CURLED up in a chair in his room Bert spent what was left of that rainy day trying to extract wisdom from The Secrets of Business Success. The book was the work of an energetic, noisy man who shouted, and banged, and tromboned his message. There were no quiet pages of contemplation. Every word was a bullet, every sentence a volley, and every paragraph a crash of artillery.
When the boy closed the book at last he stared at the covers doubtfully. He had a vague feeling that very little of it had left a clear impression. The clamor and the tumult had deafened him and bewildered him as well. But of this much he was certain: if business was as many-sided a puzzle as the book said it was, and if Sam Sickles understood all the thunderous advice that was within these pages, then Sam Sickles was a person worthy of all respect and admiration.
At six o'clock Mr. Quinby came home in jovial good humor. He had stopped at the store on his way from the train to the house.
"So Sam lent you the book." He was plainly pleased. "I didn't think he'd part with it unless he was chloroformed. You must have charmed him. How much of it did you read?"
"All of it," Bert answered.
His father was surprised. "Like it?"
"Y . . . yes; but there's a lot of it I don't understand."
"You didn't expect to pry the cover off business and find the answer right under the lid, did you? What do you think of Sam?"
"He's all right. Does he talk about nothing but business?"
Mr. Quinby's voice grew a trifle sharp. "Did you find business talk tiresome?"
"No; I just wondered. He's not like most fellows."
"That's why he's got a business head," Mr. Quinby said decisively. "He likes you. I'm glad to find you two getting together. Run down to the store to-morrow and pick out a couple of ties."
"I'd sooner have the new collars."
"Ho! So that's it! Was Sam talking those new collars to you?"
"Before he knew who I was."
"I have an idea he'd be able to sell that collar to a man without a neck. Well, select the ties and take half a dozen of the collars, too. Perhaps you had better go down and pick them out to-night. Sam will worry about that book until he gets it back."
So Bert went back to the store through the persistent rain, and Sam counted out the collars and wisely aided him in selecting his ties. Then the clerk took the book and held it in loving, caressing hands.
"Do you think success thoughts?" he asked.
Bert had never yet found any momentous occasion demanding the chartering of the channels of his mind. The question, popped at him suddenly and unexpectedly, left his memory groping for something it could not quite grasp.
"Was . . . wasn't there a chapter. . . ." he began.
"Sure; the fifth chapter. You remember 'Think defeat and you're licked. Think success and you're over the line with the ball.' It's true. Every time a man walks in here I say to myself, 'I'm going to sell you something more than just what you came in for.' I make myself believe it. When I start to make that sale I'm full of confidence. The customer hesitates. He's undecided. All the confidence is on my side, and I make the sale. What did it? A success thought."
Bert's imagination applied the idea another way. "If I go out for the nine next spring and believe I'll make. . . ."
"Absolutely!" Sam said. "Believe in yourself and you force the other fellow to believe in you."
Mr. Quinby came in, announced that the rain was about over, and went to the rear to dispose of the umbrella he carried. Bert and Sam walked down to the door.
"I'll be around to-morrow," said Bert.
Sam looked ill at ease. "Of course, this is your father's store and you can come and go as you please, but I wish you wouldn't. Didn't you read what was in the eighth chapter? 'Guard against too much conversation; talk is the thief of time. Time is money.' I've got my way to make in the world and I can't afford to waste time. Why can't you meet me on Sunday morning when I'm free?"
Bert was huffed. "I guess I can get along without talking to you at all if it hurts you that much."
"I guess you didn't pay much attention to the eighth chapter," Sam said. "I'll tell you what . . . let's meet Sunday morning and take a walk around the town. I always walk around Sundays and see if I can find any business opportunities."
Bert was surprised to find himself appeased and interested. "What time Sunday? I must, first go to church."
"Make it afternoon, then. You meet me halfway on what I want; I meet you halfway on what you want. That's one of the big principles of success—compromise. Remember that passage in the early part of the book? A business man must not allow his ideas to get into a rut. He must keep an open mind and be ready to shift his position if necessary. I can see you've got a good business head."
All the way home an amused thought kept running in Bert's mind. A wide grin was still on his face as he entered the house.
"What's the joke?" Mrs. Quinby asked.
"Sam says I've got a good business head."
"And what's funny about a business head, Bert?"
"Oh, nothing." The grin grew wider. "I was just wondering what dad would say to that."
However, all thought of business was wiped from his mind when he came down to breakfast late in the morning and learned that Bill Harrison had called for him while he had been asleep.
"Did he say what he wanted, Mom?"
"He said he was going out to that Butterfly Man's place."
Bert hurried his breakfast and went in search of Dolf. He found him carrying trays of freshly baked coffee cake to the bakery counter.
"Want to come out and see Tom Woods?" Bert asked.
Dolf shook his head with decision. "And get another mess of burned stuff? I guess not. I can get better grub than that at home. Anyway, I don't like the way he talks of things, just showing off how much he knows, and making a fuss over Bill, and insulting everybody else."
"I didn't hear him insult anybody," Bert said in surprise.
"Some people don't know when they're insulted," said Dolf, "but I'm not one of them. You can go out there as often as you like, but don't count on me."
So Bert rode out alone to the cabin and the house of glass. The day was fresh and sparkling after the rain, the road had been washed clean, and the tire treads swished and whirred as they griped the surface of the highway. To-day he did not have Bill along to hold him back, and the speedometer recorded a swift succession of the miles. Before noon he pushed through the path, where the brush was still wet, and came to his destination.
There was about the clearing an atmosphere of emptiness and desertion. No sound broke the stillness. It seemed that it must have been days since a human was here . . . and yet, in the soft ground, Bert found the marks of Bill's tires and the puncture of Bill's crutch.
The door of the cabin was open a bare two inches. Bert leaned his bicycle against the wall, so gently that he did not disturb the hush of the place. After that he sat in the doorway. The Butterfly Man had guaranteed this as a good loafing spot. Staring off into the distance, Bert found a drowsy peace taking possession of his being. Time ceased to have any importance. Probably Bill and the Butterfly Man had gone off together. They might be back in an hour or they might not be back in six. He did not care how long they stayed away.
And then, of a sudden, his eyes popped open. Bill's bicycle was leaning against a tree at the side of the clearing. Now that his wits were sharpened he noticed that the marks of Bill's crutch punctured the soft ground and led to the cabin and did not lead forth again. For the first time the stillness, the absence of all sound, seemed uncanny. The flesh along his spine began to prickle with goose flesh.
A voice broke the silence. "How are you making out, Bill?"
The reply was a suppressed grunt.
Relief shot through Bert, and he sprang to his feet. "Hello! Everybody asleep?"
"It's Bert," cried Bill's voice, not suppressed this time. A chair scraped along the floor and the door was thrown open. There stood Tom Woods, an open book in one hand and a black and battered pipe in the other.
"Hooks and sinkers," he said, "but you'd make a fine burglar! What do you wear, gum shoes? Why all the stealth? How long have you been prowling around out here?"
"I don't know; about fifteen minutes."
"The door was open. Why didn't you come in?"
Bert gave him a look of surprise. "You can't just walk into somebody's house."
The Butterfly Man reached out, and caught his arm, and dragged him inside. "I might have known you'd have some such thought," he chuckled. "Where's the fat little fellow you had with you last time, Dolf somebody or other."
"He wouldn't come."
"So he washes his hands of me. I don't blame him. He had a nasty look in his eyes when he saw the burned ham. Oh, Bill! What kind of stunts are you trying to spring on us? You let out a roar when you heard Bert's voice and now you won't even get up and say hallo to him."
"Too busy," said Bill. He had a brush in one hand, a smear of yellow and a smear of blue across one cheek, and was bent over a square of bristol board laid down alongside a specimen butterfly case. He made a touch with the brush, and drew back his head to view the result, and gave a little chuckle of pleasure. "Getting it," he called, and dabbed at something on the other side of the specimen case.
Bert walked over and looked. The something was a box of water colors.
"Mr. Woods gave them to me," Bill explained gleefully. "He said if I wanted to draw butterflies I might as well get them in their true colors."
"You might as well waste time that way as any other," the Butterfly Man observed.
Bill's head came up. "You didn't tell me that. You said that some day I might be able to paint the pictures for books and magazine articles you might write."
The Butterfly Man threw up his hands in a comic gesture of dismay. "There you go, spilling the beans and letting out our secrets. And we were going to keep all this under cover until we were ready to be famous."
Bill's eyes, direct, burning, were on his face. "You meant it, didn't you?"
"I meant it," Tom Woods said in a changed voice. "We both like butterflies. If you can make the grade drawing them, and if I can make the grade writing about them, we ought to come through. But it means years."
"What's years?" Bill demanded, and bent over his drawing.
Bert's gaze had gone from the man, to the boy, and back to the man again. What's years! The light from the window fell upon Bill absorbed in what he was doing . . . and upon the stump that had once been a whole leg. Something in Bert stirred. He realized then, in a sort of sudden intuition, that Tom Woods, with the instinct of a great heart, was going out of his way to kindle ambition and purpose before a boy's soul could grow sick with the knowledge of its handicap.
To-day the man, unaided, cooked the meal, for Bert was glued to the back of Bill's chair watching every motion of the brushes. In the end Tom Woods had to drag them both to the table; and even there Bill talked of nothing but the difficulty of shading from one to the other of the brilliant colors of his model. And the Butterfly Man listened, and nodded, and smiled a smile that was both whimsical and grave.
Bert would have preferred to go back to the chair and watch, but the soiled dishes could not be ignored. The man washed, and he wiped the china and put it away. The water pails were empty, and they could not be ignored, either. He began to work the pump at the sink.
"Not that way." Tom Woods stopped him. "That's all right for winter. In open weather I like to go down to the spring, and dip in, and see the water come up clear and cool."
Bert followed at his heels, carrying one of the pails. Outdoors they fell into step.
"Bill's doing great, isn't he?" Bert asked.
The Butterfly Man was silent a moment. "You're a friend of his, aren't you?" he asked.
"I'd like to hear anybody say I'm not."
"You wouldn't want to hurt him? Don't look at me like that; I know you wouldn't. I've seen a lot of young fellows ruined by too much praise."
Bert digested this while they filled the pails and carried them back. Bill had finished a painting, and had propped it up and was stumping about viewing it from various angles.
"What do you think of it?" he asked impulsively.
Bert half closed his eyes and studied it in a silence that grew prolonged.
"I knew I didn't have it," Bill said in disappointment. "It doesn't look real; it looks just painted. All right; I'll get it some day. You'll see." He went back to his chair, and the Butterfly Man began to whistle.
"Years, Bill," he said.
"Sure," said Bill; "I forgot. Trying to kick the ball before I had it." And then he was bent over a fresh piece of board.
All through the afternoon the Butterfly Man wrote letters to butterfly men in scattered parts of the world . . . and all through the afternoon Bert hovered over Bill's chair and never seemed to weary of watching the busy brushes at work. By and by it grew darker, but neither of the boys seemed to notice the gathering gloom. Tom Woods, at the table, began to find writing dificult.
"Run up that window shade," he called. "I'm not an owl."
"It is up," Bert answered, and looked at the sky. A tumble of angry clouds was coming out of the southwest in a smolder of black and dirty gray. A faint peal of thunder reached his ears.
"Look here, Bill," he said in concern, "we'd better be hopping along."
Bill glanced up languidly, stared, and began to put paints and brushes away.
Tom Woods joined them. "You fellows can't leave now. This rain would be on you in twenty minutes. If I'm any judge of weather it's going to pour cats and codfish. You'd be drenched. You'd better wait until it's over."
"Suits me," said Bill, but went on packing away his materials. The lowering day made further painting impossible. Standing in the open doorway they watched the tempest approach—first a scurrying of wind-whipped clouds, and then the storm center itself. The growl of the thunder was louder now, and ribbons of lightning danced on the horizon. Trees began to bend and sway with a wild rustling of leaves. Suddenly the wind had a wet, cold smell. The day grew black, and the rain was upon them, a rushing sheet of water that slashed against the cabin and drove across the threshold of the room.
"Close it," Tom Woods cried, and the door was pushed shut against the pressure of the wind and bolted. The man felt his way across the floor and lighted a lamp.
"Where would you have been if you had started?" he asked.
"About drowned," said Bert.
"I wasn't thinking about that," Bill spoke up. "I was thinking about my paint box."
Bert gave a start. In the steady drip of two days ago Sam Sickles had thought only of his book.
The cabin drummed under the stinging volleys of driven rain. After an hour they sensed that the fury of the storm was spent. They opened the door. It was still raining, but the sky was growing brighter and the fag end of the day was making feeble claim of its own. Grass and flowers had been beaten flat, and the trees were drooped and forlorn. Yet the smell from the ground was fresh, and earthy, and sweet.
Bert gave a groan. "We left our bikes out. Look at them now."
It was Tom Woods who carried them in, queerly frescoed with streaks and blotches of wet mud. Bert wiped them dry with cloths. The rain had dwindled to an intermittent drizzle, but the clock said twenty minutes past seven.
"How are you going to get home?" the Butterfly Man asked. "It will be dark soon."
"If we ride fast. . . ." Bert began.
"I guess you're forgetting me," said Bill.
Bert had forgotten that his friend would not be able to hold the pace. He glanced doubtfully out of doors. "They'll be expecting us home. . . ."
"Telephone them," said Tom Woods. "Tell them you're going to spend the night with me. I don't like this thing of riding a bicycle after dark on the county highway. An automobile might swing around a curve and crash you."
So Bert telephoned, and rejoiced that it was his mother's, and not his father's, voice that answered. It was plain from the expression of his face, that his explanation and the plan had not been received with enthusiasm. For a minute or two he kept repeating a patient, resigned, "Yes, Mom; yes, Mom," and then hung up the receiver with an audible sigh of relief.
"Mom says she'll telephone your house, Bill."
Bill nodded. "I'll bet you got rats."
"Well. . . ." Bert hesitated.
"Another case of being judged by the company you keep," the Butterfly Man said with a grimace. "Your mother thinks I'm a bad egg or I wouldn't be associating with two such wildcats. Of course you got rats. First, you should have started home earlier. Second, are you sure you're not wet? Third, you have no right to impose upon somebody who's almost a stranger. Fourth, don't sit up too late."
Bert's eyes had widened. "How did you know?"
"I had a mother . . . once," Tom Woods said wistfully. "Any other instructions?"
"Yes; I'm not to miss church in the morning."
"You won't."
They had a wonderful supper that night—tomato omelette, mashed potatoes, peas, hot biscuits and apple butter. After the dishes had been put away, Tom Woods brought out a banjo, and leaned with the back of his chair against the wall, and twanged the strings and sang them stirring songs. Two of the melodies they knew, "The Miner's Daughter" and "Solomon Levi," and roared the words with a gusto that shook the lamp. Tiring of singing, Tom Woods put the banjo away; and Bert told of Sam Sickles and spoke of the clerk with frank admiration. The Butterfly Man smoked and nodded.
"I've heard of that type before," he said. "Single-track minds—think of nothing but getting ahead. They usually make good, but anybody who stands in their way gets hurt. How long has he been working in the store?"
"About a couple of months."
"You had the job, didn't you? How did you come to get out?"
"Oh," said Bert, "the old man and I couldn't get along."
"The what?" Tom Woods asked mildly.
"I mean my father," Bert said, and squirmed uncomfortably.
Tom Woods knocked the ashes from his pipe. "Your father is older than you, son, and he knows more. Don't fool yourself about that. Usually fathers think a lot about their sons, and usually sons think mainly of themselves. Well, how about bed? I'll have to knock together a shake-down for you fellows."
But it was a long time before Bert dropped off to sleep. Tom Woods had started an uncomfortable train of thought running through his mind.
In the morning, after breakfast, they went with the man to a country church; and afterwards they bid him good-by and started back toward Springham, Bill with his precious box of paints and brushes lashed to the frame of his bicycle. Twice the box slipped, and they had to stop and secure it anew. As a result of these delays it was long past noon when Bert reached home. His father had dozed off in a chair and his mother was reading; but she put down the book and set him out food that she had kept warm against the time of his arrival. While he ate she asked him many questions dealing with his visit, and at last seemed to be satisfied. He went up to his room, got out the old accordion, and tried some of the melodies that Tom Woods had twanged on the banjo.
"Hush, Bert," his mother admonished him guardedly from the hall.
"Oh, let him play," his father's voice called. "I'm awake, anyway. Bring it down, Bert, and give us a tune."
Bert brought the musical relic downstairs and played "The Washington Post." His father admitted that it was not bad and, proud of his achievement, he played the march again. When he began the piece the third time Mr. Quinby yawned.
"Is that the only thing you know?" he asked. However, it was a good-humored question, and Bert laughed. Strangely, he had no desire that afternoon to fare from the house and seek outside amusement.
At the supper table his father said:
"Bert, I was all out of patience with you when you left the store, but I should have had a clerk long ago. I see that now. Sam takes a lot of bothersome details off my hands and I don't feel so dragged at the end of the week. You know, that business will be yours some day. The bigger I can make it, the bigger it will be when you get it."
Bert was on the point of saying he had no yearning for men's furnishings, but the memory of Tom Woods' words came back to still his tongue.
The same quiet contentment that had been part of him all afternoon remained during the evening. When he started for bed, his father followed him out into the hall.
"Have a good time last night?"
"Yes, sir."
"It was lonesome here. First time you've been away from home over night." His hand fell on the boy's shoulder. "I guess I've been too busy to pay much attention to you. We've sort of fallen away from each other. We'll have to remedy that and have some more of the good times. Right?"
"Right!" said Bert. He was light of heart as he went up to bed . . . and only then did he realize that this was the day he was to have met Sam Sickles and to have accompanied the clerk as he strolled about Springham looking for opportunities.
On the morrow he fell into one of those neryous streaks of industry that sometimes attack boys even in the most languid days of August. The morning was given over to scraping soot from the inside of the furnace fire box, and he came up from his labors as begrimed as any chimney sweep. The coolness of the bathtub was inviting, and he splashed there until his mother warned him for the third time that she would not keep his luncheon waiting all day. The meal over, he debated the afternoon's course of action. There would be no use in hunting up Bill Harrison; Bill would be engaged with his paints and would prove indifferent company. He felt no desire to see Dolf Muller. In the end he brought out a book, dropped into a chair, and read until his father came home to supper.
"I'm going to lodge meeting to-night," Mr. Quinby said. "Sam will be alone at the store. Why not run down?"
Bert hesitated. "He doesn't like to talk when there's work to do. He says conversation is the thief of time."
"Does he?" Mr. Quinby chuckled. "Well, we'll make this one exception. I told him you might be along. I think he's anxious to see you about something."
So Bert went down to Washington Avenue. The visit was destined to have far-reaching consequences.
Sam Sickles, attending to a customer's wants, gave him the briefest of nods and thereafter paid strict attention to the sale. But when the transaction was completed and the customer gone, the clerk turned eagerly to his visitor.
"I thought you were going to meet me yesterday morning, Bert."
"I was at the Butterfly Man's. I went there Saturday, and the storm came up and I couldn't get home."
"The Butterfly Man? Oh, yes; your father told me about that fellow." Sam's tone showed that, whatever the impression he held of Tom Woods, it was not of the highest. "You should have been with me yesterday. I found it."
"Your opportunity?" Bert asked breathlessly.
"My opportunity," Sam said, and uttered the words with something of the air of a captain of finance.
If Sam's wisdom had loomed admirably before, at this moment it was colossal. In Bert's eyes the clerk took on an added stature and seemed invested with romantic and dynamic possibilities.
"A business plan," Sam went on earnestly, "must be sound and safe . . . and original. Woolworth made a fortune because he was the first man to think of the five-and-ten-cent store. Where do most of the people in this town spend their money . . . I mean for furniture, and jewelry, and clothing?"
Bert considered this. "In the city, I guess."
"Why? Because the big stores have big stocks to select from. When a woman wants to buy a rug, or a coat, how does she know what store to go to? What does your mother do?"
"She looks up the ads in the city newspaper."
"I knew it," Sam cried in triumph, "and that's my opportunity. Four papers are published in the city. Some stores advertise in one paper and not in another. I've been looking it up. If a woman wants to be sure of getting the bargains, she's got to see what's advertised in all papers. How many newspapers do you take at home?"
"One; the Herald."
"Almost everybody buys only one. That means they don't know what's in the other papers and they won't spend twelve cents to buy four papers every day. Now, suppose they could see all four papers and never have to buy one? Wouldn't that be worth fifty cents a month?"
Bert nodded. "I guess so."
"I'm going to organize. The Shoppers' Service and hire a small store. A woman pays fifty cents a month for membership, and what does she get? Every morning three copies of each paper come to the store. I cut up one, cut out every ad and then put all bed ads in one group, rug ads in another group, silk waist ads in another group, and so on. If a woman is going shopping, she comes to the store before train time and looks through all the papers. If she's rushed, she telephones and says, 'What rug ads are running to-day?' and I read her each rug ad. Why, there's never been anything like this idea. It's original."
But Bert's eyes were beginning to draw together.
"I struck a rock, though," Sam confessed, "and for a while it had me stumped. Store rent, and telephone hire, and newspapers, and light . . . it takes a lot of half-dollars."
"That's what I was thinking," said Bert.
Sam gave him a glance of respect. "You'll have a business head some day. But look here! Maybe thirty or forty women will come in every day to read the papers. They'll come in when they don't want to shop just to get a line on prices. They sit down at a nice table. They begin to talk back and forth. It's a sort of social group, and that's the time to sell them a cup of tea, or a sandwich, or a piece of cake, or some ice cream. I'll put in a little gas stove and then I'll be all set to serve little luncheons. Women will get used to meeting in there. On a cold day they'll come in for a hot drink, and on a hot day for a cold drink. It will get to be a sort of woman's club. I ought to be able to sell about five hundred dollars' worth of food a month—that's only about fifteen dollars a day. Then I have the fifty-cent memberships, and I can take subscriptions for magazines, and perhaps handle theater tickets for the city shows. It's a gold mine."
Bert's doubts had been swept away. There seemed to be so many different ways in which such a business could take in money!
"When are you going to start?" he asked.
"I don't know. I need about $800, and I don't care to put in more than $400 of my own money. I don't figure I can afford to risk more than $400. It will cost a lot for tables, and table cloths, and dishes and a few flowers every day. If I can find somebody with a little money to put into this'll sell him a one-third share and start business."
"That shouldn't be hard. You ought to be able to find a man who'll go into that."
"Man or boy," said Sam, "it's all the same if he has the money."
Bert, on the instant, saw a prize within his grasp. "I could put in $300," he said eagerly.
Sam hesitated. "I don't know whether that would be enough. I'd like to have you; in fact I had you in mind because I knew you had some money. I don't know about $300, though. You couldn't get any more, could you? Well, give me a day to figure it out. I'll let you know."
Bert came away that night doubly anxious to be part of the enterprise because the chance gave promise of slipping through his fingers.
"Only one way to start in business," Sam told his reflection as he turned out the store lights. "Get somebody else to go in with you. Then, if the business fails, somebody else has to stand part of the loss."