‘I think this, father,’ was the reply, ’that we can not expect to go on longer in the old style.  We must reduce our profits one half, and to do this, we must be more particular in our credits, and buy with more care and of different people.  In this way I will engage—­by pursuing a straightforward, energetic course, we shall hold our own against the cash-man over the way.’

It was some time before Mr. Smith, Senior, could be persuaded.  It was not just the thing, taking advice from a ‘boy,’ although the boy was past thirty, and had a family of his own.  He yielded, however, and Thaddeus, Junior, was permitted to carry out his plan.  He made a trip to New-York and purchased goods, instead of sending an order for them as had been their habit, where he could find the best bargains at least ten per cent cheaper than his father was in the habit of buying, came home, got out handbills in his turn, requesting the people to call at the ’old stand,’ look at the fresh stock, selected personally with great care, and bought cheap for cash, but which would be sold as usual on approved credit.  This gave the tide a turn in the old direction, and Mr. Jessup had to set to work anew.  He was not a bad man in his way, but neither was he a good one.  He was not over-scrupulous nor severely honest.  His prices varied, so the folks discovered, and he, or rather his clerks, sometimes made mistakes in the quality of articles sold.  After a while the cash system sensibly relaxed, and at last both establishments settled down into a severe and uncompromising opposition.  There was a pretty large back country which received its supplies from Hampton, and so both stores managed to do a thriving trade.  The Smiths retaining as customers the large portion of the staid and respectable population, while Mr. Jessup’s business depended more on his dealings with the people from the surrounding country.  There was a very different atmosphere around the stores of these two village merchants.  The Smiths were religious people, father and son, not merely so in name, but in reality.  A child could have purchased half their stock on as favorable terms as the shrewdest man in the place.  Mr. Jessup, on the contrary, varied as he could light of chaps, that is, according to circumstances.  He was, however, an off-hand, free-and-easy fellow, with many generous qualities, which made him popular with most who knew him.  He did not hesitate to declare that his views on religious subjects were liberal—­a bold announcement for a man to make in Hampton.  Indeed, his enemies put him down for a Universalist, or at best a Unitarian, for which they claimed to have some reason, since he seldom went to church, although his wife was a communicant, and very regular in her attendance.