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“Well, sir, she was a pretty, sweet little girl, and when her father told me about her misfortune I was very sorry for him. He couldn’t keep from crying when he told me about it. I couldn’t say much but I felt mighty sorry. It isn’t so bad for a boy to be crippled but if there’s anything that goes through me it is to see a beautiful little girl walking along on crutches.

“I told the old gentleman goodbye and started down to the hotel. A block or two away I saw a flower store. I said to myself, ‘Well, my firm has treated my friend wrong but that’s no reason why I should have anything against him. I don’t blame him a bit. I’m just going to send a bouquet up to the little girl anyhow.’

“So over at the flower store I passed out a five dollar bill and wrote on the card that I sent with the Marechal Niel roses, ‘From a friend of your father’s.’ “Now, I didn’t have business in my eye, boys, when I did this. It was right from the heart. I was going to Sunday in that town anyway and get out on a train early Monday morning. There was a tough hotel in the next town I was to strike.

“That night, while I was at supper, the clerk came into the dining room and told me that somebody wanted to talk to me over the telephone. It was the little girl’s father. He said to me, ‘Jack, I want to thank you very much for those flowers that you sent up to Mary. She’s proud of them and sends you a kiss; and I want to tell you that I’m proud of this, Jack,–but just to thank you oveh the wyah isn’t enough. I wanted to find out if you were at the hotel. I want to come down and shake yo’ hand. Are yo’ going’ to be hyah tomorrow?’ I told him I was going to Sunday there. ‘Well,’ said the old gentleman, ‘I will see you tomorrow mo’nin’. I’ll come down befo’ I go to chu’ch.’

“When he came down the next morning I was up in my room where my samples were. If I could have sold him a hundred thousand dollars I wouldn’t have asked him to look at anything, but I did ask him to have a chair and smoke a cigar with me. My samples were in the room where he couldn’t keep from seeing them and after he had thanked me again and again and told me how much he appreciated my kindness, he fingered over a line of goods of his own accord, asking me the prices on them.

“I said to him, ‘Now, look here, you probably don’t wish to price any goods today, as you are going to church. These are worth so much and so much, but if you wish to forgive and forget the discourtesy my house has shown you,–their line of goods is first-class; there’s none better in the country; nothing can be said on that score against them,–I’ll stay over tomorrow and show you.’

“‘No, I won’t have you do that,’ said my friend–he was my friend then–‘Time is money to a man on the road. If I was going to do any business with yo’ I ought to have done it yesterday. I have spoiled a day fo’ you an’ I don’t believe the Lord will hold anything against me if I do business with you today. You know he makes allo’ances when the ox gets in the mire, so get out yo’ book, if you will, suh,–an’ I will give you an ohdeh.’

“Before I was through with him my bill amounted to over six thousand dollars, the biggest order I ever took in my life,–and do you know, we finished it in time for both of us to get up to church just as the preacher was reading his text, and, singularly enough, the text of the sermon that day was, ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.’ I half believe my friend had arranged this sermon with the minister.”