Bound to Succeed: or, Mail Order Frank's Chances

CHAPTER IX
SENSE AND SYSTEM

Frank was up and stirring before six o’clock the next morning. He felt like a person beginning life brand-new again.

When his mother appeared half-an-hour later, she found everything tidied up, including Frank himself, who hurried through a good, hearty breakfast with an important business engagement in view.

“You will excuse me for calling at your home instead of the office,” said Frank to Mr. Buckner, a little later.

“That’s all right, Frank,” declared the insurance man, shaking hands heartily with his early caller. “Time is money, and of course you want to utilize it to the best advantage. Well, what’s the news?”

Frank recited the progress of the day previous. When he came to tell of the sale of the old junk at Riverton, his host laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“You’ll do, Frank,” he observed with enthusiasm – “decidedly, you’ll do! You got the moving done at just half what I expected to pay, and collected twenty dollars and a half we never knew a word about.”

“Then you want me to go on getting the burned stuff in order, do you?” inquired Frank.

“Certainly – that was all understood, wasn’t it? I’ll try and drop around to-day or to-morrow and take a look at the plunder, just out of curiosity. As to getting it in shape for my client’s inspection, I leave that in your able charge exclusively.”

“Thank you,” said Frank.

Nelson Cady was piping a cheery whistle in front of the store when Frank got home.

“Got no letter yet,” he announced in his old important way, “so I reckon I can give you a lift, Frank.”

“Good for you,” commended Frank. “You know how to work all right when you want to, Nelson.”

Frank unlocked the store door with a proud sense of proprietorship. Both entered the long, rambling room.

“Now then, Nelson,” said Frank, “I offer you ten cents an hour, and make you superintendent of the little plant here.”

“What am I expected to superintend?” asked Nelson.

“Did you notify any of the boys?”

“Oh, yes – I could get an army of them, if needed.”

“I think about half-a-dozen will answer,” said Frank.

“They’ll be here shortly all right,” responded Nelson. “It’s vacation, and – there’s the first arrival now.”

A curly-pated, eager-faced little urchin popped in through the open doorway.

“Hey, Nelse, am I early enough?” he asked anxiously.

“Five cents an hour,” announced Frank, with a welcoming smile.

“Oh, my!” cried the little fellow – “five times twenty-four is, let me see – a naught and two to carry, a dollar and twenty cents. Whoop!”

“Here, here, you don’t suppose we’re going to work all day and all night, too, do you?” said Nelson. “Eight hours will tire you out soon enough.”

“Forty cents a day, then,” cried the little fellow. “Say, I’ll be rich!”

Within the next ten minutes as many as a dozen other boys arrived. The news of Frank Newton having work to be done, had spread like wildfire among juvenile Greenville. All hands begged for employment, but Frank could not hire all of them. He engaged first boys whose families needed help, and promised the others they should work as substitutes when any of the original employes dropped out of the ranks.

“Now then, friends,” said Frank, as soon as the hiring business was disposed of, “Nelson Cady will direct what you are to do. You had better all of you go home first and put on the oldest duds you can find, for this is going to be dirty work. Look here, Nelson.”

Frank had got a big piece of chalk at a carpenter’s shop on his way home from the interview with Mr. Buckner.

With this he now divided the floor space of one whole side of the store into sections about six feet square.

“You see, Nelson,” he said to his superintendent, “first you tip over one of those big packing cases onto the floor.”

“All right, Frank.”

“Then begin picking out an article at a time. Suppose it is a hammer comes first: write with chalk on the edge of a section ‘Hammers,’ and then group all the hammers you find by themselves.”

“I understand,” nodded Nelson.

“Label all the squares plainly. Mass everything of its class in distinct heaps. That is the first start in your work.”

Frank had some of his regular village chores to do. He was gone over an hour attending to various duties.

As he came back to the store again, Frank was spurred up by the busy hum of industry. Half-a-dozen urchins peering enviously in at the open front door made way for him. He gave them a kind word and stepped inside to take a sweeping view of his juvenile working force.

A great rattlety-bang was going on as the boys pulled over the heap of debris. Hands and faces were grimed. There were some blistered fingers, but the boys were working like bees in a hive.

The chalked-off sections had begun to grow in number. One was labelled “Needles.” Frank stared in some wonder. There were papers of needles whole, and others with half their original paper coverings burned away, of loose needles, some rusted and blackened, some still bright and shining; there seemed to be thousands upon thousands.

Then there was a lot of pieces of lawn mowers, blades, wheels, screws, cogs and axles. Hinges of all sizes and qualities showed up prominently. Pocket knives, scissors and carpenter tools were likewise greatly in evidence.

One pile was growing rapidly with the minutes. This was a heap of apple corers. It was a contrivance with a small wooden knob. A screw held a tapering piece of thin metal, which penetrated the centre of an apple. Then a twist was supposed to cut out the core.

From letters in the zinc box which Frank had read, he knew that purchasers of this device had complained about it greatly. In the first place it was arbitrarily set for one uniform cut. No matter whether the apple to be operated on was large or small, the hole made was exactly the same. If the fruit was hard and crisp, according to the letters of complaint the corer split the apple. If it was soft, the corer mushed the apple. There were already sorted out several hundreds of these corers. Frank wished he could get hold of them and improve them.

Frank looked over all the selected stuff in view. Then he went in turn to the village blacksmith, the local hardware store and to a druggist friend. He returned with some sponges, soft rags, sandpaper and a can of oil. He chalked off new spaces at the rear end of the store, three being devoted to each article labelled. Then he ordered his helpers to grade the various utensils dug out of the debris. Thus, hammers: those burned beyond practical use were put in heap one, second best, heap two; those that were only slightly marred were placed in heap three.

When Mr. Buckner came to the store the following day at noon the work had progressed famously. The insurance man was greatly gratified at the layout.

“Sense and system,” he said, and told Frank he was proud of him.

Certainly Frank had proceeded on a routine that was bound to bring good results. What he called the finished product was now strongly in evidence. He had divided his working force. Five of the small boys helped him in getting all the salable stuff sorted by itself.

Mr. Buckner’s client did not put in an appearance until the following Tuesday. By that time the place looked more like a real hardware store than a repairing shop.

All the best stuff was classified and neatly laid out. The hardware man from Lancaster made one sweeping inspection of the various piles of merchandise. There was quite a delighted expression on his face as he turned to Frank.

“Young man,” he said, “Mr. Buckner prepared me to meet a brisk, enterprising fellow of about your size, but the way you have handled this business is a marvel.”

Frank flushed with pleasure.

“Right at the start,” continued his visitor, “I offer you a good, permanent position in my store at Lancaster at eight dollars a week.”

“I thank you greatly,” replied Frank, “but I have partly decided on some other plans with my mother.”

“All right. If you change your mind, come to me. Now then, to size up this proposition in detail.”

The speaker looked into and over everything. When he had gone one round he picked up an empty red cardboard box and began to cut it up into small squares.

“I seem to have made a fine investment, Buckner,” he said to the insurance man. “There’s over two hundred dollars in those lawn mower parts alone. The regular stuff like tools and cutlery are good for as much more. See here, Newton: I am going to put one of these red cardboard squares on all the lots I wish you to ship to me at Lancaster.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.

“Get some strong boxes and pack the stuff well, send by freight.”

The hardware merchant now went from pile to pile, placing the red bits of cardboard on about two-thirds of the stuff.

“Aren’t you going to take those needles?” inquired Buckner, noticing that his client had passed them by. “Why, there’s fully a million of them.”

“No use for them.”

“And this big pile of apple corers?”

The hardware man shrugged his shoulders.

“No,” he said plumply. “They busted Morton. If he couldn’t make them go, I can’t.”

“And those other heaps of second-best stuff?” inquired Frank. “I should think they would sell for something.”

“And spoil the sale of good-profit goods. No, no. That’s poor business policy. I shall make double good as it is. Just dump the balance into some junk shop. Whatever you get for it you can keep, Newton.”

“Oh, sir,” interrupted Frank quickly, “you hardly estimate the real value there. Why, anyone taking the trouble to put those needles up into packages could clean up a good many dollars. There’s a lot of sewing machine needles there, too. They are worth three for five cents anywhere.”

“All right,” retorted his employer with an expansive smile. “You do it, Newton, I won’t. Take the stuff with my compliments, and thank you in the bargain for all the pains you have gone to in turning me out a first-class job.”

“Takes your breath away, does it, Frank?” said Buckner, with a friendly nudge. “It will give you some interesting dabbling to do for quite a time to come, eh?”

“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank, his eyes shining bright with pleasure. He was fairly overcome at the unexpected donation. He seized the hardware man’s hand and shook it fervently. “Sir,” he said gratefully, “I feel that you have given me my start in life.”

“Have I?” laughed his employer lightly. “Glad. Well, the matter’s settled,” he continued, consulting his watch – “I must catch my train.”

“One little matter, please,” said Frank, advancing to the zinc box and throwing back its cover.

He rapidly described what it contained, including the lists of names and the mail order routing cards.

The hardware man listened in a bored, impatient way.

“Don’t want any of the truck,” he said. “Burn it up, do what you want with it. Get that freight on to me quick as you can, Newton. Buckner here will settle your bill for services. Good-bye.”

Frank Newton stood like one in a dream after his visitors had departed.

A great wave of hope, ambition, the grandest anticipations filled his mind.

“Mine!” he said, passing slowly from heap to heap consigned to him as a free gift. “Mine,” he repeated, his hand resting on the zinc box. “At least fifty dollars in cash out of the work I have done, and the basis of a regular business in what that man has given me. Oh, what a royal start!”

CHAPTER X
A VISIT TO THE CITY

“It almost frightens me!” said Frank Newton’s mother.

The speaker looked quite serious, as she sat facing her son, who had just read over to her the contents of several closely-written sheets of paper.

“It needn’t, mother,” answered Frank with a bright, reassuring smile. “Mr. Buckner gave me my motto when I started in at this work. It was ‘Sense and System.’ They seem to win.”

“Yes, Frank, and I am very proud and happy to see you so much in earnest, and so successful.”

“I have over one hundred dollars in hand,” proceeded Frank. “We shall get fully as much more from the sale of our assorted needle packages and the general junk stuff down stairs. Mother, I call that pretty fine luck for three weeks’ work.”

“You have certainly been very fortunate,” murmured Mrs. Ismond.

“Then if it is a streak of fortune solely,” said Frank, “I propose to make it the basis of my bigger experiment. Yes, mother, I have fully decided I shall get into the mail order business right away. The first step in that direction is to see Mr. Morton, the Riverton hardware merchant who was burned out. He has gone into some book concern in the city. I shall go there on the night train, see him, and then I will know definitely where I stand.”

“Is it necessary to see him?” asked Frank’s mother. “Mr. Buckner says that everything he left at the fire was sold as salvage. The Lancaster man made you a present of that old zinc box. I don’t see, having abandoned it, how Mr. Morton has any further claim on it.”

“That is because you have not thought over the matter as much as I have,” observed Frank. “Perhaps Mr. Morton doesn’t know that the papers in the zinc box were nearly all saved. No, mother, I intend to start my business career on clean, clear lines. I feel it my duty to apprise Mr. Morton of the true condition of things. If I lose by it, all right. I have acted according to the dictates of my conscience.”

Mrs. Ismond glanced fondly and fervently at Frank. Her approbation of his sentiments showed in her glistening eyes.

A week had passed by since the Lancaster man had settled up with Frank. It had been a busy, bustling week for the embryo young mail order merchant and his assistants.

Frank had got his employees to sort out the myriad of needles into lots of twenty-four. He bought some little pay envelopes, and had printed on these: “Frank’s Mail Order House. Two Dozen Assorted Needles.”

As said before, this was vacation time. There was scarcely a boy in Greenville who did not take a turn at selling the needle packages, which Frank wholesaled at six cents each.

Most of the boys sold a few packages at home and to immediate neighbors, and then quit work. Others, however, made a regular business of it. Nelson Cady took in two partners, borrowed a light gig, and to date had met with signal success in covering other towns in the county.

“Why,” he had declared enthusiastically to Frank only that evening, when he handed over the cash for two hundred new packages of the needles, which Mrs. Ismond was kept busy putting up, “if the needles hold out, I could extend and extend my travelling trips and work my way clear to Idaho.”

“You are certainly making more than expenses,” said Frank encouragingly.

“Yes, but you see” – with his usual seriousness explained Nelson, “that letter may come any day, and I want to be on hand to get it.”

“Of course,” nodded Frank gravely, but he felt that poor Nelson’s hopes were like those of the man whose ship never came in.

While his young assistants were thus earning good pocket money and Frank was accumulating more and more capital daily, he kept up a powerful thinking.

A limitless field of endeavor seemed spread out before him. The handling of the salvage stock had been a positive education to him.

“I see where the Riverton hardware man failed,” Frank said to himself many times, “and I think I know how I can succeed.”

Frank packed up the contents of the zinc box in a satchel with a couple of clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, and consulted a railway time-table.

“If I take the train that goes through Greenville at three o’clock in the morning, mother,” he said, “I arrive at the city at exactly ten o’clock. Just the hour for business.”

“Well, then, after supper you lay down and sleep till two o’clock. I will busy myself putting up some more of the needles,” suggested Mrs. Ismond. “I will have a little early morning lunch ready for you, and you can start off rested.”

“Thank you,” said Frank warmly. “It’s worth working for such a mother as you.”

Frank reached the deserted railway depot of Greenville in time for the train. Nearly everybody was dozing in the car he entered. He had a seat to himself, and plenty of time and opportunity for reflection.

Frank consulted the sheets of writing he had read to his mother the evening previous. They contained his business plans. He had figured out what two hundred dollars would do towards starting a modest mail order business. However, so much depended on the result of his interview with Mr. Morton in the city, that Frank awaited that event with a good deal of anxiety.

When the train neared the terminus Frank took a good wash, put on a clean collar, and tidied up generally. Leaving the train he bought a satisfactory meal at a restaurant, and was ready for business.

Frank soon located the book concern in which Mr. Morton had invested his money. It occupied four gaudy offices, one of which was occupied exclusively by Mr. Morton. Frank had to wait his turn for an interview. While seated in the anteroom, he learned something of the business going on from the conversation of some callers there.

It appeared that the concern sold book outfits to canvassers on a conditional salary guarantee. From what Frank gleaned very few ever made good, so the chief revenue of the company came from the original outfit sale.

Finally Frank was called into Mr. Morton’s office. The latter looked him over with an urbane smile.

“Came in response to our advertisement for agents, I suppose?” he inquired.

“Not at all,” replied Frank. “It is solely on personal business. I came to see you, sir – about your old business at Riverton.”

Mr. Morton shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as though the reminder was unpleasant.

“Bills?” he growled out. “Thought I’d settled everything – sick of the whole business, and threw it up in the air for good. Go on.”

“Why,” said Frank, “I sort of represent the people who bought the salvage from the fire insurance folks.”

“I have nothing to do with that.”

“Among the debris there was a zinc box with some of your papers in it.”

“Yes, I remember,” nodded Mr. Morton. “Nearly all burned up, weren’t they?”

“No, sir. In looking them over I found some of your old customers’ accounts, and that like. I thought they might be valuable to you, so I came down from Greenville where I live to bring them to you.”

“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Morton with a stare, partly suspicious, partly surprised. “That’s queer.”

Frank said no more. He opened the suit case and removed its two neatly put up packages. One contained the private papers of Mr. Morton. The other contained the mailing lists and mail order system layout.

Frank placed the two parcels on the desk before his host. The latter chanced to open the larger package first. He carelessly ran over the lists and the accompanying literature.

“H’m,” he said rather irritably, “I’ve little use for that monument of my fool-killer experiment!”

Frank was relieved – in fact, pleased, to observe Mr. Morton contemptuously sweep aside the litter before him and inspect the second package.

This interested him. He sorted out quite a lot of bills and receipts.

“Guess I’m a careless business man,” he spoke at last. “That fire so discouraged me I just got out, bag and baggage. There’s some good, collectible bills here. Now then, young man,” he continued, facing squarely about on Frank, “don’t tell me you came way down here from Greenville with that stuff just out of courtesy and kindness.”

“I will tell you the whole story, if you have the time to listen to it,” replied Frank.

“Certainly – fire away.”

Frank recited his experience with the salvage from start to finish. He wound up with the words: “You can see, sir, very plainly that I have hopes of getting those lists. I have a little money, and I will be glad to buy them.”

Mr. Morton studied Frank in a pleased, interested way.

“Young man,” he said, “you have acted very honorably in coming to me the way you have. As to that mail order literature, cart it away. I don’t want it. I might sell the lists, if I had the time – I haven’t – so they are yours. And, look here, these bills – I’ll give you half of what you collect on them.”

“You will?” exclaimed Frank, doubly delighted. “I will gladly meet the trial for ten per cent.”

“No,” insisted Mr. Morton, “there’s some expense and trouble, you not living in Riverton. You’ll have to hire a rig to visit some of my former debtors. I’ve stated the proposition. Here, I’ll write you out an authority to act as my agent.”

Frank arose to leave the office half-an-hour later a satisfied and grateful boy. Mr. Morton had quizzed him considerably as to his future plans. He was down on the mail order business, for he had made a failure of it himself, but he said a good many enlightening things that at least warned Frank of the pitfalls in his business course.

“Please, one more word, Mr. Morton,” said Frank, taking up his repacked suit case – “about those apple corers of yours?”

“Whew!” cried his host with a wry grimace, “have I got to think of that grand flare-up again?”

“There’s a lot of them, you know, among the salvage?” suggested Frank.

“Yes, and there would have been a lot more if the fire hadn’t stopped returns,” declared Mr. Morton. “That was a bad investment.”

“Did you patent the apple corer Mr. Morton?” asked Frank.

“No – yes – my attorney filed the caveat, I believe. I don’t think we ever completed the patent transaction, and of course I shan’t throw away any more good money on it.”

“I was thinking,” said Frank, “that with a little modification – improvement, you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily.”

Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor that Frank was rather startled.

“Young man,” he said, very solemnly, “if you want me to lose all the really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way in which you have managed things, don’t, for mercy’s sake, tell me that you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that you want to invent something!”

“Why,” said Frank, with a smile, “is it as bad as that?”

“Worse!” declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. “Get the patent bee in your bonnet, and you’re lost, doomed!” in a mock-hollow tone observed Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. “Drop it, drop it, or you’re on the rocks.”

“Then,” suggested Frank, “you won’t mind if I experiment with the corer?”

“Mind? I wish you’d sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in it. It’s yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old dreamer of my name ever got dazzled with a toy like that. Stick to the straight business line, lad – mail order, if you must, but cut off the frills. Don’t wreck your ship on gewgaws that are a delusion and a snare.”

Frank left the office of the book concern in a happy, hopeful mood. Everything had come out beyond his fondest anticipations. He was glad he had been truthful and honest in the broadest sense of the word.

He went back to the railroad depot and left his suit case in the check room. A return train for Greenville left at two o’clock, but Frank wanted to see the city. Outside of that, he wished to visit one or two large mail order houses.

Frank employed six hours to grand advantage. He came to the depot feeling that the money he had spent was a good investment.

After a light lunch he sat down on a bench in the waiting room. He counted over the little pile of bank notes in his pocketbook with a pleased smile.

“Just think,” he reflected, “I expected to pay Mr. Morton twenty, maybe thirty dollars for those lists and the routing outfit, and here I am going back home with practically all my original capital. Then, too, the collection of those bills at Riverton: why, it just seems as if fortune has picked me out as a special favorite.”

Frank found the train he was to take would not leave for over an hour. It was already made up and standing on its track, but still locked up and unlighted. Frank went outside and strolled up and down the dark platform alongside the train.

He was full of pleasing, engrossing thoughts, and did not notice a large, shrewd-eyed man who had followed him from the waiting room.

Frank was just returning to promenade back from the front end of the train, when a sharp rustle made him turn half around.

Instantly a pair of brawny arms were stretched out towards him. Both of his hands were imprisoned in the grasp of a sprawling fist.

“Hey, keep quiet, or I’ll smash you,” spoke a harsh voice. “Now then, young man, I want that money you’ve got in your pocket.”