Читать книгу One Thousand Ways to Make a Living; or, An Encyclopædia of Plans to Make Money - Harold Morse Dunphy - Страница 131

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A man who had held a good position in the city decided to move to the country and raise chickens. He bought a small home, besides a number of hens, and started in business. But the hen project was a failure, and he was about to return to his old place in the city. But he had a bright, enterprising wife, who had some ideas of her own, and she vetoed the plan of going back to the old drudgery of a clerk’s position, which had almost ruined her husband’s health.

Having read a good deal concerning the value to farmers of the parcel post, she decided upon a plan of action. She wrote a catchy ad. offering to furnish dinners to city people; everything, even to the floral decorations, being complete, and delivered by parcel post on the day desired. This ad. she sent to each of the city papers, and in a day or two the first order arrived.

The dinner she sent consisted of one pint of shelled peas, a few young potatoes, one broiler, a pint of strawberry preserves, a pint of cottage cheese, a quart box of cherries, fresh from the tree, a loaf of home-made bread, an angel food cake, one-half pound of fresh, sweet butter, and a number of sweet, old-fashioned roses. All were neatly packed in a strong container and the postage prepaid. It was sent in the morning, and arrived that afternoon.

For a dinner like that she charged $2.00, which was considerably less than it would have cost in the market for stale stuff, but which cost so little to produce that it yielded a very good margin of profit.

The family to whom the first dinner was sent promptly placed an order for two dinners each week, to be varied according to the season, and their example was followed by so many others that both husband and wife were kept busy as bees in putting up parcel-post dinners. But they were making money—more than the husband had ever earned before.