The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-09-11
ARP PULLING FODDER.
A Rural Task for Modern Philosopher.

We are pulling fodder now. I've
hired two men to pull by the day and
two to pull by the hundred bundles. I
want to see which is the cheapest. But
they get me anyhow, and l cant help it.
IF they pull by the day they don't make
$50 good bundles apiece, which they
and if they pull by the hundred they
make over 200 bundles, and some of them
are mighty light. But it is all right /
reckon. They are watching me and !
am watching them. 1t is the same old
sory-capital against labor. There are
tricks in all trades. You can count the
hands in a bundle, but you cant count
the blades in hand. and so they can
make them heavy or make them light
according to pay. I've hired cord wood
cut by the cord and they can pile it so
loose that pack of hounds can follow
fox right through it and never touch
hair. But it is no deep laid scheme to
cheat you. They are just sloshing along
and you can settle with a darkey easier
than with any creature upon the earth.
A mean man can pay them in bacon at
! fifteen cents pound and flour at four
! when the cash would buy one at ten and
the other at three, and he can cheat them
twenty. five per cent. in the weights and
they will never know any better and
never care. The Lord never made such
an easy, unsuspecting creature as Tree
nigger. There are white men who take
advantage of them and cheat them and
get their labor for their yittles and
clothes, but the darkey is sure OF & living
anyhow, for if he cant earn it he can
steal it, so it is all right anyhow and the
races keep about even. Some farmers
are tricky, too, when they take chickens
to town the sickly ones are sure to CO.,
and the best potatoes are put on top OF
the basket. The richest pine is or the
outside of the load, and some rotten
corn will get in the shelter when the
meal is for market. The merchant has
his tricks too. He will bait you with
something for less than cost and make it
up on something else a. fifty per cent.
To keep up. with hard competition he
will sell you shoes with pasteboard soles
and nails that break in two under the
hammer and shoddy goods of all sorts,
for his customers want everything at the
lowest price whether it is good or bad,
and it is buckle and tongue whether the
merchant can get ahead of his customers
or they get ahead Of him. One thing is
certain, when the merchant torgets to
charge anything it is lost, forever lost.
IF he makes a mistake in change or
weight or measure he hears of it if it is
is in his favor, and if it is the other way
maybe he don't Idont know for certain.
The miller mixes corn meal with his
-four nowadays. They all do it up north
and our millers say they have to do it too
to keep up, and they comfort themselves
witb'the idea that it is healthier and bet.
ter, even though it is fraud upon the
consumer. The baker gives six loaves
for a quarter instead of five, and that
satisfies his customers, though the FIVE
weighed Just as much as the six do now.
Anything to satisfy and keep the people
calm and serene. There is power of
comfort in going home and showing up
your bargains. 1t proves that YOU are
smart in q trade, or popular with the
merchant, and that shows how smart a
good merchant is for he can make ninety
out of one hundred customers believe he
likes them better than anybody. Civility
and little pleasant aattery is splendid
capital for merchant. If my wife was
to hear accidently that merchant in
town told somebody that she had the
prettiest and best hammered daughter in
the community she would go right there
to trade and wouldent jew him down on
anything. When l was young man !
was q merchant for several years, and I
Mrs. Arp, that now is, used to come and
trade with me and I fell in love with her
across the counter, and | was sorry the
counter was as wide as it was, and che
was sorry too reckon, and | showed my
devotion go tenderly and said such sweet
things that she used to come most every
day and she done all the family trading
and some for the nabors and never priced
anything but just said so many yards or
80 many pairs and I had liked to have
got rich off of her before I married her,
which was all right reckon for it kept
the money in the family and no loss on
our side. A store is a good thing to
marry on, that is dry goods store, but
the young man had better own it if he
wants to make sure thing of his girl.
After he marries the next best thing he
can do is to sell out his store and quit
that sort of business, for merchants
own family account breaks him oftener
than anything else, for it is so easy to
serd to the store and it does look so
much like that things out of ones own
store don't cost anything. | never kept
store but six months after got married,
but me and my wife have kept other peo.
plies stores going for the last thirty
years, and they have done pretty we'll
considering.
But the biggest fraud of all is in the
marrying business, and The man is guilty
of it heap ofteuer than the woman. I'm
not talking about the regular society
woman in q town or city for don't
think that any body can cheat her, she is
generally an iceburg in passel of fine
clothes, and she don't know how to do
anything but read novels and visit, but
the average girl who marries for love is
oftener fooled than the average man.
The time used to be when man dident
begin to forget his wife until he had been
married ten or fifteen years, but now be
forgets ner in few months and wont
stay home of nights if he can help it.
Some uice swcet.tempered young mar
ried woman may be seen now a days
walking to the end Of the piazza about
ten times in fifteen minutes looking up
the street for her husband, but he don't
come hardly ever according to time.
Folks dident do that way in my days,
and my sort of folks don't do it yet;
Mrs. Arp don't have to look up the road
for me. No sir, I'm on hand before she
wants me. I am. This shows the good
effect of early training, and so | am
obliged to advise the young women to
break in their husbands as soon as pos.
sible. You can manage colt mighty
easy with care and kindness, but it is
almost impossible to reform a ba!ky
horse.
Then there are The tricks of the law