United States or Switzerland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The storekeepers would not look at it, or give either money or goods for such a damaged article. My husband and I had worked hard in the field; it was the first time I had ever tried my hand at field-labour, but our ready money was exhausted, and the steam-boat stock had not paid us one farthing; we could not hire, and there was no help for it.
Here on Main Street were neat brick business buildings and banks and shops, with the park-like grounds of the Capitol farther on, and everywhere, from curb to doorway, were knots of men talking politics; broad-faced, sunburned farmers in store clothes, with beards that hid their shirt fronts; keen-featured, sallow, country lawyers in long black coats crumpled from much sitting on the small of the back; country storekeepers with shrewd eyes, and local proprietors and manufacturers.
The burly form and red face of our partner was never more welcome, for our stock of goods was run low, and our good credit required that we should have an assortment on hand second to none in the town. We had already a reputation with the miners for keeping articles of the best quality, and our prices seemed to give better satisfaction than the rates of any other storekeepers.
"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?" "The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls her Mary and she calls him Joe." "Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?" "The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be suspicious of you."
I believe in the first place that, all other considerations aside, our own sales depend in a measure upon the wages we pay. If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales.
The less they actually knew the more insistent they were that theirs was the only one sure route or locality or method. Of the remainder probably half were the permanent population of the place, and busily occupied in making what money they could. They were storekeepers, gamblers, wagon owners, saloonkeepers, transportation men.
By an unwritten but nevertheless imperative etiquette, farmers had to render them tribute in the form of a portion of whatever fruit or vegetables were consigned at Noonoon, and the townspeople also had little to say in favour of them, averring they were a floating population who had no interest in the welfare of the town in which they resided, were bad customers patronising the publicans more than the storekeepers, and by means of their connection with the railway were able to buy their meat and other necessaries where they listed where it was cheapest, and frequently this was otherwhere than Noonoon, and yet they were in such numbers that they could rule the political market.
The men who owned the industrial plants and managed the large banks and projected the ambitious railway and canal systems, the stockholders and the officers, the factors and storekeepers, were drawn from the same sturdy New England and Middle States stock, the small farmers and little merchants who had composed the democracy which had fought the Revolution.
Monday for the first time, offensive odors came from the mud and slime that was shovelled into the streets by householders and storekeepers. In this work men, women and children were engaged. Wives of prominent citizens were seen with shovel and hoe, some of them wearing their husbands' trousers and rubber boots, doing as best they could the work of men.
"I 'd saved up a couple of dollars, and I kept traveling back, deeper and deeper into the country, looking for work, and buying bread and cheese and such things from the storekeepers. I tell you, it was cold, nights, sleeping out without blankets, and I was always glad when morning came. But worse than that was the way everybody looked on me.
Word Of The Day