They do not win me with their grins; such work is coarse, and seldom wins. If men would sell their laths and lime, they should be pleasant all the time, and not, like some cheap candidate, just when they think ’twill pay the freight. I’ll buy the lumber for my shed, when I have got the coin ahead, from dealers who are pleasant lads e’en when they are not after scads. There are such dealers in our town, and no sane man would turn them down. I meet them nearly every day, and talk with them of hogs and hay, and bats and cats and curleycues, and ships and synagogues and shoes. They do not seem to care a red who sells the lumber for my shed; they’re always pleasant and polite, they hand me smiles and treat me right. So when I wish to buy a plank, I take some pennies from the bank, and cheerfully I blow the price with men who can’t help being nice. And when the Bungtown fellows know what I have done, they’ll droop in woe; they’ll look on me with moody scorn, and wish I never had been born. Their souls can’t reach the heights sublime; they can’t be pleasant all the time. HOUSES SCARCE Oft I hear discordant slogans, hear the loud and sad lament; men are wearing out their brogans hunting houses they can rent. Every village, town and city sees the same discouraged crew; and it seems to me a pity that good houses are so few. In my native burg, Empory, I see women chasing round, and they tell the same old story--houses simply can’t be found. And the same sad word is spoken everywhere I chance to roam; from Topeka to Hoboken folks are hunting for a home. When they’re sick and tired of chasing, when their souls with woe are filled, maybe they will do some bracing; maybe they’ll decide to build. Rents are higher now than ever, and the prices won’t slump back, and that man is really clever who will build himself a shack. “But the cost!” I hear men yawping; and they put up thoughtless roars, for they never have been shopping at the modern lumber stores. Building goods today are cheaper than all other goods you buy; all commodities are steeper--ask the lumber dealer nigh. Monied men are often questing for gold bricks, and dern the price; always ready for investing in blue sky and pickled ice. If they’d build a lot of houses they might dwell in Easy street, where the catawampus browses, and the dingbat’s song is sweet. Every time they’d build a dwelling crowds would come, and still increase, crying, clamoring and yelling, begging for a five-year lease. There’s no better proposition than this thing of building homes, and the fact should find position in the plutocratic domes. And the man with modest bundle should be renting nevermore; he should take his wad and trundle to the lumber dealer’s store. There should be a boom in building such as we have never seen; palaces with ornate gilding, modest homes, all painted green. FLOORS