A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career | Page 7

for thirty-one
cents. But, alas! I had only eleven cents. Have that knife I must,
however, and so I proposed to the shop-woman to take back the top and
breastpin at a slight deduction, and with my eleven cents to let me have
the knife. The kind creature consented, and this makes memorable my
first 'swap.' Some fine and nearly white molasses candy then caught my
eye, and I proposed to trade the watch for its equivalent in candy. The
transaction was made, and the candy was so delicious that before night
my gun was absorbed in the same way. The next morning the torpedoes
'went off' in the same direction, and before night even my beloved knife
was similarly exchanged. My money and my goods all gone, I traded
two pocket-handkerchiefs and an extra pair of stockings I was sure I
should not want for nine more rolls of molasses candy, and then
wandered about the city disconsolate, sighing because there was no
more molasses candy to conquer."
During that first visit to the metropolis the boy doubtless many times
passed the corner of Ann street and Broadway, where, in after years, his
famous museum stood. After a week in town he returned to Bethel,
riding with Brown in his sleigh, and found himself a social lion among
his young friends. He was plied with a thousand questions about the
great city which he had visited, and no doubt told many wondrous tales.
But at home his reception was not altogether glorious. His brothers and
sisters were disappointed because he brought them nothing, and his
mother, discovering that during his journey he had lost two
handkerchiefs and a pair of stockings, gave him a spanking and put him
to bed.

A settled aversion to manual labor was strongly developed in the boy as
he grew older, which his father considered simple laziness. Instead of
trying to cure him of his laziness, however, the father decided to give
up the farm, and open a store, hoping that the boy would take more
kindly to mercantile duties. So he put up a building in Bethel, and in
partnership with one Hiram Weed opened a "general store," of dry
goods, hardware, groceries, etc., and installed young Phineas as clerk.
They did a "cash, credit and barter" business, and the boy soon learned
to drive sharp bargains with women who brought butter, eggs, beeswax
and feathers to exchange for dry goods, and with men who wanted to
trade oats, corn, buckwheat, axehelves, hats and other commodities for
ten-penny nails, molasses or New England rum. It was a drawback
upon his dignity that he was obliged to take down the shutters, sweep
the store and make the fire. He received a small salary for his services
and the perquisites of what profit he could derive from purchasing
candies on his own account to sell to their younger customers, and, as
usual, his father insisted that he should clothe himself.
There was much to be learned in a country store, and principally, as he
found, this: that sharp tricks, deception and dishonesty are by no means
confined to the city. More than once, in cutting open bundles of rags,
brought to be exchanged for goods, he found stones, gravel or other
rubbish wrapped up in them, although they were represented to be "all
pure linen or cotton." Often, too, loads of grain were brought in,
warranted to contain so many bushels, but on measuring them they
were found five or six bushels short.
In the evenings and on stormy days the store was a general meeting
place for the idlers of the village, and young Barnum derived much
amusement from the story-telling and joke-playing that went on among
them. After the store was closed at night he would generally go with
some of the village boys to their homes for an hour or two of sport, and
then, as late, perhaps, as eleven o'clock, would creep slyly home and
make his way upstairs barefooted, so as not to wake the rest of the
family end be detected in his late hours. He slept with his brother, who
was sure to report him if he woke him up on coming in, and who laid
many traps to catch Phineas on his return from the evening's

merry-making. But he generally fell fast asleep and our hero was able
to gain his bed in safety.
Like almost every one in Connecticut at that time he was brought up to
go regularly to church on Sunday, and before he could read he was a
prominent member of the Sunday-school. His pious mother taught him
lessons in the New Testament and Catechism, and spared no efforts to
have him win one of those "Rewards of Merit" which promised "to pay
to the