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Canton, Ohio, Repository, 24 August 1877, page 2 column 3

Stick to Your Bush

A rich man, in answer to a question how he became so very successful, recited the following story:

I will tell you how it was. One day when I was a lad, a party of boys and girls were going to pick blackberries. I wanted to go with them, but was afraid father would not let me. When I told him what was going on, and he at once gave me permission to go with them, I could hardly contain myself. I rushed into the kirchen, got a basket, and asked mother for a luncheon. I had the basket on my arm, and was just going out at the gate, when my father called me back. He took my hand and said, in a very gentle voice:

“Joseph, what are you going to do?”

“To pick berries,” I replied.

“Then, Joseph, I want to tell you one thing. It is this: When you find a pretty good bush, do not leave it to seek a better one. The other boys and girls will run about, picking a little here and a little there, wasting a good deal of time, and getting but very few blackberries.”

I went and had a capital time. No sooner had one found a bush than he called all the rest, and they left their several places and ran off to the newly found treasure. Not content more than a minute or two in one place, they rambled over the whole pasture, got tired, and at night had very few berries. My father’s words kept running in my ears, and I “stuck to my bush”. When I had done with one I found another, and finishing that, took another. When night came I had a basket of berries, more than all the others put together, and was not half so tired as they were. I went home happy. But when I entered I found my father had been taken ill. He looked at my basket full of ripe blackberries and said:

“Well done, Joseph. Was I not right when I told you to always stick to your bush?”

He died a few days after, and I had to make my way into the world as best I could. But my father’s words sank deep into my mind, and I never forgot the experience of the blackberry party. I “stuck to my bush”. When I had a fair place and was doing tolerably well, I did not leave it and spend weeks and months seeking one I thought might be a little better. When other young men said, Come with us and we will make a fortune in a few weeks,” I shook my head and stuck to my bush. Presently my employers offered to take me into business with them. I stayed with the old house until the principals died, and then I had everything I wanted.

(Here the page ended and so did the story.)

I think, in the current election campaign, the moral of the story is obvious, even if it was written more than 127 years ago.