Bound to Succeed: or, Mail Order Frank's Chances

“Yes, Mr. Gregson,” murmured Frank. “Did both leave town?”

“Yes, sah, with the b’loon.”

Frank was sorry he had not seen his entertaining acquaintance before he went away. Mr. Johnson continued:

“Rar gen’man, dose, ’specially dat professor. What think, sah? He say: ‘How much am dis exertion on youah part worth, Mistah Johnsing?’ and when I say, ‘Bout eight bits, Mistah Professor,’ he laugh and gib me a five dollah gold piece. And de other gen’man say to me confimadentially: ‘Mistah Johnsing, please tell young Mistah Newton I shall write to him, and when I get making a little money I shall do myself de pleashah of sending him a gold watch and chain, and dat dog of his a gold collah.’ Deed he did, sah.”

Frank laughed pleasantly, believing that “Mistah Johnsing” was romancing a trifle. Then he said: “I believe our contract on the teams was for twelve hours’ service, Mr. Johnson?”

“Dat am correct, sah.”

“If you say so, I will give them a good feed and do our moving from the house to the rooms upstairs here. Of course I will pay your man for the extra labor.”

“Dat am highly satisfact’ry to me, Mistah Newton.”

The two teams were driven over to the cottage and unhitched in front of it. Frank rigged up a convenient feed trough, gave the horses their oats, and invited Boyle to join him at supper.

Frank had talked over the moving question with his mother that morning. He found that she had put in a busy day. All the pictures were removed from the walls and neatly encased in newspapers. The books had been placed in boxes; everything, even to the beds, carried from upstairs.

Notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Ismond spread out an appetizing meal for the two workers.

“Mother, this really won’t do,” remonstrated Frank seriously.

“What won’t do, my son?” asked his mother, smiling.

“Carrying those heavy things down stairs.”

“But I did not do that – at least not all of it,” the widow hastened to say. “Your friend, Nelson Cady, happened along about three o’clock. Nothing would do but he must lend a helping hand. Then his chums found him out. They were soon in service, too.”

Just as Frank finished his supper there were cheery boyish hails outside. Nelson and five of his cohorts animatedly demanded that they become part and parcel in the fun and excitement of moving.

Soon there was a procession carrying various articles to the rooms on Cedar Street. The wagons took the heavy furniture and such like. Just at dark the last had left the cottage. Looking back, Frank saw Mr. Dorsett sneaking into his empty house from the rear.

“He doesn’t look particularly happy, now he has had his own way,” reflected Frank. “I hope mother doesn’t take the change to heart.”

His first question was along that very line, as the last chair was set in place in the new family habitation.

“Sad, Frank?” said his mother – “no, indeed! When we were forced from the old home on the hill a year ago, I was very sorrowful. It is a positive relief now, though, to get out of the shadow of Mr. Dorsett and all belonging to him. It is nice, and home-like and cozy here, and I am sure we shall be very comfortable and happy in our new home.”

Many hands had aided in bestowing the family goods just where Mrs. Ismond wanted them. There was very little tidying up to do half-an-hour after Frank had dismissed the teamster, with a dollar for his extra work.

Then he led a gay procession down the principal village street. They entered a little ice cream parlor, and Frank “treated” – one ice cream and a glass of soda water all around.

“I want to see you, Nelson, as early in the morning as I can,” said Frank, as they separated for the night.

“Business?” inquired Nelson, in a serious way.

“Why, yes. Truth is, I can put some loose change in your pocket, if you care to undertake a ten-days’ job I have in hand.”

Nelson shook his head dubiously, with a very important air.

“Dunno,” he said calculatingly. “You see, I am expecting a letter any day now.”

Frank smiled to himself. Nelson had been “expecting a letter” every day for a year. Every boy in the village knew this, and occasionally guyed and jollied him about it.

Nelson’s great ambition was to become a cowboy. On one occasion he had run away from home, bound for far-away Idaho. He got as far as the city, was nearly starved and half-frozen, and came home meekly the next day.

His father gave him a good, sensible talk. He tried to convince Nelson that he was too young to undertake the rough life of a cowboy. This failing, he agreed that if Nelson would get some respectable stockman in Idaho to ensure him a regular berth for a year, he would let him go west and pay his fare there.

Since then Nelson had spent nearly all the pocket money he could earn writing to people in Idaho, from the Governor down. Nobody seemed to want an inexperienced, home-bred boy to round their stock, however. Still, Nelson kept on hoping and trying.

“I’ll risk your letter coming before your contract with me is finished, Nelson,” said Frank kindly. “About this cowboy business, though – take my advice and that of your good, kind father: don’t waste your best young years just for the sake of novelty and adventure. No ambitious boy can afford it.”

“But I have a longing for the wild ranch life,” said Nelson earnestly.

“All right, then do your duty to those at home, earn a good start here, where you have friends to help you, and begin with a ranch of your own. When I have made enough money, I would like to run a ranch myself. But I want to own it. I want to make a business investment – not fun and frolic – out of it.”

“All right, I’ll be on hand in the morning,” promised Nelson.

“I have been saving a surprise for you, Frank,” said his mother, as he rejoined her about nine o’clock. “What do you think? Your friend, Mr. Gregson, insisted on leaving you twenty-five dollars.”

“Oh, that won’t do at all!” cried Frank instantly.

“The professor, who was with him, insisted that it must. Besides, they left all sorts of kind regards for you.”

Frank’s was a truly grateful heart. It had been a splendid day for him. He took up a lamp and went downstairs, whistling happily.

“There’s a lot of work to do here,” he said, going from box to box, flashing the light across the contents. “There must be a million needles in that packing case. Poor Morton’s apple corer – there’s several thousands of those. And here’s a great jumble of lawn mower repair material.”

Frank stood mapping out how he would handle the mass of stuff. About to leave the room, he set down the lamp and curiously inspected the zinc box that had apparently been the burned-out hardware man’s safe.

It was filled with papers of various kinds: receipted bills, statements of accounts and letters. Many of these latter were from mail customers who had bought the apple corer and were dissatisfied with its operation.

Many of the papers were partly burned away. All were grimed with smoke. Finally from the very bottom of the box Frank fished up a square package. Opening this, he found it to be some part of a mail order office equipment.

Frank’s eye sparkled. There were several sheets of cardboard. On each of them a colored map of a State of the Union was printed. Each town had a hole near it. This was to hold minute wooden pegs of different hues, each color designating “written to,” or “first customer,” or “agent,” and the like.

At a glance Frank took in the value and utility of this outfit. As he drew some typewritten sheets from a big manilla envelope, he grew positively excited at the grand discovery he had made.

“Fifty thousand names!” exclaimed Frank – “possible mail order customers all over the country! Oh, if this outfit were only mine! Can I get it, or its duplicate? Why,” he said, in a fervent, deep-drawn breath, “circumstances seem absolutely pushing me into the mail order business!”

CHAPTER IX

SENSE AND SYSTEM

Frank was up and stirring before six o’clock the next morning. He felt like a person beginning life brand-new again.

When his mother appeared half-an-hour later, she found everything tidied up, including Frank himself, who hurried through a good, hearty breakfast with an important business engagement in view.

“You will excuse me for calling at your home instead of the office,” said Frank to Mr. Buckner, a little later.

“That’s all right, Frank,” declared the insurance man, shaking hands heartily with his early caller. “Time is money, and of course you want to utilize it to the best advantage. Well, what’s the news?”

Frank recited the progress of the day previous. When he came to tell of the sale of the old junk at Riverton, his host laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“You’ll do, Frank,” he observed with enthusiasm – “decidedly, you’ll do! You got the moving done at just half what I expected to pay, and collected twenty dollars and a half we never knew a word about.”

“Then you want me to go on getting the burned stuff in order, do you?” inquired Frank.

“Certainly – that was all understood, wasn’t it? I’ll try and drop around to-day or to-morrow and take a look at the plunder, just out of curiosity. As to getting it in shape for my client’s inspection, I leave that in your able charge exclusively.”

“Thank you,” said Frank.

Nelson Cady was piping a cheery whistle in front of the store when Frank got home.

“Got no letter yet,” he announced in his old important way, “so I reckon I can give you a lift, Frank.”

“Good for you,” commended Frank. “You know how to work all right when you want to, Nelson.”

Frank unlocked the store door with a proud sense of proprietorship. Both entered the long, rambling room.

“Now then, Nelson,” said Frank, “I offer you ten cents an hour, and make you superintendent of the little plant here.”

“What am I expected to superintend?” asked Nelson.

“Did you notify any of the boys?”

“Oh, yes – I could get an army of them, if needed.”

“I think about half-a-dozen will answer,” said Frank.

“They’ll be here shortly all right,” responded Nelson. “It’s vacation, and – there’s the first arrival now.”

A curly-pated, eager-faced little urchin popped in through the open doorway.

“Hey, Nelse, am I early enough?” he asked anxiously.

“Five cents an hour,” announced Frank, with a welcoming smile.

“Oh, my!” cried the little fellow – “five times twenty-four is, let me see – a naught and two to carry, a dollar and twenty cents. Whoop!”

“Here, here, you don’t suppose we’re going to work all day and all night, too, do you?” said Nelson. “Eight hours will tire you out soon enough.”

“Forty cents a day, then,” cried the little fellow. “Say, I’ll be rich!”

Within the next ten minutes as many as a dozen other boys arrived. The news of Frank Newton having work to be done, had spread like wildfire among juvenile Greenville. All hands begged for employment, but Frank could not hire all of them. He engaged first boys whose families needed help, and promised the others they should work as substitutes when any of the original employes dropped out of the ranks.

“Now then, friends,” said Frank, as soon as the hiring business was disposed of, “Nelson Cady will direct what you are to do. You had better all of you go home first and put on the oldest duds you can find, for this is going to be dirty work. Look here, Nelson.”

Frank had got a big piece of chalk at a carpenter’s shop on his way home from the interview with Mr. Buckner.

With this he now divided the floor space of one whole side of the store into sections about six feet square.

“You see, Nelson,” he said to his superintendent, “first you tip over one of those big packing cases onto the floor.”

“All right, Frank.”

“Then begin picking out an article at a time. Suppose it is a hammer comes first: write with chalk on the edge of a section ‘Hammers,’ and then group all the hammers you find by themselves.”

“I understand,” nodded Nelson.

“Label all the squares plainly. Mass everything of its class in distinct heaps. That is the first start in your work.”

Frank had some of his regular village chores to do. He was gone over an hour attending to various duties.

As he came back to the store again, Frank was spurred up by the busy hum of industry. Half-a-dozen urchins peering enviously in at the open front door made way for him. He gave them a kind word and stepped inside to take a sweeping view of his juvenile working force.

A great rattlety-bang was going on as the boys pulled over the heap of debris. Hands and faces were grimed. There were some blistered fingers, but the boys were working like bees in a hive.

The chalked-off sections had begun to grow in number. One was labelled “Needles.” Frank stared in some wonder. There were papers of needles whole, and others with half their original paper coverings burned away, of loose needles, some rusted and blackened, some still bright and shining; there seemed to be thousands upon thousands.

Then there was a lot of pieces of lawn mowers, blades, wheels, screws, cogs and axles. Hinges of all sizes and qualities showed up prominently. Pocket knives, scissors and carpenter tools were likewise greatly in evidence.

One pile was growing rapidly with the minutes. This was a heap of apple corers. It was a contrivance with a small wooden knob. A screw held a tapering piece of thin metal, which penetrated the centre of an apple. Then a twist was supposed to cut out the core.

From letters in the zinc box which Frank had read, he knew that purchasers of this device had complained about it greatly. In the first place it was arbitrarily set for one uniform cut. No matter whether the apple to be operated on was large or small, the hole made was exactly the same. If the fruit was hard and crisp, according to the letters of complaint the corer split the apple. If it was soft, the corer mushed the apple. There were already sorted out several hundreds of these corers. Frank wished he could get hold of them and improve them.

Frank looked over all the selected stuff in view. Then he went in turn to the village blacksmith, the local hardware store and to a druggist friend. He returned with some sponges, soft rags, sandpaper and a can of oil. He chalked off new spaces at the rear end of the store, three being devoted to each article labelled. Then he ordered his helpers to grade the various utensils dug out of the debris. Thus, hammers: those burned beyond practical use were put in heap one, second best, heap two; those that were only slightly marred were placed in heap three.

When Mr. Buckner came to the store the following day at noon the work had progressed famously. The insurance man was greatly gratified at the layout.

“Sense and system,” he said, and told Frank he was proud of him.

Certainly Frank had proceeded on a routine that was bound to bring good results. What he called the finished product was now strongly in evidence. He had divided his working force. Five of the small boys helped him in getting all the salable stuff sorted by itself.

Mr. Buckner’s client did not put in an appearance until the following Tuesday. By that time the place looked more like a real hardware store than a repairing shop.

All the best stuff was classified and neatly laid out. The hardware man from Lancaster made one sweeping inspection of the various piles of merchandise. There was quite a delighted expression on his face as he turned to Frank.

“Young man,” he said, “Mr. Buckner prepared me to meet a brisk, enterprising fellow of about your size, but the way you have handled this business is a marvel.”

Frank flushed with pleasure.

“Right at the start,” continued his visitor, “I offer you a good, permanent position in my store at Lancaster at eight dollars a week.”

“I thank you greatly,” replied Frank, “but I have partly decided on some other plans with my mother.”

“All right. If you change your mind, come to me. Now then, to size up this proposition in detail.”

The speaker looked into and over everything. When he had gone one round he picked up an empty red cardboard box and began to cut it up into small squares.

“I seem to have made a fine investment, Buckner,” he said to the insurance man. “There’s over two hundred dollars in those lawn mower parts alone. The regular stuff like tools and cutlery are good for as much more. See here, Newton: I am going to put one of these red cardboard squares on all the lots I wish you to ship to me at Lancaster.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.

“Get some strong boxes and pack the stuff well, send by freight.”

The hardware merchant now went from pile to pile, placing the red bits of cardboard on about two-thirds of the stuff.

“Aren’t you going to take those needles?” inquired Buckner, noticing that his client had passed them by. “Why, there’s fully a million of them.”

“No use for them.”

“And this big pile of apple corers?”

The hardware man shrugged his shoulders.

“No,” he said plumply. “They busted Morton. If he couldn’t make them go, I can’t.”

“And those other heaps of second-best stuff?” inquired Frank. “I should think they would sell for something.”

“And spoil the sale of good-profit goods. No, no. That’s poor business policy. I shall make double good as it is. Just dump the balance into some junk shop. Whatever you get for it you can keep, Newton.”

“Oh, sir,” interrupted Frank quickly, “you hardly estimate the real value there. Why, anyone taking the trouble to put those needles up into packages could clean up a good many dollars. There’s a lot of sewing machine needles there, too. They are worth three for five cents anywhere.”

“All right,” retorted his employer with an expansive smile. “You do it, Newton, I won’t. Take the stuff with my compliments, and thank you in the bargain for all the pains you have gone to in turning me out a first-class job.”

“Takes your breath away, does it, Frank?” said Buckner, with a friendly nudge. “It will give you some interesting dabbling to do for quite a time to come, eh?”

“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank, his eyes shining bright with pleasure. He was fairly overcome at the unexpected donation. He seized the hardware man’s hand and shook it fervently. “Sir,” he said gratefully, “I feel that you have given me my start in life.”

“Have I?” laughed his employer lightly. “Glad. Well, the matter’s settled,” he continued, consulting his watch – “I must catch my train.”

“One little matter, please,” said Frank, advancing to the zinc box and throwing back its cover.

He rapidly described what it contained, including the lists of names and the mail order routing cards.

The hardware man listened in a bored, impatient way.

“Don’t want any of the truck,” he said. “Burn it up, do what you want with it. Get that freight on to me quick as you can, Newton. Buckner here will settle your bill for services. Good-bye.”

Frank Newton stood like one in a dream after his visitors had departed.

A great wave of hope, ambition, the grandest anticipations filled his mind.

“Mine!” he said, passing slowly from heap to heap consigned to him as a free gift. “Mine,” he repeated, his hand resting on the zinc box. “At least fifty dollars in cash out of the work I have done, and the basis of a regular business in what that man has given me. Oh, what a royal start!”

CHAPTER X

A VISIT TO THE CITY

“It almost frightens me!” said Frank Newton’s mother.

The speaker looked quite serious, as she sat facing her son, who had just read over to her the contents of several closely-written sheets of paper.

“It needn’t, mother,” answered Frank with a bright, reassuring smile. “Mr. Buckner gave me my motto when I started in at this work. It was ‘Sense and System.’ They seem to win.”

“Yes, Frank, and I am very proud and happy to see you so much in earnest, and so successful.”

“I have over one hundred dollars in hand,” proceeded Frank. “We shall get fully as much more from the sale of our assorted needle packages and the general junk stuff down stairs. Mother, I call that pretty fine luck for three weeks’ work.”

“You have certainly been very fortunate,” murmured Mrs. Ismond.

“Then if it is a streak of fortune solely,” said Frank, “I propose to make it the basis of my bigger experiment. Yes, mother, I have fully decided I shall get into the mail order business right away. The first step in that direction is to see Mr. Morton, the Riverton hardware merchant who was burned out. He has gone into some book concern in the city. I shall go there on the night train, see him, and then I will know definitely where I stand.”

“Is it necessary to see him?” asked Frank’s mother. “Mr. Buckner says that everything he left at the fire was sold as salvage. The Lancaster man made you a present of that old zinc box. I don’t see, having abandoned it, how Mr. Morton has any further claim on it.”

“That is because you have not thought over the matter as much as I have,” observed Frank. “Perhaps Mr. Morton doesn’t know that the papers in the zinc box were nearly all saved. No, mother, I intend to start my business career on clean, clear lines. I feel it my duty to apprise Mr. Morton of the true condition of things. If I lose by it, all right. I have acted according to the dictates of my conscience.”

Mrs. Ismond glanced fondly and fervently at Frank. Her approbation of his sentiments showed in her glistening eyes.

A week had passed by since the Lancaster man had settled up with Frank. It had been a busy, bustling week for the embryo young mail order merchant and his assistants.

Frank had got his employees to sort out the myriad of needles into lots of twenty-four. He bought some little pay envelopes, and had printed on these: “Frank’s Mail Order House. Two Dozen Assorted Needles.”

As said before, this was vacation time. There was scarcely a boy in Greenville who did not take a turn at selling the needle packages, which Frank wholesaled at six cents each.

Most of the boys sold a few packages at home and to immediate neighbors, and then quit work. Others, however, made a regular business of it. Nelson Cady took in two partners, borrowed a light gig, and to date had met with signal success in covering other towns in the county.

“Why,” he had declared enthusiastically to Frank only that evening, when he handed over the cash for two hundred new packages of the needles, which Mrs. Ismond was kept busy putting up, “if the needles hold out, I could extend and extend my travelling trips and work my way clear to Idaho.”

“You are certainly making more than expenses,” said Frank encouragingly.

“Yes, but you see” – with his usual seriousness explained Nelson, “that letter may come any day, and I want to be on hand to get it.”

“Of course,” nodded Frank gravely, but he felt that poor Nelson’s hopes were like those of the man whose ship never came in.

While his young assistants were thus earning good pocket money and Frank was accumulating more and more capital daily, he kept up a powerful thinking.

A limitless field of endeavor seemed spread out before him. The handling of the salvage stock had been a positive education to him.

“I see where the Riverton hardware man failed,” Frank said to himself many times, “and I think I know how I can succeed.”

Frank packed up the contents of the zinc box in a satchel with a couple of clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, and consulted a railway time-table.

“If I take the train that goes through Greenville at three o’clock in the morning, mother,” he said, “I arrive at the city at exactly ten o’clock. Just the hour for business.”

“Well, then, after supper you lay down and sleep till two o’clock. I will busy myself putting up some more of the needles,” suggested Mrs. Ismond. “I will have a little early morning lunch ready for you, and you can start off rested.”

“Thank you,” said Frank warmly. “It’s worth working for such a mother as you.”

Frank reached the deserted railway depot of Greenville in time for the train. Nearly everybody was dozing in the car he entered. He had a seat to himself, and plenty of time and opportunity for reflection.

Frank consulted the sheets of writing he had read to his mother the evening previous. They contained his business plans. He had figured out what two hundred dollars would do towards starting a modest mail order business. However, so much depended on the result of his interview with Mr. Morton in the city, that Frank awaited that event with a good deal of anxiety.