Norwich bulletin., 1909-11-27

went for nothing.
 Three weeks ago ! ordered certain repair job. It was to be ready in two
 weeks. A week ago yesterday I went
 after it. Did 1 say in two weeks ?''
 asked the man. q shall have to dis ] appoint youi but I'll go right at it' I Last night I made my third trip-and got the repairs.
 Yesterday a customer said: T want box of celery to send to my sister for Thanksgiving; can't get it by driving down to your placer" Sure" answer. I'll come this afternoon, then" he responded. A mile further on I met arother. Gee, but those are good cabbages; got any more like
 em?" "A few" l answered. Gan get some for the winter, if I come down this afternoon ?" Yes" I returned; I'm going to get out a box of celery for So-and-So, and shall be at home all the rest of the day. I had planned to get into the woods that afternoon, but gave it up to serve these neighbors. Neither one showed up. I had my wait for my pains and wasted half day that might have saved me half d weeks struggle with icy hills and drift ed wood roads getting my winters fuel down, if winter sets in a little early.
 Now here are five men, right in this
 
 this fall that they don't consider a promise anything more than whiff of hot air. Two are tradesmen; three are fellow farmers. I don't for a mo- ment imagine that my experience is any worse or much different from that of others. If I wanted to take in all that has happened on this little one horse farm for the last six months, I could make a story that would fill col ums of fair promises easily made and easily broken; of agreements entered into and never kept; or disappoint ments and delays innumerable. So could you. kind reader. We all suffer constant irritation, inconvenience, ac- tual loss, because other people will not keep their promises to us.
 Nineteen times out of twenty the excuse these promise breakers give for their own fault is that some one else has disappointed them. Did Carpenter Harndel agree to begin shingling your roof on a Monday? When he finally shows up, the following Friday, he'll explain that Blacksmith Peters didn't get his buggy mended when promised, and he wasn't going to walk three miles. Did your new hired man en- gage to begin work on @ certain morning? He'll explain, when he ap- pears the following day, that the cob bier didn't get his boots ready, as promised, and so he couldn't come. And so on and on.
 The very most unforgiveabIe thing about all fhis is the moral punkiness 1t shows. Why. man had better walk three miles-yes, six miles a day, and that through mud and slush and pour ing rain, than break promise to which he is pledgedi He had better work barefoot in fields punctuated with slaty rocks, than not keep his word! To the man of real honor, his word once giv- en, neither personal inconvenience nor actual discomfort nor real loss will serve as a cause for breaking it. They will not even make him think of the l of breaking it.
 But promise breaking is not only | it is also bad policy, look | ing at it solely from the lowest view point of expedience. It's bad busi- ness" And right there is where I find | my cause of greatest wonder over it's | Admitting, if we must, | that men are selfish and not always as | regardful of honor as of gain. it is an | awful indictment against their alleged l common sense that they cannot see the | practical market value Of keeping their | words. "If he says he'll do it, he will | uO IL, IS d pHTdSe N0 once or LWlcc | heard applied to some one And I | never yet heard of the man of | whom that was said being out of work 1 or in real bad straits. If the endless | chain of promise breaking were re- placed by one of promise keeping, we'd | all be better off and a plaguey sight | happier. But the others won't, and | we can't make them" you say Well, | what of it? You and I can. can't we? | You and I, knowing the plain practical | value of keeping our words, and rev. erencing our own honor as something | higher yet than anything reckonable | in terms of market quotation, can keep our own promises, despite occasional | inconvenience, in the face of | temporary hardship, against the | threats of possible loss. Other mems | failures will never save us' Other mems vices do not become virtues when we don them. And the fact that some Che else does what we know 10 be wrong will never be accepted as ex- cuse for our initiating him, whether in the courts of our own consciences. or before the impartial arbitraInent of | eternal justice.
 THE FARMER.