p. 358 | The Spool of Cotton

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 10, 1882

The Spool of Cotton.

Once a young man with very little money opened a small store in a New England city. So few people came in to buy his goods that he grew discouraged, and said to himself as he shut up his store one night, "If I don't have more customers to-morrow, I'll give it up and go away."

Just then a little girl came along, looked up at him, and said:—

"Are you the man that keeps this store?"

"Yes," he answered, "this is my store; but it is shut and locked up now."

"Well," said the little girl, "won't you please open it again, and sell me a spool of number seventy cotton? All the stores are shut up, and my mamma wants it to finish my dress to-night, so that I can go and visit my auntie to-morrow."

The young merchant could not refuse the child's pleading voice; so he unlocked the store, went in, lit his lamp, found for her the spool of thread, and

took his six cents. She went happy on her way home; and the next day her mother came in with two other ladies, thanked him for his kindness, and bought some goods, as did the other ladies also, who had heard the story. Perhaps they told it to others, for more customers came in, and from that day his store was successful. Afterward he became very rich, and used to say, "I owe it all to that spool of cotton."

But it was the kindness, more than the cotton, which won him friends and success; for who wouldn't rather buy of a kind, pleasant person, than one who seems selfish and careless of others?