THE SHOPPERS
When people do their Christmas shopping, and blow in all their hard-earned ore, to keep the Christmas spirit popping, they don’t call at the lumber store.
You do not see the Christmas spieler, with purse ajar and eyes a-gleam, say to the cheerful lumber dealer, “Just wrap me up that ten-foot beam! I have an aunt, Priscilla Hocking, to whom I’d send a present small; that beam will surely fit her stocking like the paper on the wall.”
You do not hear the shopper saying, “I want a gift for Uncle Hank, so let me see you busy weighing about ten yards of basswood plank.”
No shoppers tighten their surcingles in lumber yards, at Christmas time, and buy their girls a lot of shingles, or sundry pecks of unslacked lime.
A man might think the lumber dealer was off the map, and in the shade, without a tendril or a feeler upon the blooming Christmas trade. But all the year they’re building houses, with stuff the lumber dealer sells, in which the Christmas crowd carouses, and good old Santa whoops and yells. Beneath yon roof there’s joyous laughter, that indicates good will to men; and every two-by-four and rafter came from the lumber dealer’s den. The walls on which you see the holly, were furnished by the lumber man, who is, like Claus, serene and jolly, and does his stunt the best he can. The door at which the guest is greeted with kindness which should hit him hard, and everything that’s nailed or cleated, comes from the modest lumber yard.
You cannot have a Christmas frolic, with joy and laughter in the air, and nuts and candies—causing colic—but that the lumber man is there.