The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-11-19
The LlttIes.


Picking up sticks is slow business, but
is profitable if enough sticks are picked
up, and if sticks will sell. Gigantic for
tunes have been made bygathering frag-
ments that seemed worthless. A French
man became wealthy by picking up
crusts of bread in the streets of Paris.
He dried the crusts and sold them for
bird food. During our war men rolled
up majestic fortunes by following the
army and picking up bits of fat and
scraps of meal. There are old men and
women who spend their time in hooking
out from ash barrels and dirt heaps the
little pieces of coal and other substances
which have been overlooked. Although
these people are dirty and wear tattered
clothes, some of them have large pos
sessions. The old Scotch proverb,
ssMany nickle makes muckle," lies at
the basis of the successful enterprise of
these slow and patient gatherers. Each
piece picked up is of infinitesimal value.
To the careless observer these pieces
seem of no value at all; and it is only
when their value is massed that 1T is per-
ceptible. The fact that the accumula-
tion of the little sometimes leads to solid
prosperity contains o wholesome lesson
to the prohigate persons who squander
their little opportunities and throw away
their spare moments. To save time and
material is not only desirable, but praise
| worthy.
There is, on the other hand, danger
of OVERRIDING the business of devotion to
the infinitesimals. John Bunyan pic
tured man wins was SO closely occupied
with his muck-rake as to neglect bril-
liant inducements which were offered
him from another direction. This grow
cling person was delighted to rake to-
gether dried leaves and chips of dirt
that he could give no attention to the
crown of solid worth offered him by a
condescending angel.
There is story of man who once
found great success in picking up pins
from the pavement. and who was SO
pleased by it that he ever afterwards
walked with eyes directed downward,
looking for pins. = History records that
in the course of his life he found great
many pins; but it adds that he never had
soul above pins. There was an old
merchant down town who han practice
of making out his bills on bits of brown
wrapping paper, and of writing his let
ters on scraps of anything that would
hold pencil-mark. He grew immensely
rich; and died dcspised by everybody,
yet leaving substantial fortune to rela-
tives who rejoiced that such q miser
was gone.
Every now and again few paragraphs
and stories go the rounds of the press
about how Stephen Girard or some other
eminent fnancier grew rich on saving
bits of string or hammering crooked
with view to making prodigal young
men into thrifty ones. We are told that
Rothschild or Coutts or Jim Fisk, or
somebody, earned their first few thousand
dollars by untying string from bundles
instead OF cutting it into short and value
less bits. A. T. Stewart is by some peo-
pie supposed to have taken his first steps
to wealth by making crooked nails from
packing boxes into straight ones. 1t is
not recorded how many times he mashed
his thumb in the early stages of his
bushes, when crooked nails lodged the
blows of the hammer and flew up to hit
him in the eye. The Astors are sup
posed to have saved enough on bait for
the traps in which old Mr.. Astor caught
the animals whose fur he sold to erect
the big hotel in New York which bears
their name And SO it is with stories of
others who have piled up the worlds
wealth.
NOW tne IacG Is GnaG great many OF
these stories and examples are simply
ridiculous, and lead young men to sub
stitute the ignoble for the Eoble in their
purposes and aims. There were days in
which it paid for an intelligent young
man to straighten nails, for hardware was
not'then what it is now. When nails are as
now only a few cents pound, NEST young
men can employ their time in better
ways. An Industrious youth does well
to be thrifty in the use Of Irvine and
other sundries, but if he spend ten cents
worth of time and effort in saving three
cents worth of string, the investment is
poor one. The man who wants to hold
his head high among men of business
has nothing to gain by using old scraps
of paper instead of decent stationery.
There is a commendable sort of thrift
and there is thrift which is despicable.
The man with the muck-rake may have
been an Industrious fellow, but give us
rather the man who has enterprise
enough to look upwards and ambition
enough to robe himself in a becoming
manner, while he diligently seeks sue
cess in great things as we II as small and
in those which are worth looking after
rather than in those which are to be
despised.