.
Gee! Ted, I could feel myself all shrivel up like a red toy balloon after a kid sticks a pin in it. I'd eaten a mighty good supper, but I felt hollow inside, and I guess my face looked as though I was seasick, for as near as I could figure I'd paid $12,000 more for my leather than I needed to have done.
Old Hiram let me squirm until the train reached Georgetown and we had stumbled off on to the platform.
"Thought maybe you'd like to know I bought those odd blocks," he said as I started for home.
"You did!" I replied, for I couldn't see how we possibly could use them along with what I'd purchased.
"Yep."
"What about the lot I bought?" I asked.
"I just stepped in and cancelled your order ten minutes after you'd left."
I was so happy I could have yelled for joy and at the same time I felt like two bits and a nickel.
"William," said old Hiram walking up and layinga hand on my shoulder, "you're a good boy, and you've done real well, but lately you've given signs of being too self-satisfied. Forget your own importance for the next ten years and then you will have reason to be proud."
He gave me a friendly little pat, and trudged off into the dark.
Old Hiram cured me. To this day I've remembered his advice, and tried to follow it. It's still bully good dope. I'd play it for all it's worth if I were you.
Your affectionate father,
William Soule.
Lynn, Mass.
April 30, 19—
Dear Ted:
Frankly Ted, I don't see how you ever did it. I have had some experience with expense accounts having twenty salesmen on the road; but no travelling man I have employed, ever had the nerve to present such a collection of outrageous bills as was contained in your last letter.
I'll admit, I was prepared for a few modest accounts, mostly for extra food, for a boy your age is nearly always hungry, and of course they starve you at the Commons, although I managed to get quite a substantial meal there the night I had dinner with you. But as near as I can judge the Exeter townspeople must be on the verge of starvation, for surely you have consumed all the food supplies in all the stores in the township.
I put you on an allowance this year, so you could learn how to handle money, and so far the net result has been that you have given a most perfect example of how not to do it.
A boy who can't keep pretty close to his allowance, is going to grow into a man who can't live within his income, and neither are going to score many touchdowns in the game of life, although they may do a whole lot of flashy playing between the twentyyard lines. Besides, it's just as well to remember that no one yet ever succeeded in eating his way into Who's Who.
Perhaps some of it is hereditary, though, for I remember when your Uncle Ted first went away to school, your grandmother gave him an allowance and made him promise to keep account of every cent he spent.
When he came home on his first vacation, she sat down with him and went over his accounts, on the whole much pleased, because he had kept within what she had given him.
Every third or fourth entry was S. P. G. and being a devoutedly religious woman she was delighted to find her boy had given so much of his money to the Society for Propagation of the Gospel, until Ted, being honest, had to own up that S. P. G. stood for Something, Probably Grub.
Your bills for extra feed, would make those of a stable full of trotting horses look like the meal tickets of a flock of dyspeptic canaries. But I don't mind those so much for I don't want to see you starve.
What I do mind is six silk shirts at twelve per, and a dozen silk sox at three dollars a pair. Now when you are making $15,000 a year which you won't be for some time, if you want to pay twelve dollars for a shirt that's your funeral, although I rather suspect that by then you will have found out that real good shirts can be bought much cheaper.