m:...:; •; 
 
 
 Cbe Boy f^rom 
 JVlissouri Talley 
 
COMPLIMENTS OP THE 
 
 Associated with the Berkeley National Bank, Berkeley, California 
 
The Boy trom Missouri Valle> 
 

 - Copyright '. 
 By.'Elbftrt Hubbard 
 
,5^ 
 
 The Boy From Missouri Valley 
 
 ELL, it was n*t so very long 
 ago — only about twenty-three 
 years. 
 
 I was foreman of a factory, and 
 he lived a thousand miles away, 
 at Missouri Valley, Iowa. I was 
 twenty-four, and he was fourteen. His brother was 
 traveling for the Firm, and one day this brother 
 showed me a letter from the lad in Missouri 
 Valley. The missive was so painstaking, so exact, 
 and revealed the soul of the child so vividly, that 
 I laughed aloud — a laugh that died away to a sigh. 
 H The boy was beating his wings against the bars 
 — the bars of Missouri Valley — he wanted op- 
 portunity. And all he got was unending toil, dead 
 monotony, stupid misunderstanding, and com bread 
 and molasses. 
 
 There was n't love enough in Missouri Valley to 
 go 'round — that was plain. The boy's mother had 
 been of the Nancy Hanks type — worn, yellow 
 and sad — and had given up the fight and been 
 
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left to sleep her long sleep in a prairie grave on 
 one of the many migrations. The father's ambition 
 had got stuck in the mud, and under the tongue- 
 lash of a strident, strenuous, gee-haw consort, he 
 had run up the white flag. 
 The boy wanted to come East. 
 It was a dubious investment — a sort of financial 
 plunge, a blind pool — to send for this buckwheat 
 midget. The fare was thirty-three dollars and fifty 
 cents. 
 
 The proprietor, a cautious man, said that the boy 
 was n*t worth the money. There were plenty of 
 boys — the alleys swarmed with them. 
 So there the matter rested. 
 But the lad in Missouri Valley didn't let it rest 
 long. He had been informed that we did not con- 
 sider him worth thirty-three dollars and fifty cents, 
 so he offered to split the difference. He would 
 come for half — he could ride on half fare — the 
 Railroad Agent at Missouri Valley said that if he 
 bought a half-fare ticket, got on a train, and ex- 
 plained to the conductor and everybody that he 
 was 'leven, goin* on twelve, and stuck to it, it 
 
 2 
 
would be all right; and he would not expect any 
 wages until he had paid us back. He had no money 
 of his own, all he earned was taken from him by 
 the kind folks with whom he lived, and would be 
 until noon of the day he was twenty-one years old. 
 Did we want to invest sixteen dollars and seventy- 
 five cents in him? 
 
 We waxed reckless and sent the money — more 
 than that, we sent a twenty-dollar bill. We plunged! 
 Q In just a week the investment arrived. He did 
 not advise when he would come, or how. He came, 
 we saw, he conquered. Why should he advise of 
 his coming? He just reported, and his first words 
 were the Duke*s motto: "I am here.*' 
 He was unnecessarily freckled and curiously small. 
 His legs had the Greek curve, from much horse- 
 back riding, herding cattle on the prairies; his hair 
 was the color of a Tam worth pig; his hands were 
 red; his wrists bony and briar-scarred. He carried 
 his shoes in his hands, so as not to wear out the 
 sidewalk, or because they aggravated sundry stone- 
 bruises — I don't know which. 
 **I am here!" said the lad, and he planked down 
 
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on the desk three dollars and twenty-five cents. 
 It was the change from the twenty-dollar bill. 
 *' Did n't you have to spend any money on the 
 way here?" I asked. 
 
 "No, I had all I wanted to eat,'* he replied, and 
 pointed to a basket that sat on the floor. 
 I called in the Proprietor, and we looked the lad 
 over. We walked around him twice, gazed at each 
 other, and adjourned to the hallway for consul- 
 tation. 
 
 The boy was not big enough to do a man's work, 
 and if we set him to work in the factory with the 
 city boys, they would surely pick on him and 
 make life for him very uncomfortable. He had a 
 half-sad and winsome look that had won from 
 our hard hearts something akin to pity. He was 
 so innocent, so full of faith, and we saw at a glance 
 that he had been overworked, underfed — at least 
 misfed — and underloved. He was different from 
 other boys — and in spite of the grime of travel, 
 and the freckles, he was pretty as a ground- 
 squirrel. 
 
 His faith made him whole: he won us. 
 4 
 
But why had we brought him to the miserable 
 and dirty city — this grim place of disillusionment! 
 "He might index the letter-book?** I ventured. 
 "That*s it, yes, let him index the letter-book.** 
 So I went back and got the letter-book. But 
 the boy's head only came to the top of the stand- 
 up desk, and when he reached for the letter-book 
 on the desk he had to grope for it. I gave him 
 my high-stool, but this was too low. 
 *'I know what to do,** he said. Through the win- 
 dow that looked from the office to the shipping 
 room, he had spied a pile of boxes. *'I know what 
 to do!'* 
 
 In a minute he had placed two boxes end to end, 
 nailed them together, clinched the nails, and car- 
 ried his improvised high-stool into the office. 
 "1 know what to do!'* 
 And he usually did; and does yet. 
 We found him a boarding place with a worthy 
 widow whose children had all grown big and 
 flown. Her house was empty, and so was her 
 mother-heart: she was like that old woman in 
 Rab, who was placed on the surgeon*s table and 
 
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given chloroform, and who held to her breast an 
 imaginary child, and crooned a lullaby to a babe, 
 dead thirty years before. 
 
 So the boy boarded with the widow and worked 
 in the office 
 
 He indexed the letter-book — he indexed every- 
 thing. And then he filed everything — letters, bills, 
 circulars. He stamped the letters going out, swept 
 the office, and dusted things that had never been 
 dusted before. He was orderly, alert, active, cheer- 
 ful, and the Proprietor said to me one day, "I 
 wonder how we ever got along without that boy 
 from Missouri Valley." 
 
 Six months had passed, and there came a day 
 when one of the workmen intimated to the Pro- 
 prietor that he better look out for that red-headed 
 office boy. 
 
 Of course, the Proprietor insisted on hearing the 
 rest, and the man then explained that almost 
 every night the boy came back to the office. He 
 had seen him. The boy had a tin box and letter- 
 books in it, and papers, and the Lord knows 
 what not! 
 
Watch him! QThe Proprietor advised with me 
 because I was astute — at least he thought I was, 
 and I agreed with him. 
 He thought Jabesh was at the bottom of it. 
 Jabesh was our chief competitor. Jabesh had hired 
 away two of our men, and we had gotten three 
 of his. "Jabe," we called him in derision — Jabe 
 had gotten into the factory twice on pretense of 
 seeing a man who wanted to join the Epworth 
 Leagu or Something. We had ordered him out, 
 because we knew he was trying to steal our "pro 
 cess.** Jabe was a rogue — that was sure. 
 Worse than that, Jabe was a Methodist. The 
 Proprietor was a Baptist, and regarded all Metho- 
 dists with a prenatal aversion that swung between 
 fear and contempt. The mere thought of Jabe 
 gave us gooseflesh. Jabesh was the bugaboo that 
 haunted our dreams. Our chief worry was that 
 we would never be able to save our Bank Bal- 
 ance alive, for fear o* Jabe. 
 "That tamashun Jabe has hired our office boy to 
 give him a list of our customers — he is stealing 
 our formulas, I know,** said the Proprietor. "The 
 
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cub*s pretense of wanting a key to the factory so 
 he could sweep out early, was really that he 
 might get in late.'* 
 
 Next day we watched the office boy. He surely 
 looked guilty — his freckles stood out like sun- 
 spots, and he was more bow-legged than ever. 
 Q The workman who had given the clue, on being 
 further interrogated, was sure he had seen Jabe 
 go by the factory twice in one evening. 
 That settled it. 
 
 At eight o'clock that night we went down to the 
 factory. It was a full mile, and in an "objection- 
 able" part of the town. 
 
 There was a dim light in the office. We peered 
 through the windows, and sure enough, there 
 was the boy hard at work writing. There were 
 several books before him, a tin box and some 
 papers. We waited and watched him copy some- 
 thing into a letter-book. 
 
 We withdrew and consulted. To confront the 
 culprit then and there seemed the proper thing. 
 We unlocked the door and walked softly in. 
 Q The boy was startled by our approach, and 
 
still more by our manner. When the Proprietor 
 demanded the letter that he had just written, he 
 began to cry, and then we knew we had him. 
 Q The Proprietor took the letter and read it. It 
 was to Jimmy Smith in Missouri Valley. It told 
 all about how the writer was getting on, about 
 the good woman he boarded with, and it told all 
 about me and about the Proprietor. It pictured 
 us as models of virtue, excellence and truth. 
 But we were not to be put off thus. We exam- 
 ined the letter-book, and alas! it was filled only 
 with news letters to sundry cousins and aunts. 
 Then we dived to the bottom of the tin box, still 
 in search of things contraband. All we found was 
 a little old Bible, a diary, and some trinkets in 
 the way of lace and a ribbon that had once been 
 the property of the dead Nancy Hanks. 
 Then we found a Savings-Bank Book, and by the 
 entries saw that the boy had deposited one dol- 
 lar every Monday morning for eleven weeks. He 
 had been with us for six months, and his pay 
 was two dollars a week and board — we won- 
 dered what he had done with the rest! 
 
 9 
 
We questioned the offender at length. The boy 
 averred that he came to the office evenings only 
 because he w^anted to write letters and get his 
 Vithmetic lesson. He would not think of writing 
 his personal letters on our time, and the only rea- 
 son he wanted to write at the office instead of at 
 home, was so he could use the letter-press. He 
 wanted to copy all of his letters — one should be 
 business-like in all things. 
 
 The Proprietor coughed and warned the boy 
 never to let it happen again. We started for home, 
 walking silently but very fast. 
 The stillness was only broken once, when the 
 Proprietor said: *'That consamed Jabe! If ever 
 I find him around our factory, I '11 tweak his nin- 
 compoop nose, that's what I will do." 
 Twenty-three years! That factory has grown to 
 be the biggest of its kind in America. The red- 
 haired boy from Missouri Valley is its manager. 
 Emerson says, "Every great institution is the 
 lengthened shadow of a single man." 
 The Savings-Bank Habit came naturally to that 
 boy from Missouri Valley. In a year he v/as get- 
 
 10 
 
ting six dollars and board, and he deposited four 
 dollars every Monday. In three years this had in- 
 creased to ten, and some years after, when he 
 became a partner, he had his limit in The Bank. 
 The Savings-Bank Habit is not so bad as the 
 Cab Habit — nor so costly to your thinkery and 
 w^allet as the Cigarette Habit. 
 I have been w^age-earner, foreman and employer. 
 I have had a thousand men on my pay-roll at a 
 time, and I '11 tell you this : The man with the 
 Savings-Bank Habit is the one who never gets 
 laid off : he 's the one who can get along without 
 you, but you cannot get along without him. The 
 Savings-Bank Habit means sound sleep, good di- 
 gestion, cool judgment and manly independence. 
 The most healthful thing I know of is a Savings- 
 Bank Book — there are no microbes in it to steal 
 away your peace of mind. It is a guarantee of 
 good behavior. 
 
 The Missouri Valley boy gets twenty-five thou- 
 sand a year, they say. It is none too much. Such 
 masterly men are rare; Rockefeller says he has 
 
 vacancies for eight now, with salaries no object, 
 
 II 
 
if they can do the work. QThat business grew 
 because the boy from Missouri Valley grew with 
 it, and he grew because the business grew. Which 
 is a free paraphrase from Macaulay, who said 
 that Horace Walpole influenced his age because 
 he was influenced by his age. 
 Jabesh has gone on his Long Occasion, discour- 
 aged and whipped by an unappreciative world. 
 Jabe never acquired the Savings-Bank Habit. If 
 he had had the gumption to discover a red-haired 
 boy from Missouri Valley, he might now be sport- 
 ing an automobile on Delaware Avenue instead 
 of being in Abraham's Bosom. 
 We shall all be in Abraham's Bosom day after 
 tomorrow ; and then I '11 explain to Jabesh that 
 no man ever succeeded in a masterly way, except- 
 ing as he got level-headed men with the Savings- 
 Bank Habit to do his work. Blessed is that man 
 who has found somebody to do his work. 
 There is plenty of iron pyrites, but the Proprie- 
 tor and I know Pay Gravel when we see it. 
 J guess so ! 
 
 (Slbert Hubbard 
 
 12 
 

 'aVlM^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 Geo. P. Baxter, Pres, 
 J. S. Mills, Asst. Cofhier 
 
 J. W. Richards, Vice-Pres. 
 Benj. Bangs, VicC'Pres. 
 
 
 ^cc-s 
 
 m^m^ 
 
 •<^' 
 
 ^i/G)'* 
 
 
 
 DIRECTORS 
 
 Geo. P. Baxter, ..... President 
 
 Benj. Bangs, Pres. Berry-Bangs Land Co., . Vice-President 
 J. W. Richards, Capitalist . . Vice-President 
 
 Louis Titus, Titus, Wright & Creed . . Attorney 
 
 I. W. Heilman, Pres. Wells, Fargo-Nevada National Bank, S, F, 
 W. J. Hotchkiss, . President Central California Canneries 
 Dr. Thomas Addison, Pacific Coast Mgr. General Electric Co. 
 A. G. Freeman, Manager J. K. Armsby Company 
 
 Chas. £. Miller, ..... Capitalist 
 
 F. L. Lipman, Vice-Pres. Wells, Fargo-Nevada Nat. Bank, S. F. 
 Duncan McDuffie, Mason McDuffie Company 
 
University Sai 
 
 
 with its fully paid capital and surplus, respon- 
 sible Board of Directors and Officers, affords 
 the best security for savings. 
 Interest paid on Savings deposits at the rate 
 of three and one-half per cent per annum, 
 payable half yearly, First of January and the 
 First of July. 
 
 Safe deposit Boxes in our vaults for rent at 
 Twenty-five cents to One Dollar per month. 
 C[ Our Boxes are for rent by the month. 
 
 } 
 
 N. E. Corner Center and Shattuck Avenue 
 in BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 
 
 1 
 
Qaylawo 
 
 unt 
 
 Binder 
 
 YD 055 
 
 iv!49823 
 
 
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