Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1910 — NEAT LESSON IN TRADE. [ARTICLE]

NEAT LESSON IN TRADE.

How a Chicago Man Ennobled and Adorned the Popcorn Bnalneaa. “Now that the baseball season Is open again,” began the Semi-P’fes-sional Fan, according to. the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I’m reminded of a sight that I took In during a big game out In Chicago last summer. I was then and there Impressed with the fact that there’s no joy so humble that the fight man can’t give dignity to it> “Selling popcorn out of a basket doesn’t rank as any hot job for a grown man to be at, does it? No. But you ought to’ve seen the way this popcorn man at the game I speak of had the crowd agoing. Unless the teams on the field did things In pretty spectacular fashion, people would turn away Trom the batter or the base runner to have a look at the busy little popcorn salesman. “I don’t know how he did It, but he had a way about him. It’s always a pleasure to see a man at the head of the business or profession he’s engaged in, whether he’s a great lawyer or captain of Industry or popcorn vendor. This man was the best popcorn salesman I ever saw. I hope he realized just how good he was, for he was entitled to the satisfaction of knowing that he stood at the top in the line of endeavor that he had chosen. In the first place, he had a good line of talk, and he could say things in a way that carried conviction. He didn’t merely holler ‘Popcorn, five a sack!’ and let it go at that. He went on to tell where the corn was raised and what fine creamery butter was used to make it so .thoroughly palatable that nobody should think of sitting through a game without it. Ordinarily I am not easily swayed by any sort of spellbinding oratory, hut blamed if that popcorn man didn’t give me to understand that he was selling something clear out of the ordinary, and I never was much of a hand to munch popcorn or peanuts or any such truck as that. But when this duck came along on his final trip, and announced that it would be his last time around that afternoon, I motioned to him to let me have a sack; I really felt as if I had saved myself, by a close margin, from missing one of those lifetime opportunities. "It wasn’t only with his line of talk that he shone, either. If somebody a rod or two from the nearest aisle waved to him for a sack of popcorn he would toss it right into the mans hands with all the accuracy of one of the men out in the field putting the ball to first base. And he never failed to catch the nickel or dime that the buyer would throw back to him. He did all this with a neatness and dexterity that won admiration from everybody around him. Once a whole section of the grandstand ap plauded him for the accuracy with which he shot back a nickel change to a customer with his thumb. “Up to that time I’d never taken the popcorn man’s job very seriously, but I know now that It doesn’t matter much what a man does; If he’s tfca best man in his line his work will stand out as conspicuously as the whiskers on a stage anarchist.”