"If only we had a Conestoga wagon!" said Johnny. "We could go to the City and load it with things to sell—"

Johnny Wanamaker and his cousin Jacob wanted to earn money to get food for the school picnic. Pennies were scarce around Pennsylvania-Dutch households in the 1850s. It was even hard to make a trade, because the thrifty farmers sent all their produce to Philadelphia, to be sold in the many small shops there.

Every day big Conestoga wagons passed the Wanamaker farm, carrying goods to the City, or pioneers to the west. Johnny wished he could travel either way, but the City-bound wagons interested him more. Trading was a game to him; it was fun to supply the thing that satisfied a customer. Buying and selling were much more exciting than farmwork! Johnny scorned Jacob's suggestion of helping farmers take care of livestock.

Johnny always had his eye out for a good sale. Now, he reasoned, get something people need, and charge a fair price for it. What did their neighbors need? Well, fat old Mr. Holsopple was very fond of frogs' legs. Johnny caught frogs and took them to Mr. Holsopple's store; sure enough, he made a good trade. Johnny was smart enough to realize that Mr. Holsopple tried at first to get the frogs for less than they were worth. Johnny held out for his fair price–and he got it, along with the old merchant's respect.

Even when the Wanamakers themselves went west to settle on an Indiana farm, Johnny played the exciting game of trading. He sold apples to travelers. He asked the same price of everyone; he thought customers should not have to bargain, as they did in Philadelphia shops. Then he discovered an Indian camp near their farm. What would Indians need? They surely got hungry. Johnny decided; maybe they would trade for the Wanamaker's farm produce. His good idea provided all the Wanamaker children with moccasins to wear that winter!

Though he enjoyed trading with pioneers and Indians, Johnny was glad when his family moved back to Pennsylvania. He was old enough now to get a job in the City, and soon he was clerking in a shop. Now he was busy picking up more ideas to add to his first experiences of trading and buying. All these helped form his plans and ideas for the store of his own he hoped someday to have.

All these went into John Wanamaker's great stores in Philadelphia and New York that helped create the modern department store. Johnny was the first to bring the goods of many small shops under one roof, in a store that offered customers every convenience for shopping. All his life he was to introduce new ideas and improvements to attract customers and to set an example of enterprise and fair dealing for other merchants.

Olive W. Burt, the author of Luther Burbank: Boy Wizard, now adds a most interesting character and a new kind of hero to the Childhood of Famous Americans series in her story about the boy merchant.

From the dust jacket