Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1891-08-28

! limited capital is i'll predlcament.
What shall the old merchants do as they
see the Young man in this awful crisis?
Rub their hands and laugh and say:
"Good for him. Hc might have known
better. When he has been in business
as long as we have he will not load his
shelves 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: GLOW much is bid for
these out-of-fashon spring overcoats and
hats, or fall clothing out OF date? What
do hear in the way of bid?' "Four
dollars" "Absurd, l cannot take that
bid of 81 apiece. Why, these coats
when first put upon the market were
offered at Sis each, and now am Of
fered only 81. Is that all? Five dol
lars, do hear? Going at that Gone at
81" 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. That old mer-
chant that has had an evil eye on me
ever since l 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 we'll if
we keep out of the poorhouse." Tho
Young man, broken spirited, goes to hard
drinking. The young wife with her
baby goes to her fathers house, and not
only is 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 swallowed 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. That young
merchant who found that he had mis-
calculated in laying in too many goods of
one kind and been flung of the unusual
season, is standing behind the counter,
feeling very blue and biting his finger
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 q
palmer house than she ever expected to
live in, or 60 to a third-rate boarding
house where they have tough liver and
sour bread five mornings out of tho
seven.
An old merchant comes in and says:
"Well, Joe, this has been hard season
for young merchants. and this prolonged
cool weather has put many in the dol
drums, and / have been thinking of you
a good deal of late, for just after
started in business once got into tho
same scrape. Now. if there is anything
l can do to help you out will gladly do
it. Better just put those goods out of
sight for the present, and next season
we will plan something about them. I
will help you to some goods that you
can sell for me on commission, and will
go down to one of the wholesale houses
and tell them that know you and will
back you up, and if you want few
dollars to bridge over the present, I can
let you have them. Be as economical as
you can, keep stiff upper lip, and re-
member that you have two friends, God
and myself. Good morning."
The old merchant goes away and the
young man goes behind his desk, and the
tears roll down his cheeks. 1t is the
first time he has cried. Disaster made
him mad at everything, and mad at man
and mad at God. But this kindness
melts him, and the tears seem to relieve
his brain, and his spirits rise from ten
below zero to eighty in the shade, and
he comes out of the crisis.
About three years after, this young
merchant goes into the old merchants
store and says: "Wcll, 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. l learned wisdom,
prosperity has come and the pallor has
gone out of my wifc's checks, and the
roses that were there when courted
her in her fathers house have boomed
again and my business is splendid, and /
thought l ought to let you know that
you saved a man!'
In short time after, the old merchant,
who had been a good while shaky 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
closes his eyes on this world, and an an
gel who had been for many years ap.
pointed to watch the old mans dwelling,
cries upward the news that the patri-
arch's spirit is about ascending. And
the twelve angels who keep the twelve
gates OF Heaven, unite in CRYING down
to this approaching spirit of the old man,
''Come in, and welcome, for it has been
told all over these celestial lands that
you saved man,
There sometimes come exigencies ir
the life OF woman. One morning few
years ago saw in the newspaper that
there was young woman in New York
whose pocketbook containing S37. 80 hao
been stolen, and she had been left with,
out penny at the beginning of winter,
in strange city, and no work. And al
though She was a stranger, did not al
low the o'clock mail to leave the lamr
post on our corner without carrying the
S37 80, and the case was proved genuine
Now, have read all Shakspeare's
tragedies, and all Victor Hugo's TRACE
dies, and all Alexander Smiths TRACE
dies. but never read a tragedy moro
thrilling than that case, and simila,
cases by the hundreds and thousands ir
all our large cities-young women with
out money and without home and with
out work in the great maelstroms O,
metropolitan life. When such cast
comes under your observation how de
you treat it? sect out of my way; VIZ
have no room in our establishment fo]
any more hands. l don't believe in wo
men anyway. They are a lazy, idle
worthless set John, please show thi
person out of the door,
Or do you compliment her personal an