How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 50

Mrs. B. decided to put her household on the new business basis last Fall. She moved into a five-room apartment which cost her ninety dollars, but she had larger rooms and a newer building with more up-to-date improvements than she had had before. She saved twenty-five dollars a month on rent plus eighty dollars wages and about thirty dollars on her former maids' food. All together she had one hundred and thirty-five dollars which could be used for Home a.s.sistants. This is the way the money was spent:

A laundress once a week................................ $2.60 Home a.s.sistant, on duty from 7.30 A.M. to 2 P.M........ 10.00 Home a.s.sistant, on duty from 12 M. to 9 P.M............ 15.00 _____ Week...............................................$27.60

On this schedule the work was done better than ever before. There was no longer any grievance about the washing. Mrs. B. had some one continuously on duty. The morning a.s.sistant was allowed a half hour at noon to eat her luncheon which she brought with her. As Mrs. B.

entertained a great deal, especially at luncheon, she arranged to have the schedule of the two a.s.sistants overlap at this time of day. The morning worker, it will be noted, was employed for only six hours. The afternoon worker was a trained a.s.sistant and, therefore, received fifteen dollars a week. She had an hour off, between three-thirty and four-thirty and was on duty again in time to serve tea or afternoon refreshments. If there were a number of extra people for dinner, the a.s.sistant was expected to stay until nine and there was never any complaining about too much company. Mrs. B. has a better apartment and saves money every month besides!

(_New York Sun_)

SIX YEARS OF TEA ROOMS

BUSINESS CAREER OF A WOMAN COLLEGE GRADUATE

"For the last three years I have cleared $5,000 a year on my tea rooms,"

declared a young woman who six years ago was graduated with distinction at one of the leading colleges of the country.

"I attained my twenty-third birthday a month after I received my diploma. On that day I took stock of the capital with which I was to step into the world and earn my own living. My stock taking showed perfect health, my college education and $300, my share of my father's estate after the expenses of my college course had been paid.

"In spite of the protests of many of my friends I decided to become a business woman instead of entering one of the professions. I believed that a well conducted tea room in a college town where there was nothing of the kind would pay well, and I proceeded to open a place.

"After renting a suitable room I invested $100 in furnishings. Besides having a paid announcement in the college and town papers I had a thousand leaflets printed and distributed.

"Though I couldn't afford music I did have my rooms decorated profusely with flowers on the afternoon of my opening. As it was early in the autumn the flowers were inexpensive and made a brave show. My only a.s.sistant was a young Irish woman whom I had engaged for one month as waitress, with the understanding that if my venture succeeded I would engage her permanently.

"We paid expenses that first afternoon, and by the end of the week the business had increased to such an extent that I might have engaged a second waitress had not so many of my friends persisted in shaking their heads and saying the novelty would soon wear off. During the second week my little Irish girl and I had so much to do that on several occasions our college boy patrons felt themselves constrained to offer their services as waiters, while more than one of the young professors after a long wait left the room with the remark that they would go elsewhere.

"Of course it was well enough to laugh as we all knew there was no 'elsewhere,' but when I recalled how ready people are to crowd into a field that has proved successful, I determined no longer to heed the shaking heads of my friends. The third week found me not only with a second a.s.sistant but with a card posted in a conspicuous place announcing that at the beginning of the next week I would enlarge my quarters in such a way as to accommodate more than twice as many guests.

"Having proved to my own satisfaction that my venture was and would be successful, I didn't hesitate to go into debt to the extent of $150.

This was not only to repair and freshen up the new room but also to equip it with more expensive furnishing than I had felt myself justified in buying for the first.

"Knowing how every little thing that happens is talked about in a college town, I was sure the difference in the furnishings of the rooms would prove a good advertis.e.m.e.nt. I counted on it to draw custom, but not just in the way it did.

"Before I realized just what was happening I was receiving letters from college boys who, after proclaiming themselves among my very first customers, demanded to know why they were discriminated against. I had noticed that everybody appeared to prefer the new room and that on several occasions when persons telephoning for reservations had been unable to get the promise of a table in there, they had said they would wait and come at another time. What I had not noticed was that only men coming alone or with other men, and girls coming with other girls, would accept seats in the first room.

"I learned from the letters of 'my very first patrons' that no gentleman would take a girl to have tea in a second cla.s.s tea room. They were not only hitting at the cheaper furnishings of my first room but also at the waiter whom I had employed, because I felt the need of a man's help in doing heavy work. The girl in her fresh ap.r.o.n and cap was more attractive than the man, and because he happened to serve in the first room he also was second cla.s.s.

"No, I couldn't afford to buy new furniture for that room, so I did the only thing I could think of. I mixed the furniture in such a way as to make the two rooms look practically alike. I hired another girl and relegated the man to the kitchen except in case of emergency.

"Although my custom fell off in summer to a bare sprinkling of guests afternoons and evenings and to almost no one at lunch, I kept the same number of employees and had them put up preserves, jams, syrups, and pickles for use the coming season. I knew it would not only be an economical plan but also a great drawing card, especially with certain of the professors, to be able to say that everything served was made on the place and under my own supervision.

"My second winter proved so successful that I determined to buy a home for my business so that I might have things exactly as I wished. I was able to pay the first instalment, $2,500, on the purchase price and still have enough in bank to make alterations and buy the necessary furnishings.

"The move was made during the summer, and when I opened up in the autumn I had such crowds afternoons and evenings that I had to put extra tables in the halls until I could get a room on the second floor ready. At present I have two entire floors and often have so many waiting that it is next to impossible to pa.s.s through the entrance hall.

"Three summers ago I opened a second tea room at a seash.o.r.e resort on the New England coast. I heard of the place through a cla.s.smate whose family owned a cottage down there. She described it as deadly dull, because there was nothing to do but bathe and boat unless you were the happy possessor of an automobile or a horse.

"I was so much interested in her description of the place that I went down one warm day in April and looked things over. I found a stretch of about three miles of beach lined with well appearing and handsome cottages and not a single place of amus.e.m.e.nt. The village behind the beach is a lovely old place, with twenty or more handsome old homes surrounded by grand trees. There are two or three small stores, a post office, two liveries and the railroad station half a mile away.

"Before I left that afternoon I had paid the first month's rent on the best of the only two cottages to be rented on the beach. Of course it needed considerable fixing up and that had to be done at my own expense, but as I was getting it at a rental of $200 for the season I was not worried at the outlay. The cottages told me enough of the character of the people who summered on that beach to make me sure that I would get good interest on all the money spent.

"Immediately after commencement I shut up my college tea rooms, leaving only the kitchen and storeroom open and in charge of an experienced woman with instructions to get more help when putting up preserves and pickles made it necessary. Then I moved.

"The two first days on the beach my tea room didn't have a visitor.

People strolled by and stared at the sign, but n.o.body came in to try my tea. The third day I had a call from my landlord, who informed me that he had been misled into letting me have his cottage, and offering to return the amount paid for the first month's rent, he very politely requested me to move out.

"After considerable talking I discovered that the cottagers didn't like the way my waitresses dressed. They were too stylish and my rooms appeared from the outside to be so brilliantly lighted that they thought I intended to sell liquor.

"I didn't accept the offered rent, neither did I agree to move out, but I did a.s.sure my landlord that I would go the very day anything really objectionable happened on my premises. I told him of my success in the college town and then invited him to bring his family the following afternoon to try my tea.

"Well, they came, they saw, and I conquered. That evening all the tables on my piazza were filled and there was a slight sprinkling indoors. A few days later the cla.s.smate who had told me of the place came down for the summer and my troubles were at an end.

"The secret of my success is hard work and catering to the taste of my patrons. Had I opened either a cheap or a showy place in the college town, I would not have gained the good will of the faculty or the patronage of the best cla.s.s of students. If my prices had been too high or the refreshments served not up to the notch, the result would not have been so satisfactory.

"Knowing one college town pretty well, I knew just about what was needed in the student's life; that is, an attractive looking place, eminently respectable, where you can take your best girl and get good things to eat well served at a reasonable cost.

"The needs of the beach were pretty much the same. People can't stay in the water all the time, neither can they spin around the country or go to an unlighted village at night in their carriages and automobiles. My tea room offers a recreation, without being a dissipation.

"Another point about which many people question me is the effect of my being a business woman on my social standing. I haven't noticed any slights. I receive many more invitations than it is possible for me to accept. I go with the same set of girls that I did while I was in college.

"Two of my cla.s.smates are lawyers, more than one is a doctor, and three have gone on the stage. I know that my earnings are far more than any of theirs, and I am sure they do not enjoy their business any more than I do. If I had to begin again I would do exactly as I have done, with one exception--I would lay out the whole of my $300 in furnishing that first tea room instead of keeping $75 as a nest egg in bank."

(_Country Gentleman_)

Two ill.u.s.trations: 1. Half-tone reproducing photograph of dressed chickens with the caption, "There is this rule you must observe: Pick your chickens clean."

2. Reproduction in type of shipping label.

BY PARCEL POST

ONE MAN'S WAY OF SERVING THE DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER MARKET

By A. L. SARRAN

If you live within a hundred and fifty miles of a city, if you possess ordinary common sense and have the ability to write a readable and understandable letter, you may, from September to April of each year, when other farmers and their wives are consuming instead of producing, earn from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars net profit each month.

You may do this by fattening and dressing chickens for city folks, and by supplying regularly fresh country sausage, hams, lard and eggs.

This is not an idle theory. Last September I began with one customer; today--this was written the end of March--I have nearly 500 customers to whom I am supplying farm products by parcel post.

Instead of selling my chickens to the huckster or to the local poultry house for twelve cents a pound, I am selling them to the consumer in the city for twenty cents a pound, live weight, plus the cost of boxing and postage. Not only that, I am buying chickens from my neighbors at a premium of one to two cents over the huckster's prices, "milk feeding"

them, and selling them to my city customers at a profit of six to seven cents a pound.

I buy young hogs from my neighbors at market prices and make them into extra good country sausage that nets me twenty-five cents a pound in the city, and into hams for which I get twenty-five cents a pound, delivered. The only pork product on which I do not make an excellent profit is lard. I get fifteen cents a pound for it, delivered to the city customer, and it costs me almost that much to render and pack it.

At this writing storekeepers and egg buyers in my county are paying the farmer seventeen cents for his eggs. I am getting twenty-five cents a dozen for eggs in thirty-dozen eases and twenty-nine cents a dozen in two-dozen boxes. My prices to the city man are based upon the Water Street, Chicago, quotation for "firsts," which, at this writing, is nineteen cents. If this price goes up I go up; if it goes down I go down.