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Don’t fail to make a friend of your fellow salesman!

This can never do you any harm and you will find that it will often do you good. The heart of the man on the road should be as broad as the prairie and as free from narrowness as the Egyptian sky is free of clouds. One of my friends once told a group of us, as we traveled together, how an acquaintance he made helped him.

“I got into Dayton, Washington, one summer morning about 4:30,” said he. “Another one of the boys–a big, strong, good-natured comrade– until then a stranger to me–and myself were the only ones left at the little depot when the jerk-water train pulled away. It was the first trip to this town for both of us. There was no ‘bus at the depot and we did not know just how to get up to the hotel. The morning was fine –such a one as makes a fellow feel good clear down to the ground. The air was sweet with the smell of the dewy grass. The clouds in the east–kind of smeared across the sky–began to redden; they were the color of coral as we picked our way along the narrow plank walk. As we left behind us the bridge, which crossed a beautiful little stream lined with cotton woods and willows, they had turned a bright vermillion. There was not a mortal to be seen besides ourselves. The only sound that interrupted our conversation was the crowing of the roosters. The leaves were still. It was just the right time for the beginning of a friendship between two strangers.

“‘Isn’t this glorious!’ exclaimed my friend.

“‘Enchanting!’ I answered. I believe I would have made friends with a crippled grizzly bear that morning. But this fellow was a whole-souled prince. We forgot all about business, and the heavy grips that we lugged up to the hotel seemed light. All I remember further was that my friend–for he had now become that to me–and myself went out to hunt up a cup of coffee after we had set down our grips in the hotel office.

“The next time I met that man was at the Pennsylvania Station at Philadelphia, ten years afterward, at midnight. We knew each other on sight.

“‘God bless you, old man,’ said he. ‘Do you know me?’

“‘You bet your life I do,’ said I. ‘We walked together one morning, ten years ago, from the depot at Dayton, Washington, to the hotel.’ ‘Do you remember that sunrise?’ ‘Well, do I?’ ‘What are you doing down here?’ ‘Oh, just down on business. The truth is, I am going down to New York. My house failed recently and I’m on the look-out for a job.’

“And do you know, boys, that very fellow fixed me up before ten o’clock next morning, with the people that I am with today, and you know whether or not I am getting on.”

Don’t fall to be friendly with any one who comes in your way.

Another of the boys in the little group that had just listened to this story, after hearing it, said: ‘You bet your life it never hurts a fellow to be friendly with anybody. Once, when I was going down from a little Texas town to Galveston, the coach was rather crowded. The only vacant seats in the whole car were where two Assyrian peddler women sat in a double seat with their packs of wares opposite them. But as I came in they very kindly put some of their bundles into the space underneath where the backs of two seats were turned together, thus making room for me. I sat down with them. A gentleman behind me remarked, ‘Those people aren’t so bad after all.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you will find good in every one if you only know how to get it out.’