Dr. W. T. Grenfell has told of a hardy trapper in Labrador, the partner
of a man who was easily discouraged; the arrangement was that they
should share equally the hardships and the rewards of the trapping
expeditions. Both were very poor. The stronger man was most unselfish in
his treatment of his associate. One winter their lives were all but lost
during the severity of a storm which burst on them while they were
setting their traps on an ice-girt island. On reaching the mainland the
timid man insisted on dissolving the partnership; he was unwilling to
repeat the risks, even for the sake of his needy family. In a few days
the hardy trapper revisited the traps on the mainland. To his great joy
he found in one trap a magnificent silver fox, whose skin was worth five
hundred dollars--a fortune to the Labrador trapper, especially welcome
during that hard winter. "How glad I am the partnership has been
dissolved, and that the fox is all mine," was his first thought. But
first thought was not allowed to be last thought. There was a struggle.
At length the decision was made that the needy man who had set the trap
with him should share in the prize; the argument that he had forfeited
all right to a share was not allowed to weigh against the unselfish
arguments for division.
A friend of young people has told of an incident which occurred in a
great Boston department store where she sought to match some dress
goods. After turning away from several discourteous clerks she showed
her sample to a salesman who gave respectful attention to her. Glancing
at the slits cut in the side of the bit of goods, he remarked:
"That isn't one of my samples. I will ask the clerk who mailed this
sample to wait on you."
"But I don't want any other clerk to wait on me," responded the women,
hastily, fearing that the sample might have come originally from one of
the discourteous clerks first encountered; "I want you to have this
sale."
"If you had asked for goods of that quality, width and price, without
showing me the sample, I could have found it for you at once," replied
the clerk, with a smile, "but now, this sale belongs to the clerk who
sent out the sample."
"Then I won't give you this sample to hunt it up by," said the woman,
wishing to see if she could carry her point, and she proceeded to tuck
the sample away in her purse.
"But I know that I have seen it, and my conscience knows it," was the
clerk's comment, as he laughingly laid his hand on his heart and turned
to look for the other salesman.
The purchaser went on to tell thus of the salesman's unerring loyalty to
his principles: "In a moment he returned. The other clerk was at lunch.
What a sigh of relief I gave! 'I will make out the sale and turn it over
to him when he comes in,' he said, displaying the shining black folds of
the goods I desired."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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