Those who knew him in those days say that he was always content with a fair profit; that he soon became known as a man who never misrepresented the article he wished to sell, and that his customers increased rapidly because he left them also the opportunity to make a good profit. There is a story told of him that he once bought several hundred grain cradles, which had lain for a long time in the owner's loft. Huntington unpacked them, showed them on the street, and presently, as he had foreseen, there was a brisk demand for them. They went off' "like hot-cakes" at eighteen dollars apiece. "You might get thirty for them," said a friend; "are you not making a mistake?" '•Not at all," replied Huntington ; "I paid five, and I want to sell them all, don't you see? They are too bulky to keep. It is better to let others have a chance also to make some money." No doubt his experience and training as a country merchant in Otsego County was of great advantage to him in those early and busy Sacramento days, when he turned his hands to everything, and knew, as by intuition, what his customers would like, and how to arouse as well as to meet a popular demand.

One thing remains to be said : he retained his early New England habits; he did not drink, nor smoke nor gamble; he slept in his store, and was up and at work before the earliest of his clerks. He was scrupulously honest, and to use a phrase current in those days in Calfornia, he "did not allow anybody to run over him." The miscellaneous business, begun in a tent, grew by-and-by into a permanent hardware store at 54 K Street, in Sacramento, where Huntington sold all kinds of miners' supplies.