The Monticellonian., 1895-10-04
THE POPCORN BOY.
A Business Reversal Unheralded d
 by Dun or Bradstreet.
Outlook.

The financial stress from which the country is now emerging has left it's wrecks in the industrial and conner cial centers. When the stringency was most severe the daily press reported how this prominent bank had closed it's doors, that we'll known mercantile house had gone to pieces and this ex- tensive manufactory had shut down. But there were many minor tragedies in this distressing period-stories of destitution and dismay-that were full of desolate significance to individual lives, even though they gave the com mercial world no thrill of alarm. This is the story of one of these unreported failures" the details of which ap- pealed to the writer with pathetic in terest.
 A slight and shriveled figure of me- mium height-his growth seeming to have been arrested before he attained his natural stature-with thin and rue full features, and eyes under project ing forehead. and the ghost of beard at the chin This was "Walter the popcorn boy,n as travellers over the old road of the Lake Shore have seen him times without number at the station In a southern Michigan village, search ing the car windows with a wistful gaze for prospective patrons. So many years has he been attendant upon the arrival of the day trains that bis queer and homely figure, one shoulder borne down below the other by the weight of the painted box he carried, suspended by strap and steadied with his long, restless hands, had become as much of fixture as the sign board that swung under the caves of the little passenger house. Every arrival of train meant more or less raising of windows and the exchange of nickels and pennies for the plump sacks and the Michigan fruit. All the trainmen were good patrons of the faithful yender, but it is difficult to tell which they sought the most-the corn and apples they munched or the privilege of seeing the happiness their purchases gave Walter, particularly when the extent of busi- ness made 1t necessary for him to hur- " home and stock up again. It was plain that the vendors soul was i'll his humble trade. You could tell that by the gleam of joy that came into the usually plaintive face when trade was brisk at the trains or some liberal pas sengers threw out a nickel or dime for an apple or bag of corn with the cheery instructions to never mind the change"
 The big railway corporation, usually very conservative about granting con- sessions, allowed Walter to ply his trade at the trains out of sentiment of loyalty (also rare trait in railway eorporations) to his deceased father a bright, capable man who worked himself to death in the employ of the road. Walter did not inherit his fla thers uncIouded mentality, but he recognized the responsibility put upon his youthful shoulders by the removal of the breadwinner of the family and at once took up the line of effort to which his taste inclined and which was happily within the limited range of his faculties.
 The extraordinary perseverance and unselfishness with which he followed his humble merchandising from boy hood up, relinquishing all thoughts of the thousand and one diversions in which youth so much delights, and foregoing any participation beyond his bare necessities in the results of his labors, which, though not princely by any means, went a great ways toward keeping off the gaunt visitor, want, from the fatherless circle these acts of self-a abnegation belong to those annals of silent heroism which the world never sees or applauds, but which are written in the hearts of the faithful ones of earth and credited above.
 For nearly twenty-five years he car ried on his chosen vocation with de- yotion to duty that suggested martyr dom. To make all the trains (the com ing of a second railroad had enlarged his operationsl, to always be punetual and to make the most of the remain ing hours of the day in his trade about sown was the purpose that so pos sessed his nature that hardly half dozen times in the whole period did the faithful fellow feel disposed to give himself holiday, and then his recrea- tion was limited to day only.
 The family by the thriftinesS of their combined efforts had placed themselves be ond the need of the sons industry, but his work had so grown into his life and he invested it with so much pride and interest that he could not think of giving it up. No olonger lad, but nearing forty, he was still the same persistent, punctual yender; still know as Walter the popcorn boy It was merciful for him but pitiful for others to think that it never dawned upon him that the range of his facul- ties was any narrower than that of men in other callings; it never oc- cured to him that there was anything insignificant or petty in his poor eff forts. But the crude system of &C., counts which he carried in a little pocket memorandum he was often seen working upon as he stood with his box before him on the street corner; the stress he put upon never missing a train or losing any time in pleasure and his strict insistence upon the cash basis all these indicated that his business interests were as weighty to him as the multiplied responsibilities of a great mercantile house to a Ste wart or a Mandel; and they were faint evil I z