The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1903-06-24

The first college man | ever hired
was old John Durham's son Jim. That
was good many years ago, when the
house was much smaller affair. .Tim's
father had n lot of money till he start
ed out to buck the universe and corner
wheat. And the boy took all the fancy
courses and trimmings at college The
old man was mighty proud of jim.
Wanted him to be n literary fellow.
But old Durham found out what every
one learns who gets his ambitions
mixed up with number two rcd-that
there's n heap of it lying around loose
In the country. The bears did quick
work and kept the cash wheat coming
In so lively that one settling day half
q dozen of us had to get under the mar
kct TO keep 1t from going to smash.
That day made jim candidate for a
job. 1t didn't take him long to decide
that the Lord would attend to keeping
up the visible supply of poetry and
that he had better turn his attention to
tho stocks Of mess pork. Next morning
he was laying for me with II letter Of
introduction when l got to the Office,
and when he found That / wouldn't
have n private secretary at any price
he applied for every other position on
the premises right down TO Office boy.
l told him l was sorry, but | couldn't
do anything for him then; that we were
letting men go, but I'd keep him in
mind, and so OH. The fact was that
didn't think a fellow with Jim's train
ing would he much good anyhow. But
jim hung on-said he'd taken fancy
Used to call by about twice week to
find out If anything had turned up.
Fimally, after about q month of this,
he wore me down so that L stopped
him one day as he was passing me on
tho street | thought I'd find out II he
really was SO redhot to work as he
pretended to be; besides I felt that per-
haps L hadn't treated the boy Just
right, as had delivered quite a jag Of
that wheat to his father myself.
"IIcllo, Jim," called; "do you still
want that job"
"Yes, sir" lie answered quick as
lightning.
"Well, tell you how it is, Jim," !
oUio, ipoNiIIS up Ut -lt WIS O1lc OIL
those husky, lazy moving six footers-
IL don't see any chance in the office,
but understand they can use another
good, strong man i'm one of the loading
gangs"
thought that would settle Jim and
let me out, for It's 10 joke Juggling
beef or rolling barrels and tierces q
hundred yards or so to the cars. But
jim came right back at me with:
Done. Who'll / report tor
That sporty way Of answering, as IL
he was closing n bet, made me surer
than ever that he was not cut out for
started hot foot to find the foreman.
sent word by another route to see that
he got plenty to do.
forgot all about Jim until about
three months later, when his name was
handed UP to me for new place and q
raise In pay. 1t seemed that he had
sort of abolished his job. After he had
been rolling barrels awhile and the
sport had ground down one Of his shoul-
ders n couple Of inches lower than tho
other lie got to scheming around for q
way to make the work easier, and he hit
on an idea for n sort of overhead rail
road system by which the barrels could
be swung out of the storcrooms and
run right along into the cars and two
or three men do the work of gang. 1T
was just as / thought. jim was lazy,
but he had put the house in the way Of
saving so much money that couldn't
fire him. So l raised his salary and
made him an assistant timckcoper and
checker
jim kept at this for three or four
months, until his feet began to hurt
him, guess, and then he was out of a
Job again. 1t seems he had heard some
thing Of new machine for registering
the men that did away with most Of
the timekecpers, except the fellows who
watched the machines, and he kept
after the superintendent until he got
him to put them I'm. or course he
claimed raise again for effecting
SUCH q saving, and we just had to al
low 1t,
was beginning to take an interest
In jim, so brought him up into the
office and set him to copying circular
letters. We used to send out q raft Of
them to the trade. That was just be.
fore the general adoption of type
writer's, wien they were still I'm the
experimental stage. But Jim hadn't
been In the office plugging away at
the letters for a month before he had
she writer's cramp and began noslng
around again. The first thing I knew
lo was sicking tho agents for the new
typewriting machine on to me, and he
Kept thom pounding away until they
made me give them trial. Then 1t
was all up with Mr. Jlms Job again.
l raised his salary without his asking
for 1T this time and put him out ON tho
road to introduce q new product that
we were making beef extract.
Jim made two trips without selling