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Letters to a JSdillmans Salesman 



BY ARTHUR M. JOHNSTON* 



To William Smith, who is just sprouting his pin feathers as a 

 lumber salesman. 

 Dear William: — 



I notice an order from you, just received, for three cars B and 

 better dressed yellow pine sold to Matthew Williams of Jonesville. 

 I have been looking over the last general census and I find that 

 Jonesville is a farming town of about 3,000 population counting men, 

 women, children and dogs. Now, William, did the idea ever seep 

 into your osseous dome that three cars of B and better yellow pine 

 is enough to glut the high-grade lumber market of a town the size 

 of Jonesville for many moons to come? In my last letter I ad- 

 vised you to be a little sunbeam but I didn't think you were going 

 to be the whole solar system. 



You have jollied our friend Matthew until his appetite is bigger 

 than his stomach and the joke is that you will have to be the little 

 digestive tablet which must assist friend Matthew's business viscera 

 to assimilate this enormous meal. How do you expect to sell this 

 man any more lumber wliile his yard is suffering from such acute 

 yellow piiie dyspepsia? Do you ever hope to sell liim again after 

 loading him up with lumber for which he has no market? If you 

 ever exjject to become a salesman and not merely an interruption, 

 you must learn that the selling of the stock to the retailer is only 

 half the transaction; it must be resold to the consumer to make the 

 deal complete and the more assistance you can give your customer 

 in moving his stock the more valuable you will be to us. Are you 

 going to be a salesman upon whom your customers rely for real help, 

 taking such a sincere interest in their business that they are really 

 glad to see you when you come around; or do you think you have 

 earned your salary when you have loaded some trusting customer to 

 the ears with unsalable stock? 



Have you ever taken your customers' troubles back to the hotel 

 with you? If you never have, try it a few times and remember 

 this — their troubles are our troubles. Cut out the usual card game 

 and talkfest a few times and use up a few brain cells figuring on 

 some of their problems. A few solved problems will be appreciated 

 by your customers and they will soon begin to think you are a helva 

 fellow. Your territory is like a farm and your crop will depend 

 upon what you plant and how you cultivate it. The cinch bug, the 

 army worm, the boll weevil and the coddling moth — all competitors 

 of yours — will try to eat your seed, destroy your young plants and 

 ruin your crop, but if you are a good farmer you will mix a few 

 brains with the soil and be right on the job with the Paris green can 

 and the Bordeaux mixture sprayer. 



Now about this Matthew person: There are only tiv'o ways out of 

 this situation. Double back to Jonesville and develop some scheme 

 out of that calcareous knob of yours to move this stock for him, or 

 suggest that he cancel two cars and reorder if he finds it necessary 

 — which he won't. I have been making some inquiries and I find 

 that Matthew Williams is new in the lumber business and needs a 

 wet nurse more than anything else. Will you be that nurse, William? 

 or are you going to be the bad boy that pushes the little fellow into 

 the mud and gets h\s nice white pinafore all dirty? Don't forget 

 that it pays to be a nurse. Some day your infant will learn to 

 rely on you confidently and accept your advice about both the buying 

 and selling of stock and then you will enter into your reward. When 

 that time comes don't be a hog — give the other follows a chance, but 

 be right on the ground yourself to skira off all the richest cream. 



I just want to say a word about your itinerary — if such a big 

 word can be used to describe your hop, skip and jump progress over 

 your territory. You seem to be always somewhere else. I get 

 nervous waiting for you to light. Do you ever expect to get ac- 

 quainted with your trade if you go through a town like a Dakota 

 blizzard on its way to Kansas City? You are trying to cover alto- 

 gether too much territory. You remind me somewhat of EUey 



• Publicity manager for the Stearns Salt and Lumber Company, Luding- 

 ton, Mich. 



—14— 



Jinigin. Not that you resemble hiin in any way but simply that you 

 are liable to meet disaster as he did because you try to cover too 

 much territory. Did I ever tell you about Eiley? 



Riley was a typical lumber jack in the early Michigan lumbering 

 days. He was a mighty man of valor — or thought he was. When 

 I knew him he bore the scars of a hundred conflicts. One ear had 

 been entirely chewed off by some carniverous adversary and the other 

 one was following after. His nose was about three-quarters of an 

 inch out of plumb and there were other alterations on his map which 

 showed the fine Italian hands of shrewd antagonists. Architec- 

 turally EUey resembled an anthropoid ape, but there were times when 

 the ape had it all over hini save in ferocious ugliness. He was a 

 canthook man and I am bound to say that he was au artist at it, 

 but beyond using a canthook he knew nothing of useful occupation. 

 He would work all winter in the woods, help to bring down the 

 drive in the spring, collect his winter's wages and take the shortest 

 route to the nearest emporium where the quickest acting brand of 

 liquid lightning could be procured. Arriving there he would pro- 

 ceed to fill his skin full of Michigan lumberwood 's whiskey, forty- 

 rod wlyske^' — the kind of whiskey that makes you feel forty rods 

 from the place where you really are. They say that this whiskey 

 used to test nineteen fights to the pint. Being full of whiskey 

 our friend Riley would naturally become belligerent and the result 

 was sure to be a violent physical argument in which some one was 

 bound to lose an ear, a nose, a finger, or some other useful or pul- 

 chritudinous member. 



It was under such circumstances as these that our hero found 

 himself in an AuSable snake factory in the days when that town was 

 operating eight big sawmills night and day. It was an unusually 

 peaceful and inoffensive crowd which faced him on that bright May 

 morning when, having crammed every chink and cranny of his anat- 

 omy with squirrel whiskey, he turned from the bar to examine the 

 crowd for signs of the trouble which was so dear to his savage heart. 

 The spring sun filtered through the dusty windows and fixed its grip 

 of lassitude upon every lounger. The bartender lazily swabbed the 

 bar; at a table in one corner several men, just down from the woods, 

 were drowsily playing seven-up for the drinks; on another table a 

 riverman, still wearing his caulked boots, lay sprawled, sleeping off 

 his jag. It was a peaceful scene — much too peaceful for the fierce 

 heart of our friend Eiley. 



He stood with his back to the bar, both elbows on the top and 

 one boot resting on the rail, at the foot. He surveyed the crowd 

 with disgust and made insulting remarks anent its courage and 

 fighting capacity; but, as every man present seemed to think these 

 remarks intended not for himself, but for his neighbor, there was no 

 word of protest. Eiley took another drink and still further reviled 

 them. Ho climbed their family trees even unto the fifth genera- 

 tion. He insulted every relative they ever had or ever expected to 

 have, either lineally or collaterally, but without any movement of 

 hostility on the part of the victims. He finally grew thoroughly out 

 of patience with the pusillanimous attitude of the crowd and, jump- 

 ing into the center of the bar room, he shouted: 



"I kin lick any (several unprintable things) from Michigan." 



He glared around and waited for results, but none came. His 

 attitude grew more insulting as it appeared that not one loyal son 

 of the good old Wolverine state had the courage to stand forth and 

 do battle in her honor. Gathering confidence, he shouted again: 



"I kin lick any (more unprintable things) from Michigan or Wis- 

 consin. ' ' 



He surveyed the crowd with eye of fire. There surely must be 

 some loyal Badger present who would be willing to lose an eye or a 

 nose for the honor of his state. The seven-up players still con- 

 tinued to play seven-up and the riverman on the table snored on. 

 It certainly was discouraging. Eiley took another drink and his 

 wrath burned with fiercer flame. He again leaped to the center of 

 the room and shouted hoarsely: 



