The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-09-09

So there are commercial exigencies.
A very late spring obliterates the de-
mand for spring overcoats and spring
hats and spring apparel Of all sorts.
Hundreds of thousands Of people say:
1T seems we are going to have no
spring, and we shall go straight out OF
winter into warm weather, and we can
get along without the usual spring at
tire" Or there is no autumn weather,
the heat plunging into the cold, and the
usual clothing which is compromise
between summer and winter is not re-
quired 1t makes difference in the
sale of millions and millions OF dollars
of goods, and some oversanguine young
merchant is caught with vast amount
of unstable goods that will never be
salable again except at prices ruinously
reduced The young merchant with
somewhat limited capital is in pre-
dicament. What shall the old mer-
chants do as they see the young man in
this awful crisis?
Rub their hands and laugh and say:
"Good for him. He might have known
better. When he has been in business
as long as we have he will not load his
shelves in that way. Ha! Ha! He will
burst up before long. He had no bust
ness to open his store SO near to ours
anyhow" Sheriff's sale! Red flag in
the window. "How much is bid for
these old-fashioned spring overcoats
and spring hats, or fall clothing out OF
date? What do l hear in the way OF a
bid?' "Four dollars" "Absurd. !
can not take that bid of 81 piece.
Why, these coats when first put upon
the market were offered at SIS each,
and now am offered only $4. Is that
all? Five dollars do hear? Going at
that! Gone at 49," and he takes the
whole lot. The young merchant goes
home that night and says to his wife:
"Well, Mary, we will have to move out
of this house and sell our piano. The
old merchant that has had an evil eye
on me since started has bought out all
that clothing, and he will have it reju'
venated and next year put it on the
market as new, while we will do well
if we keep out of the poor-house. The
young man, broken spirited, goes to
hard drinking. The young wife with
her baby goes to her fathers house, and
not only his store wiped out, but his
home, his morals, and his prospects for
two worlds-this and the next. And
devils make banquet of fire and fill
their cups of gall and drink deep to the
health of the old merchant who swal-
lowed up the young merchant who got
stuck on spring goods and went down.
That is one way, and some of you have
tried it.
But there is another way. The
young merchant who found that he
had miscalculated in laying in toe
many goods of one kind, and
been flung of the unusual season
is standing behind the counter, feeling
very blue, and biting his fnger-nails
or looking over his account-books
which read darker and worse every
time he looks at them, and thinking
how his young wife will have to be put
in a palmer house than she ever ex
pected to live in, or go to third-rate
clearinghouse where they have tough
liver and sour bread five mornings out
Of the seven. An old merchant comes
in and says. Swell. Joe, this. astbeeS
hard season for young merchants, and
this prolonged cool weather has put
many in the doldrums and l have beer
thinking of you good deal of late, fol
just after l started in business once
got into the same scrape. Now, i.
there is any thing can do tc
help you out will gladly dc
it. Better just put those good:
out of sight for the present
and next season we willplan something
about them. l will help you to some
goods that you can sell for me on com
mission, and ] will go down to one O.
the wholesale houses and tell them tina
know you and will back you up, ant
if you want few dollars to bridge
over the present can let you have
them. Be as economical as you can
keep stiff upper lip, and remember
that you have two friends, God an(
myself. Good morning" The ole
merchant goes away and the young
man goes behind his desk, and the tears
roll down his cheeks. 1t is the frs
time he has cried. Disaster made him
mad at everything, and mad at mar
and mad at God. But this kindness
melts him, and the tears seem to relieve
his brain, and his spirits rise from tel
below zero to eighty in the shade, ant
he comes out Of the crisis. "
About three years after, this youn,
merchant goes into the old merchant
store and says: "Well, my old friend,
was this morning thinking over what
you did for me three years ago. YOU
helped me out of an awful crisis in my
commercial history. learned wisdom
prosperity has come, and the pallor ha,
gone out of my wife's cheeks, and the
roses that were there when l courted
her in her fathers house have bloomed
again, and my business is splendid, and
thought ought to let you know thai
you saved a man. In a short time
after, the old merchant who had beer
good while shal1y in his limbs and
who had poor spells, is called to leave
the world, and one morning after he
had read the twenty-third Psalm about
"The Lord is my Shepherd" he close.
his eyes on this world. and an anpe
who had been for many years appoint
ed to watch the old mans dwelling
cries upward the news that the patri
arch's spirit is about ascending. Ant
the twelve angels who keep the twelv,
gates of Heaven unite in crying down