Читать книгу Twenty Years of Hus'ling - J. P. Johnston - Страница 12

Table of Contents

SELLING AND TRADING OFF MY FLOCK OF SHEEP—CO-PARTNERSHIP FORMED WITH A NEIGHBOR BOY—OUR DISSOLUTION—MY CONTINUANCE IN BUSINESS—COLLAPSE OF A CHICKEN DEAL—DESTRUCTION OF A WAGON LOAD OF EGGS—ARRESTED AND FINED MY LAST DOLLAR—ARRIVED HOME "BROKE."

I became very anxious to sell my sheep in order to invest the money in business of some kind, but could not find a buyer for more than twenty-five head. This sale brought me seventy-five dollars in cash, and I traded thirty-five head for a horse and wagon.

Thus equipped, I concluded to engage in buying and selling butter, eggs, chickens and sheep pelts. Not quite satisfied that I would succeed alone, I decided to take in one of our neighbor boys as a partner.

He furnished a horse to drive with mine, and we started out, each having the utmost confidence in the other's ability, but very little confidence in himself.

We made a two weeks' trip, and after selling out entirely and counting our cash, found we had eighteen cents more than when we started. We had each succeeded in ruining our only respectable suit of clothes, and our team looked as if it had been through a six months' war campaign.

My partner said he didn't think there was any money in the business, so we dissolved partnership.

I then decided to make the chicken business a specialty, believing that the profits were large enough to pay well. Mr. Keefer loaned me a horse, and after building a chicken-rack on my wagon, I started out on my new mission.

There was no trouble in buying what I considered a sufficient number to give it a fair trial, which netted me a total cost of thirty-five dollars.

Sandusky City, twenty miles from home, was the point designed for marketing them.

I made calculations on leaving home at one o'clock on the coming Wednesday morning, in order to arrive there early on regular market day.

The night before I was to start, a young acquaintance and distant relative came to visit me. He was delighted with the idea of accompanying me to the city when I invited him to do so.

During the fore part of the night a very severe rain storm visited us. I had left the loaded wagon standing in the yard.

Little suspecting the damage the storm had done me, we drove off in high spirits, entering the suburbs of the city at day-break.

Then Rollin happened to raise the lid on top of the rack, and discovered very little signs of life.

We made an immediate investigation and found we were hauling dead chickens to market, there being but ten live ones among the lot, and they were in a frightful condition. Their feathers were turned in all directions, and their eyes rolling backwards as if in the agonies of death. This trouble had been caused by the deluge of water from the rain of the night before, as I had neglected to provide a way for the water to pass through the box. The chickens that escaped drowning had been suffocated. We threw the dead ones into a side ditch, and hastened to the city. No time was lost in disposing of the ten dying fowls at about half their original cost.

We held a consultation and agreed that the chicken business was disagreeable and unpleasant anyhow. Then and there we decided to withdraw from it in favor of almost any other scheme either might suggest. While speculating on what to try next, the grocer to whom we had sold the chickens remarked that he would give eighteen cents per dozen for eggs delivered in quantities of not less than one hundred dozen. I felt certain I could buy them in the country so as to realize a fair profit. After demolishing the chicken rack and loading our wagon with a lot of boxes and barrels, we started on our hunt for eggs. We soon learned that by driving several miles away to small villages, we could buy them from country merchants for twelve cents per dozen.

We bought over three hundred dozen and started back with only one dollar in cash left to defray expenses.

On the way our team became frightened at a steam engine and ran fully two miles at the top of their speed over a stone pike road. We were unable to manage them, but at last succeeded in reining them into a fence corner, where we landed with a crash, knocking down about three rods of fence, and coming to a sudden halt with one horse and half of the wagon on the opposite side, and the eggs flying about, scattered in all directions.

I landed on my head in a ditch, while the wagon-seat landed "right side up with care" on the road side, with Rollin sitting squarely in it as if unmolested. The mishap caused no more damage to horses and wagon than a slight break of the wagon pole and a bad scare for the horses.

But it was a sight to behold! The yelks streaming down through the cracks of the wagon box.

I felt that my last and only hopes were blasted as I gazed on that mixture of bran and eggs.

We were but a short distance from the city, whither we hastened and drove immediately to the bay shore.