Twenty Years of Hus'ling

CHAPTER XX.

Engaged to manage the hotel--The doctor my star boarder--Discharging all the help--Hiring them over again--The doctor as table waiter--The landlady and the doctor collide--The arrival of two hus'lers--How I managed them--The landlady goes visiting--I re-modeled the house--My chambermaid elopes--Hiring a Dutchman to take her place--Dutchy in disguise--I fooled the doctor--Dutchy and the Irish shoemaker.

CHAPTER XXI.

The doctor swindled--How we got even--Diamond cut diamond--The doctor peddling stove-pipe brackets--His first customer--His mishap and demoralized condition--The doctor and myself invited to a country dance--He the center of attraction--The doctor in love with a cross-eyed girl--Engaged to take her home--His plan frustrated--He gets even with me--We conclude to diet him--The landlady returns--Does not know the house.

CHAPTER XXII.

Out of a position--Moved to Ann Arbor--How I made a raise--A return to furniture polish--Selling experience--Hauling coke--My summer clothes in a snow-storm--A gloomy Christmas--An attack of bilious fever--Establishing an enforced credit--The photograph I sent my mother--Engaged as an auctioneer at Toledo, Ohio--My first sale.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A successful auctioneer--Playing a double role--Illustrating an auction sale.

CHAPTER XXIV.

My employer called home--I continue to hus'le--An auctioneering co-partnership--Still in a double role--A neat, tidy, quiet boarding-house--We move to a hotel--A practical joke--Auctioneering for merchants--Making a political speech--Getting mixed.

CHAPTER XXV.

I continue to sell for merchants--Well prepared for winter--Trading a shot-gun for a horse and wagon--Auctioneering for myself--Mr. Keefer needing help--How I responded--Turning my horse out to pasture--Engaged to sell on commission--How I succeeded--Out of a job--Busted--How I made a raise--A return to the Incomprehensible--Peddling with a horse and wagon--Meeting an old friend--Misery likes company--We hus'le together--Performing a surgical operation--A pugilistic encounter--Our Wild-west stories--Broke again--A hard customer--Another raise.

CHAPTER XXVI.. Helping a Tramp--We Dissolve Partnership--My Auction Sale for the

Helping a tramp--We dissolve partnership--My auction sale for the farmer--How I settled with him--I resume the auction business for myself--My horse trade--I start for Michigan.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Auctioneering at the Michigan State Fair--Three days' co-partnership with a showman--My partner's family on exhibition--Our success--Traveling northward--Business increases--Frequent trades in horses and wagons--The possessor of a fine turn-out--Mr. Keefer again asks assistance--How I responded--Traveling with an ox-team and cart--A great attraction--Sold out--Traveling by rail--My return to Ohio--Meeting the clairvoyant doctor--How I fooled him--Quail, twelve dollars a dozen--The doctor loses his appetite.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A co-partnership formed in the auction business--How it ended--A new friend--His generosity--Exhibiting a talking machine--It failed to talk--How I entertained the audience--In the role of a Phrenologist.

CHAPTER XXIX.

In the auction business again--A new conveyance for street sales--My trip through the lumber regions--A successful summer campaign--A winter's trip through the south--My return to Grand Rapids, Mich.--A trip to Lake Superior--Selling needles as a side issue--How I did it--State license demanded by an officer--How I turned the tables on him--Buying out a country store--A great sale of paper-cambric dress patterns--A compromise with the buyers--My return to Chicago--Flush and flying high.

CHAPTER XXX.

Buying out a large stock of merchandise--On the road again--Six weeks in each town--Muddy roads and poor trade--Closing out at auction--Saved my credit but collapsed--Peddling polish and jewelry--Wholesaling jewelry--Fifty dollars and lots of experience my stock in trade--Tall "hus'ling" and great success--An offer from a wholesale jewelry firm--Declined with thanks--Hus'ling again--Great success.

CHAPTER XXXI.. Robbed of a Trunk of Jewelry--Only a Small Stock Left--a Terrible

Robbed of a trunk of jewelry--Only a small stock left--A terrible calamity--Collapsed--An empty sample-case my sole possession--Peddling polish again--Making a raise--Unintentional generosity breaks me up--Meeting an old partner--The wholesaler supplies me with jewelry--Hus'ling again with great success--Making six hundred dollars in one day--My health fails me--I return to Ohio--A physician gives me but two years to live--How I fooled him.

CHAPTER XXXII.

A friend loans me twenty-five dollars--My arrival in Chicago--Forty dollars' worth of goods on credit--I leave for Michigan--Effecting a sale by stratagem--Great success during the summer--Enforcing a credit--Continued success--Opening an office in the city--Paying my old debts, with interest--My trip to New York--Buying goods from the manufacturers--My return to Chicago--Now I do hus'le--Immense success.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Employing traveling salesmen--Depression in trade--Heavily in debt--How I preserved my credit--I take to the road again--Traveling by team--Deciding a horse-trade--My book-keeper proposes an assignment--I reject the proposition--Collecting old debts by stratagem.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Another horse trade--A heavy loss--Playing detective--My visit home--A retrospect--Calling in my agents--A new scheme--It's a winner--Mr. Keefer and my mother visit Chicago--His verdict, "It does beat the devil."

CHAPTER I.

I was born near Ottawa, Illinois, January 6th, 1852, of Scotch-Irish descent. My great-great-grandfather Johnston was a Presbyterian clergyman, who graduated from the University of Edinburg, Scotland. My mother's name was Finch. The family originally came from New England and were typical Yankees as far as I have been able to trace them. My father, whose full name I bear, died six months previous to my birth. When two years of age my mother was married to a Mr. Keefer, of Ohio, a miller by trade and farmer by occupation. Had my own father lived he could not possibly have been more generous, affectionate, kind-hearted and indulgent than this step-father.

And until the day of his death, which occurred on the 10th of July, 1887, he was always the same. This tribute is due him from one who reveres his memory.

He had a family of children by his former wife, the youngest being a year or two older than myself. Two daughters were born of this marriage.

A mixed family like the Keefer household naturally occasioned more or less contention. More especially as the neighborhood contained those who took it upon themselves to regulate their neighbors' domestic affairs in preference to their own.

Consequently, in a few years, Mr. Keefer was severely criticised for not compelling me to do more work on the farm, and for the interest he took in schooling me.

As for myself, had I been hanged or imprisoned as often as those neighbors prophesied I would be, I would have suffered death and loss of freedom many times.

The farm life was distasteful to me from my earliest recollection. I cannot remember ever having done an hour's work in this capacity except under protest.

From this fact I naturally gained the reputation for miles around, of being the laziest boy in the country, with no possible or probable prospect of ever amounting to anything.

But they failed to give me credit for the energy required to walk three miles night and morning to attend the village school, which afforded better advantages than the district school.

When but a small lad my step-father gave me a cosset lamb which I raised with a promise from him to give me half the wool and all of the increase.

This, in a few years, amounted to a flock of over one hundred sheep. The sale of my share of the wool, together with the yield from a potato patch, which was a yearly gift from Mr. Keefer, was almost sufficient to clothe me and pay my school expenses.

I should here add, that the potatoes above mentioned were the product of the old gentleman's labor in plowing, planting, cultivating, digging and marketing.

While I was expected to do this work, I was seldom on hand except on the day of planting to superintend the job and see that the potatoes were actually put into the ground, and again on market day to receive the proceeds. During all my life on the farm, one great source of annoyance and trouble to my step-father was my constant desire to have him purchase everything that was brought along for sale, and to sell everything from the farm that was salable.

In other words, I was always anxious to have him go into speculation. I could not be too eager for a horse trade or the purchase of any new invention or farm implement that had the appearance of being a labor-saving machine.

Even the advent of a lightning-rod or insurance man delighted me, for it broke the monotony and gave me some of the variety of life.

The rapid growth and development of my flock of sheep were partially due to my speculative desires. I was persistent in having them gratified, and succeeded, by being allowed the privilege of selling off the fat wethers whenever they became marketable, and replacing them with young ewes, which increased rapidly. These could be bought for much less than the wethers would sell for.

My step-father was a man of more than ordinary common sense, and often suggested splendid ideas, but was altogether too cautious for his own good, and too slow to act in carrying them out.

While he and I got along harmoniously together, I am forced to admit that my mother and myself had frequent combats.

There, perhaps, was never a more affectionate, kind-hearted mother than she, and I dare say but few who ever possessed a higher-strung temper or a stronger belief in the "spare the rod and spoil the child" doctrine. At least, this was my candid, unprejudiced belief during those stormy days. Why, I had become so accustomed to receiving my daily chastisement, as to feel that the day had been broken, or something unusual had happened, should I by chance miss a day.

The principle difficulty was, that I had inherited a high-strung, passionate temper from my mother, and a strong self-will from my father, which made a combination hard to subdue. In my later days I have come to realize that I must have tantalized and pestered my mother beyond all reason, and too often, no doubt, at times when her life was harassed, and her patience severely tried by the misconduct of one or more of her step-children, who, by the way, I never thought were blessed with the sweetest of all sweet tempers, themselves. At any rate, whenever I got on the war path, I seldom experienced any serious difficulty in finding some one of the family to accommodate me. Notwithstanding, I usually "trimmed" them, as I used to term it, to my entire satisfaction, and no matter whether they, or I were to blame, it was no trouble for them to satisfy my mother that I was the guilty one, despite my efforts to prove an "alibi." For this I was sure to be punished, as I was also for every fight I got into with the neighbor boys, whose great stronghold was to twit me of being "lazy and red-headed."

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