The Old, Old Story

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 30.

The Old, Old Story.

COUNTRY people are always in search of bargains. Auction sales in the cities attract a good many farmers, who come with their wives to look after bargains in furniture and horses. They look over the list of auctions and find that a gentleman who is about to go to Europe offers his splendid furniture and carpets for sale. Here is a chance for bargains. The farmer's wife takes her husband and his pocket-book, and goes to see the handsome furniture sacrificed. Every bid she makes is raised by a stout man with a red bottle nose, handsomely colored and knobbed all over by rum. The lady wonders why this man wants everything she wants, and sets her mind on beating him every time—"the nasty, red-nosed thing." She gets mad; "her dander's up," so to speak, and she gets all she wanted, and a great deal more, in spite of the remonstrances of her scared husband. "Well," she says, "Mrs. Jones will open her eyes now when she sees the blue satin parlor set, and the best bedroom set, and the gorgeous carpets."

The good woman finds to her sorrow that the goods never were owned by any gentleman gone to Europe, but are trashy rubbish, stuck together with glue; the blue satin is cotton and fades all out, and the carpets are mere "skins." It is all bogus. This trick is played every day, and the red-nosed man is a fraud who never buys anything, but makes his living by "raising bids," day after day. Avoid all auction rooms, and horses which are "the property of a widow whose husband, recently deceased, was in a trucking trade." The ungrateful city is what the old Roman poet called it, and what was true two thousand years ago is true now, because human nature is always the same. And this is precisely why history repeats itself in small things as well as great. If a farmer or country dweller goes to a city in search of bargains, let him or his wife always go to a reputable store, and never, never, NEVER trust a stranger, or he will be sure to find out how ungrateful the city is to the men who feed it and supply it with business.—American Agriculturist for June.