"That's as sure as shootin'," said Caleb. "Do you know that in spite of the cyclone the store has done twice as much business since you came as it ever did before in the same months? I'd be downright sorry for the other merchants in town if I didn't believe that we're soon goin' to have a big increase of population, and there'll be business enough for all. Philip deserves credit for a lot of the new business, an' his wife for more, which isn't Philip's fault, but his fortune in havin' married just that sort of woman. If nobody else'll say it, I s'pose it won't be presumin' for me to say that a small percentage of the increase o' the last two or three months has come through a young woman whose name used to be Mary Truett." "Small percentage, indeed!" Grace exclaimed. "Mary has secured more new business than I did in the same number of weeks, and she has done it so easily, too. She never seems to be thinking of business when she's talking to a customer, yet she instinctively knows what each woman wants, and places the proper goods before her, while I, very likely, would be thinking more of the woman than of the business." "That's merely a result of experience," said Mary. "I'm nearly thirty, with a business experience of ten years; you were a mere chit of twenty-three when you married. Still, I don't believe any hired clerk, of no matter how many years' experience, could do half as well as either of us." "For the very good reason," said Philip, "that both of you are practically owners of the business. No clerk can be as useful in any business as one of the proprietors." "That remark would 'a' hurt my feelin's, a year ago," said Caleb; "but since my name went on that sign over the door, I've been lookin' backward at my old self a lot, an' lookin' down on my old self, too. Perhaps the difference has come o' gettin' rid o' malaria, perhaps o' takin' a wife; but I'm goin' to make b'lieve, after makin' full allowance for ev'rythin' else, that nobody can bring out the best that's in him until he begins to work for himself." "No other person would dare criticise your old self in my presence, Caleb," said Philip, "but you've certainly acquired a new manner in business, and it's extremely fetching in more senses than one. One of the best things about it is that the natives notice it, and talk of it to one another, and are pleased by it, for you're one of them, you know. I'm a mere outsider."