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© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND
THE EMPLOYEE APPRAISAL PROCESS
A properly planned and effectively utilized performance appraisal program should contribute
to improved employee performance. In this chapter there is an extensive discussion of the
development of an appraisal program, including various sources of appraisal information. In
addition, several performance appraisal methods are described within the categories of trait,
behavior, and results approaches. A summary of the major strengths and weaknesses of
various appraisal techniques is shown in Figure 8.8. The section on feedback of appraisal has
been expanded with some practical suggestions for appraisal interviews. A section on improving
performance, which includes an examination of sources of ineffective performance, concludes the
chapter. We have found that performance appraisal is one of the functions that most concerns
managers and about which they often have many questions. In this chapter we attempt to bring
out the issues about which questions are frequently raised.
It is important for students to realize that training employees will not eliminate many of the
differences found among employees at the time they are hired. For this reason, performance
appraisal should be viewed as one of the important HR functions that can contribute to the
continuing development of the individual employee. The need for standards of satisfactory job
performance should be emphasized, particularly in this era of downsizing and restructuring.
From their own job experiences, students may be asked to list such criteria for various jobs. This
listing can give you an opportunity to point out those worker qualities that can be objectively
determined versus those that are subjectively determined. For example, the quantity of production
can be objectively determined, whereas employee cooperativeness is largely a matter of
subjective interpretation.
CHAPTER LEARNING OUTCOMES
8
8
c
c h
h a
a p
p t
t e
e r
r
Explain what performance management is and how the establishment
of goals, ongoing performance feedback, and the appraisal process
are part of it.
LEARNING OUTCOME 1

© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or
duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
• Performance appraisal is a process, typically delivered annually by a supervisor to a
subordinate, that is designed to help employees understand their roles, objectives, and
expectations when it comes to contributing to the firm’s success. In addition, new
employees are often put on probationary status for a period of time and evaluated 30,
60, or 90 days after being hired, with their continued employment contingent upon
their performing satisfactorily.
• Performance management is the process of creating a work environment in which
employees can perform to the best of their abilities.
• Performance appraisal programs and merit rating systems are not new or unique to
organizations. From their early use in the federal government, performance
appraisals have become a major activity of HRM.
• Mention that most successful organizations use performance appraisals as a basis for
HR activity. Mention that recent interest in teamwork, continuous improvement,
learning, and the like has caused many organizations to rethink their approach to
performance appraisals.
II. ONGOING PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK
Because feedback is most useful when it is immediate and specific to a particular situation,
it should be a regularly occurring activity. For example, if you are a sales manager, should
Explain the purposes of performance appraisals and the reasons they
sometimes fail.
Describe the different sources of appraisal information.
Explain the various methods used to evaluate the performance of
employees.
Outline the characteristics of an effective performance appraisal
interview.
LEARNING OUTCOME 5
LEARNING OUTCOME 3
LEARNING OUTCOME 2
LEARNING OUTCOME 4

98 Part 3: Developing Effectiveness in Human Resources
you wait to appraise your employees once or twice a year? Probably not. Most likely you
would want to monitor their sales on a weekly and monthly basis. Has a particular
salesperson met his or her customer-contact numbers this week? Why or why not? Is the
salesperson closing deals with the people he or she does contact? If at the six-month mark,
the salesperson isn’t making his or her goals, how can you help the person if you haven’t
provided the individual with ongoing feedback? The lack of sales will be hard to make up
at this point.
III. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROGRAMS
A. The Purposes of Performance Appraisal
Performance appraisal programs benefit both the employee and the organization.
1. Administrative Purposes—For the organization, performance appraisals
provide inputs for many other HR functions. The concept of “pay-for-performance”
has gained wide acceptance among employers. Emphasize the importance of
correctly administered performance appraisals as a key to the proper
compensation of employees.
2. Developmental Purposes
• For the employee, performance appraisals provide feedback about daily
performance while also stressing employee training, development, and growth
plans.
• Refer to Figure 8.2 in the textbook to illustrate the more common uses of
performance appraisals. Have students, in groups or individually, brainstorm
different objectives of an appraisal program. Discuss how they contribute to
organizational growth and employee job satisfaction. List the objectives on
the board and see if any of the objectives might conflict with one another. If
they do, ask the class what problems this might cause for supervisors.
B. Why Appraisal Programs Sometimes Fail
• Have students, in groups or individually, brainstorm why performance appraisal
programs fail. List their reasons on the board and compare them to those given in
the textbook.
• Stress that in order to be motivated, employees must perceive that their appraisals
are fair and accurate. Also, when employees are involved in the procedure rather
than play a passive role, they are more likely to believe their appraisals are fair.
Providing employees with feedback on a continual basis not only improves their
performance but helps them know where they stand, thereby lessening the anxiety
they feel during their formal appraisals.
• Ask students what influence “politics” may play in the performance appraisal
process.
IV. DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE APPRAISAL PROGRAM
• Developing an appraisal system is normally the joint responsibility of the HR
department and line and staff managers. The HR department is responsible for over-

Chapter 8: Performance Management and the Employee Appraisal Process 99
seeing and coordinating the appraisal program while other managers assist in
establishing objectives for the program.
• Studies have shown that employees have greater trust and respect for appraisal systems
when they participate in the development of the rating instrument.
A. What Are the Performance Standards?
Before managers can appraise the performance of employees, appropriate
performance standards must be established and communicated to employees. These
standards, or criteria, must be job-related requirements. Discuss the basic
considerations for establishing performance standards. Use Figure 8.4 in the textbook
for this discussion.
1. Strategic Relevance—This refers to how the appraisal standards relate to the
strategic objectives of the organization. A strategy-driven performance appraisal
process results in the documentation HR managers need to justify various training
expenses in order to close any gaps between, employees’ current skills and those
they will need in the future to execute the firm’s strategy.
2. Criterion Deficiency
• Performance standards must capture the full range of a person’s job. When
standards focus on only one element of the job (e.g., sales), they are likely
leave out important evaluation criteria.
• You may choose relate the concept of criterion deficiency to content validity
discussed in Chapter 6.
3. Criterion Contamination—Performance standards should not be influenced
by factors outside the employee’s control. For example, if bad materials or poor
equipment affects an employee’s performance, his or her performance standards
may be contaminated.
4. Reliability
• This refers to the stability or consistency of a standard, or the extent to which
individuals tend to maintain a certain level of performance over time.
• Stress that performance standards should be written and that they should be
defined in quantifiable and measurable terms.
• A new process some companies are using to make sure managers are rating
employees consistently is called calibration. During calibration meetings, a
group of supervisors, led by their managers and facilitated by an HR
professional, discuss the performance of individual employees to ensure all
managers apply similar standards to all of the firm’s employees. Calibration
meetings can be particularly helpful after a merger or acquisition, especially
one that’s global.
• Have students develop quantifiable and measurable performance standards
for the jobs of (1) college recruiter, (2) college teacher, (3) sales clerk,
(4) computer operator, and/or (5) bus driver.

• Obtain some sample performance appraisal forms from organizations. Have
students critique (1) the characteristics on which individuals are evaluated in
terms of how relevant they are to the job, and (2) the evaluator’s probable
opportunity to observe the behaviors described on the forms.
B. Are You Complying with the Law?
Based on recent court rulings, HR managers recommend that performance
appraisals meet these legal guidelines:
1. Performance ratings must be job-related (based on job analysis).
2. Employees should have a copy of their job standards.
3. Employee performance should be observable.
4. Performance problems should be documented and referred to in employee
appraisals.
5. Supervisors should be properly trained in the appraisal process.
6. Managers should openly discuss performance with employees and offer help
where needed.
7. An appeals procedure should be developed whereby employees can voice
disagreement with the appraisal received.
C. Who Should Appraise an Employee’s Performance?
• Just as there are multiple standards by which to evaluate performance, there are
a multitude of persons with valuable information about a person’s work
effectiveness.
• Use Figure 8.5 in the textbook as a basis for discussion about multiple sources
of appraisal.
1. Manager/Supervisor Appraisal—Because managers and supervisors work
directly with their employees, they are the logical choice to appraise the
performance of their employees. Managers and supervisors can use daily work
records and the direct observation of employees to complete the appraisal review.
2. Self-Appraisal—Self-appraisals are used when managers seek to increase
employees’ involvement in the appraisal process. One problem with this method is
that appraisers may evaluate their performance higher than the supervisor would.
It can also lead employees to wrongly believe they have more influence over the
process than they really do.
3. Subordinate Appraisal—Appraisal by subordinates has been used when
supervisors seek feedback on how subordinates view them. Employees are in a
good position to evaluate the leadership, communications, planning, and
delegation of authority of their managers. Discuss with students why managers
may not favor this appraisal method.
4. Peer Appraisal—Have students discuss when peer appraisals can be most
effectively used. What are several advantages and disadvantages of this appraisal
method? Have students discuss why this appraisal approach is not widely used.

5. Team Appraisal—This is an extension of the peer appraisal. In a team setting,
it might be impossible to separate out an individual’s contribution. In such cases,
doing individual appraisals might detract from the critical mission of the team.
Team appraisals are designed to evaluate the performance of the team as a whole.
6. Customer Appraisal—Driven by TQM concerns, internal and external
customers are increasingly used as sources of performance appraisal information.
The opinions of vendors and suppliers are also sometimes utilized in the appraisal
process. Internal customers can include anyone within the organization who
depends on the employee’s work output.
D. Putting It All Together: 360-Degree Appraisal
• Over 25 percent of all U.S. companies and over 90 percent of Fortune 1000
companies use some form of 360-degree appraisal. The system is intended to
give employees the most accurate view of their performance because it solicits
input from multiple sources—their supervisors, peers, subordinates, customers,
and so forth.
• Use Figure 8.6: Pros and Cons of 360-Degree Appraisal to discuss the plusses
and minuses of 360-degree appraisal.
E. Training Appraisers
Although performance appraisal is widely practiced by organizations, many
managers must perform the process without the benefit of training. This point is
highlighted by the quote by the following quote in the textbook: “What’s important is
not the (appraisal) form or (measuring) scale. What’s important is that managers can
objectively observe people’s performance and give them objective feedback on that
performance.” To accomplish this goal, performance appraisal training programs
should focus on the following:
1. Establishing an Appraisal Plan—This systematic process covers (1) the
objectives of the performance appraisal system, and (2) the mechanics of the rating
system (including the method, frequency, and strengths and weaknesses of the
system).
2. Eliminating Rater Error
• Research has shown that appraisers are prone to make several different types
of rating errors.
• Distributional errors (e.g., central tendency, leniency, and strictness errors)
involve the arrangement of a group of ratings across several employees.
Forced distribution and peer rankings are techniques that some organizations
use to eliminate these types of errors. However, not all corporate cultures are
conducive to forced rankings systems. Firms that place a high-priority on
teamwork would probably find forced ranking to be counterproductive. In
addition, these ranking systems can sometimes adversely affect employee
morale and lead to lawsuits. Behavioral anchors may be a more effective
approach to minimizing distributional errors. (See section III for more about
behavioral anchors.)

• Temporal errors (e.g., recency) are the result of how a person evaluates
information over time.
• Contrast error occurs when an employee’s evaluation is biased either
favorably or unfavorably because of a previous employee’s performance
evaluation.
• Similar-to-me error occurs when an appraiser inflates the evaluation of a
person with whom they have something in common.
• Discuss how various stereotypes held toward minorities and women may
affect their performance review.
3. Feedback Training
• Feedback not only provides employees with knowledge of results, but it also
allows the manager and employee to discuss current problems and set future
goals. Managers need to realize that employees want feedback. That is, they
want know how they are doing and how they can improve. They are less eager
to be appraised or judged.
• Refer to Highlights in HRM 1: Supervisor’s Checklist for the Performance
Appraisal in the textbook. This piece provides excellent points for
scheduling, preparing for the review, and conducting the performance review
with the employee.
V. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL METHODS
This section discusses the major contemporary methods of performance appraisal. Other,
less frequently used systems are also reviewed. Performance appraisal systems can be
broadly classified as trait methods, behavioral methods, or results-oriented methods.
A. Trait Methods
1. Graphic Rating Scales—In the graphic rating-scale method, traits or
characteristics are rated on a line or scale. Highlights in HRM 2 in the textbook
shows an example. Rating scale forms may differ between organizations based on
the dimensions to be appraised, the degree to which the performance dimensions
are defined, and the degree to which the points on the scale are defined.
2. Mixed-Standard Scales
• These scales are extensions of the basic rating scale. In the mixed-standard
scales method, the manager evaluates the trait under consideration (e.g.,
initiative) against three specific behavioral descriptions relevant to each trait to
be rated. An example is provided in Highlights in HRM 3 in the textbook.
• Each descriptor for the trait should reflect different levels of performance—
superior, average, or below average, for example. Managers appraise their
employees by indicating that the employees are better than, equal to, or worse
than the standard for each behavioral descriptor.
3. Forced-Choice Method—In the forced-choice method, the manager is
required to choose from a pair of statements that appear equally favorable or

unfavorable, selecting the one statement that best describes the employee’s
behavior. The manager selects the statement without knowing which statement
correctly describes successful job performance.
4. Essay Method
• The essay method of performance appraisal requires the supervisor to write
a statement that describes the employee’s behavior. Normally both strengths
and weaknesses are described, along with a plan for future employee
development.
• Have students discuss what they see as the advantages and weaknesses of
this appraisal method.
B. Behavioral Methods
1. Critical Incident Method—The critical incident method appraises employees
based on favorable or unfavorable critical incidents related to the job. Managers
keep a log on employees and note the critical incidents in the log as they occur.
Ask students to keep a list of favorable and unfavorable critical incidents of
students’ behavior in their various classes (without names). Discuss their entries in
class.
2. Behavioral Checklist Method—Checklists consist of groups of statements that
pertain to a given job. The rater checks those statements that apply to the ratee.
3. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)
• A behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is often mentioned as one
way to improve rating scales. It does this by providing a description of
behavior along the scale, or continuum. A BARS is based on critical incidents
of job performance. Normally, a BARS consists of a series of five to ten
vertical scales, one for each important dimension of job performance. High-
lights in HRM 4 in the textbook provides an example of a behaviorally
anchored rating scale for firefighters.
• While BARS instruments have been widely publicized as a more effective
way to appraise performance, at present there is no strong evidence that a
BARS reduces all of the rating errors mentioned earlier.
4. Behavior Observation Scales (BOS)—A behavior observation scale (BOS) is
similar to BARS but asks raters to evaluate how frequently each behavior has
been observed. In contrast to BARS, this approach allows the appraiser to play
more the role of observer than judge. Highlights in HRM 4 in the text-book show
an example of BOS for a sales representative.
C. Results Methods
1. Productivity Measures
• A number of measures can be used to assess results achieved. Salespeople,
for example, are evaluated based on sales volume. Production workers can be
evaluated based on output produced, scrap rate, defects, and the like.

• There are a number of potential problems with output measures. Recall the
earlier discussion of criteria contamination and criteria deficiency.
2. Management by Objectives
• Developed by Peter Drucker in 1954, management by objectives (MBO) is a
philosophy of management as well as a goal-setting and performance
appraisal system. At periodic time intervals, employees set goals with their
supervisors and are evaluated against those goals on specified review dates.
Figure 8.7 in the textbook illustrates how performance appraisal functions under
an MBO program.
• Ask the class if anyone has worked or is currently working under an MBO
system. Have students explain the MBO process at their organizations.
a. Requirements for a Successful MBO Program
• To be successful, MBO programs must meet several characteristics.
Established goals should be quantifiable and set for both the long run and
the short run. Goals must be realistically set and under the employee’s
control. Managers and employees must establish specific times when goals
are to be reviewed and evaluated. Accompanying the goals should be a
detailed description of how the goals will be achieved.
• Advantages of MBO include the following: (1) employees can measure
their own performance; (2) quantifiable goals are set; (3) goal setting is a
joint effort between the employee and the manager; and (4) employees
have the satisfaction of achieving mutually established objectives.
b. Criticisms of MBO. The disadvantages of MBO include (1) some studies
show that MBO programs have achieved only mediocre success; (2) goals
may be unrealistically set; (3) employees and managers may not be fully
committed to the MBO process; and (4) some goals may be hard to quantify
but, nevertheless, are important to employee job success.
3. The Balanced Scorecard
• Developed by Harvard professors Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the
Balanced Scorecard (BSC), discussed initially in Chapter 2, is a measurement
framework that helps managers translate strategic goals into operational
objectives. The logic of the BSC is that learning and people management help
organizations improve their internal processes.
• Discuss with students the importance of not only measuring performance in
terms of bottom-line, but in long-term measures that may not provide
immediate benefits to the organization.
• Similar in some ways to MBO, the BSC enables managers to translate broad
corporate goals into divisional, departmental and team goals. Highlights in
HRM 5 shows an example of a personal scorecard used for this process.

D. Which Performance Appraisal Method to Use?
• The choice of which appraisal method to use largely depends on the intended
purpose of the appraisal program. To discuss the major strengths and weaknesses
of the different appraisal methods refer to Figure 8.8 in the textbook. In addition,
HR managers can periodically administer a survey to the firm’s employees and
managers to get a sense of whether or not they think the organization’s performance
appraisal process is improving.
• It is common for a supervisor’s appraisal of an employee to be reviewed by higher
levels of management. This is often done by the supervisor’s superior. Review of
an evaluator’s appraisal helps to ensure objectivity and fairness. This method also
can serve to train new supervisors in the proper application of performance
appraisal. Additionally, performance appraisals shouldn’t be done for middle
managers and rank-and-file employees only but for top managers as well—
particularly if the organization’s goals are to cascade downward through the
company.
VI. APPRAISAL INTERVIEWS
Appraisal interviews are a very important part of the entire appraisal process. Unfortunately,
many supervisors do not devote the time or attention needed to conduct the interview
properly. Appraisers should remember that employees want and deserve an honest
appraisal of their performance. This only comes through a well-planned and well-
conducted appraisal interview. The form of the interview will depend mostly on the purpose
of the interview. Generally, feedback sessions will have a different approach from growth
and development interviews. Employees should have adequate time in the interview to
ask questions and provide additional input, if needed.
A. Three Types of Appraisal Interviews
Norman Maier, an authority on the appraisal interview, notes that there are three basic
appraisal interview types.
1. Tell-and-Sell Interview—This method requires that the supervisor use
persuasion to change an employee in a desired manner. This can be accomplished
by having the employee see how the changed behavior will benefit him or her.
2. Tell-and-Listen Interview—When using this method, the supervisor discusses
the employee’s strong and weak points during the first half of the interview.
During the second half of the interview, the employee’s feelings about the
interview are thoroughly explored. At this time the supervisor attempts to deal
with the objections of the employee through nondefensive behavior. It is
assumed that the opportunity to release frustrated feelings through catharsis will
help to reduce or remove unpleasant feelings.
3. Problem-Solving Interview—The supervisor who uses the problem-solving
method employs nondirective interviewing procedures, but in addition, the
supervisor seeks to develop a growth and development approach to the interview.
Maier recommends this method since the appraisal process should exist to help
employees grow and develop.

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B. Conducting the Appraisal Interview
• The textbook provides several considerations for conducting the appraisal
interview. A guiding rule to follow is not to discuss too much information at one
time. Dividing the appraisal interview into two sessions, one for the performance
review and the other for future development plans, can reduce time constraints.
• By dividing the appraisal interview into two sessions, the supervisor can serve
as evaluator at one period and counselor at the other period. This relieves the
burden of performing both tasks during one session.
• Some specific guidelines about conducting an appraisal interview may
increase employees’ acceptance of feedback, their satisfaction with the interview,
as well as their intention to improve in the future. Many of the principles of
good selection interviewing (see Chapter 6) apply to appraisal interviews.
1. Ask for a Self-Assessment—Self-assessment gets employees thinking about
their performance and assures that they know the standards against which they
will be evaluated.
2. Invite Participation—Participation helps bring out some of the root causes of
performance problems and may increase an employee’s satisfaction with the
process.
3. Express Appreciation—Praise is a powerful motivator. However, avoid the
“sandwich technique.” With this method, positive statements are given first,
followed by negative statements, which are followed by more positive remarks.
For many years HR professionals recommended that managers use the sandwich
technique when giving appraisal information to employees. Currently, this
technique is not recommended for these reasons: (1) giving praise first signals to
the employee that bad news is on the way; (2) the final positive comments
indicate to the employee that no more negative comments will follow; and
(3) employees may simply see this approach as a way to ease through the appraisal
interview without any real communication between those involved.
4. Minimize Criticism—Criticism leads to defensiveness, and this may hurt the
chances of solving the problem. It’s hard to change a person’s behavior with a
single conversation, so “laying it on the line” isn’t probably a good idea.
5. Change the Behavior, Not the Person—Instead of focusing on traits that are
personal characteristics (and difficult to change) focus on behaviors that can be
corrected or improved.
6. Focus on Solving Problems—Rather than blaming, focus on remedying the
situation.
7. Be Supportive—Some of the best leaders are those who focus on finding ways to
help employees eliminate obstacles to successful performance.
8. Establish Goals—Try to focus the employee on the future rather than the past.
9. Follow Up Day to Day—Feedback is more powerful when it occurs
frequently. Informal talks reinforce the goals and objectives laid out in the
formal appraisal interview.

C. Improving Performance
Employees cannot improve their performance unless they know exactly what is
expected of them. Supervisors have the responsibility to inform employees of their
job standards at the start of the review period. By doing this, employees can adjust
their behavior to conform to performance criteria, and surprises can be avoided at the
appraisal interview.
1. Identifying Sources of Ineffective Performance
• Use Figure 8.9: Factors That Influence Performance and Figure 8.10:
Performance Diagnosis to talk about the major causes of ineffective job
performance, broken into three categories: (1) ability, (2) motivation, and
(3) environment. These ideas were first brought up in Chapter 1 under
discussions about productivity enhancement.
• It is recommended that ineffective employee job performance be diagnosed
according to three interactive factors: the employee’s skill, the employee’s
effort levels, and the external conditions surrounding the job.
2. Performance Diagnosis
• Although performance appraisal systems can often tell us who is not
performing well, they typically cannot reveal why. So, if someone is not
achieving desired results, it can be difficult to decide if it is due to ability,
motivation, or external constraints.
• It is thus important to compare various measures of performance to ensure
improvement. For example, if someone is demonstrating all the desired
behaviors but is not achieving the desired results, logic suggests that it may be
due to factors beyond his or her control.
3. Managing Ineffective Performance—A three-step process is recommended to
correct poor employee performance. First, identify the source of poor
performance. Second, develop a course of action to improve performance.
Third, motivate the employee to correct undesirable job behavior.
Performance Diagnosis
1. Noting that Carl works very hard on the gopher problem, this may offer a clue
that his problem is not motivation or external issues, but that he lacks the skills
to address the situation. A potential solution would be to offer training courses
on how to deal with the problem.
2. Clark may be having external problems at home (e.g., his wife’s sister-in-law
and their family have decided to visit and stay at the house for a whole month—
putting extra financial and emotional strain on Clark). Obviously, we cannot be
sure of the problems Clark is facing, but finding out why he feels so dejected
about the bonus may offer clues to his poor performance. If the problems are
HRM
EXPERIENCE

external, maybe offering some time off will help Clark work out his problems at
home so he can better accomplish his assignment at work.
3. There could be several explanations including lack of sales training or perhaps
his college degree is in a different field that is of greater interest to him.
Students will have various explanations.
ANSWERS TO END-OF-CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The performance appraisal an employee receives is directly linked with other HR functions.
A poor appraisal review can limit promotional or transfer opportunities. A poor appraisal
may necessitate additional training to bring the employee up to acceptable performance
standards. Depending on the appraisal received, increases in salary may or may not be
recommended.
2. The courts have emphasized the importance of having carefully defined and measurable
criteria as a basis for appraising employee performance. They have insisted on employers
having some type of record of performance based on identifiable objective criteria rather than
vague descriptions such as attitude, cooperation, or initiative.
3. Some criteria that can be used to appraise performance in the following jobs are:
a. Sales representative: Volume of sales made, number of sales contacts made, and
customer complaints.
b. TV repairer: Number of repairs made in a specified period of time, and amount of
work that must be redone because of faulty workmanship.
c. Director of nursing in a hospital: Success in establishing standards of performance
and the cost-effective utilization of members of the nursing staff.
d. HR manager: Effectiveness of HR programs in relation to cost, employee effectiveness
and morale, and quality of response to special problems within the organization.
e. Air-traffic controller: skill in managing traffic, completion of required operational
procedures (updating weather reports, keeping records), coordination and communication
with pilots, and use of emergency equipment and procedures.
4. a. The tell-and-sell method requires the ability to persuade an individual to change in the
prescribed manner. The tell-and-listen method requires the ability to communicate the strong
and weak points of a subordinate’s performance and to explore the subordinate’s feelings
about the appraisal. The problem-solving method requires the ability to stimulate growth
and development through discussion.
b. The skills for the problem-solving type of interview can be developed by first adopting
the attitude that through discussion, new ideas and mutual interests can be developed. Training
and practice in listening and reflecting feelings, reflecting ideas, using exploratory questions,
and summarizing are essential.
c. Probably most students will agree that the tell-and-sell method is the least desirable
because it leads to suppressed defensive behavior and feelings of hostility.

5. Poor performance should be detected during the daily observation of employees. The major
factors that influence performance are listed in Figure 8.8 in the textbook.
ANSWERS TO USING THE INTERNET ACTIVITIES
Internet Exercise #1, page 358
U.S. Office of Personnel Management
http://www.opm.gov/
Question:
Visit the website of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and conduct a search of “360-
degree assessment” for the organization’s training assistance program. Review the
organization’s 360-degree feedback procedures and list the sources of feedback. What questions
are considered for each feedback source?
Answer:
The feedback sources included in OPM’s 360-feedback process include the following:
• Superiors
• Self-assessment
• Peers
• Subordinates
• Customers
For each feedback source, the following two questions are covered:
• “What does this rating source contribute?”
• “What cautions should be addressed?”
Source:
http://www.opm.gov/perform/wppdf/360asess.pdf
Internet Exercise #2, page 368
U.S. Army Research Institute
http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/
Question:
Visit the U.S. Army Research Institute and conduct a search of “behaviorally anchored rating
scales” (BARS). Provide a summary of how the U.S. Army has used BARS to assess tactical
thinking.

Answer:
An ongoing need exists in the Army to enhance combat leaders’ tactical thinking skills. A
Tactical Thinking Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (T-BARS) was generated and inter-rater
reliability was established. Eight themes of tactical thinking identified in the “Think Like A
Commander” program of research and training formed the basis of the scales. These included:
• Know and Use All Assets Available
• Focus on the Mission and Higher’s Intent
• Model a Thinking Enemy
• Consider Effects of Terrain
• Consider Timing
• See the Big Picture
• Consider Contingencies and Remain Flexible
• Visualize the Battlefield
Interviews were conducted with Army officers with a range of operational experience to elicit
patterns of thinking and behaviors within a set of tactical exercises. Interview data were utilized
to generate behavioral indicators to populate the five levels of cognitive performance within the
T-BARS.
Source:
http://www.hqda.army.mil/ari/pdf/RR1854.pdf

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H
CHAPTER XIV—FINIS
E’S all right; you can look for him here right along now, any
day; he was hurt a leetle, but he’s as peart an’ chipper now
as a blue-jay on a hick’ry limb; yes, he’s a-comin’ right smack
home!”
This was the gist of the assurances which Ni vouchsafed to the
first rush of eager questions—to his sister, and M’rye, and Janey
Wilcox.
Abner had held a little aloof, to give the weaker sex a chance.
Now he reasserted himself once more: “Stan’ back, now, and give
the young man breathin’ room. Janey, hand a chair for’ard—that’s it.
Now set ye down, Ni, an’ take your own time, an’ tell us all about it.
So you reely found him, eh?”
“Pshaw! there ain’t anything to that,” expostulated Ni, seating
himself with nonchalance, and tilting back his chair. “That was easy
as rollin’ off a log. But what’s the matter here? That’s what knocks
me. We—that is to say, I—come up on a freight train to a ways
beyond Juno Junction, an’ got the conductor to slow up and let me
drop off, an’ footed it over the hill. It was jest about broad daylight
when I turned the divide. Then I began lookin’ for your house, an’
I’m lookin’ for it still. There’s a hole out there, full o’ snow an’
smoke, but nary a house. How’d it happen?”
“‘Lection bonfire—high wind—woodshed must ‘a’ caught,” replied
Abner, sententiously. “So you reely got down South, eh?”
“An’ Siss here, too,” commented Ni, with provoking disregard for
the farmer’s suggestions; “a reg’lar family party. An’, hello!”

His roving eye had fallen upon the recumbent form on the made-
up bed, under the muffling blankets, and he lifted his sandy wisps of
eyebrows in inquiry.
“Sh! It’s father,” explained Esther. “He isn’t feeling very well. I
think he’s asleep.”
The boy’s freckled, whimsical face melted upon reflection into a
distinct grin. “Why,” he said, “you’ve been havin’ a reg’lar old love-
feast up here. I guess it was that that set the house on fire! An’
speakin’ o’ feasts, if you’ve got a mouthful o’ somethin’ to eat handy
—”
The women were off like a shot to the impromptu larder at the far
end of the barn.
“Well, thin,” put in Hurley, taking advantage of their absence, “an’
had ye the luck to see anny rale fightin’?”
“Never mind that,” said Abner; “when he gits around to it he’ll tell
us everything. But, fust of all—why, he knows what I want to hear
about.”
“Why, the last time I talked with you, Abner—” Ni began, squinting
up one of his eyes and giving a quaint drawl to his words.
“That’s a good while ago,” said the farmer, quietly.
“Things have took a change, eh?” inquired Ni.
“That’s neither here nor there,” replied Abner, somewhat testily.
“You oughtn’t to need so dummed much explainin’. I’ve told you
what I want specially to hear. An’ that’s what we all want to hear.”
When the women had returned, and Ni, with much deliberation,
had filled both hands with selected eatables, the recital at last got
under way. It progress was blocked from time to time by sheer force
of tantalizing perversity on the part of the narrator, and it suffered
steadily from the incidental hitches of mastication; but such as it was

we listened to it with all our ears, sitting or standing about, and
keeping our eyes intently upon the freckled young hero.
“It wasn’t so much of a job to git down there as I’d figured on,” Ni
said, between mouthfuls. “I got along on freight trains—once
worked my way a while on a hand-car—as far as Albany, an’ on
down to New York on a river-boat, cheap, an’ then, after foolin’
round a few days, I hitched up with the Sanitary Commission folks,
an’ got them to let me sail on one o’ their boats round to ’Napolis. I
thought I was goin’ to die most o’ the voyage, but I didn’t, you see,
an’ when I struck ’Napolis I hung around Camp Parole there quite a
spell, talkin’ with fellers that’d bin pris’ners down in Richmond an’
got exchanged an’ sent North. They said there was a whole slew of
our fellers down there still that’d been brought in after Antietam.
They didn’t know none o’ their names, but they said they’d all be
sent North in time, in exchange for Johnny Rebs that we’d captured.
An’ so I waited round—”
“You might have written!” interrupted Esther, reproachfully.
“What’d bin the good o’ writin’? I hadn’t anything to tell. Besides
writin’ letters is for girls. Well, one day a man come up from Libby—
that’s the prison at Richmond—an’ he said there was a tall feller
there from York State, a farmer, an’ he died. He thought the name
was Birch, but it might’a’ been Beech—or Body-Maple, for that
matter. I s’pose you’d like to had me write that home!”
“No—oh, no!” murmured Esther, speaking the sense of all the
company.
“Well, then I waited some more, an’ kep’ on waitin’, an’ then
waited agin, until bimeby, one fine day, along comes Mr. Blue-jay
himself. There here was, stan’in’ up on the paddle-box with a face
on him as long as your arm, an’ I sung out, ‘Way there, Agrippa Hill!’
an’ he come mighty nigh failin’ head over heels into the water. So
then he come off, an’ we shook han’s, an’ went up to the
commissioners to see about his exchange, an’—an’ as soon’s that’s

fixed, an’ the papers drawn up all correct, why, he’ll come home. An’
that’s all there is to it.”
“And even then you never wrote!” said Esther, plaintively.
“Hold on a minute,” put in Abner. “You say he’s comin’ home. That
wouldn’t be unless he was disabled. They’d keep him to fight agin,
till his time was up. Come, now, tell the truth—he’s be’n hurt bad!”
Ni shook his unkempt red head. “No, no,” he said. “This is how it
was. Fust he was fightin’ in a cornfield, an’ him an’ Bi Truax, they got
chased out, an’ lost their regiment, an’ got in with some other
fellers, and then they all waded a creek breast-high, an’ had to run
up a long stretch o’ slopin’ ploughed ground to capture a battery
they was on top o’ the knoll. But they didn’t see a regiment of sharp-
shooters layin’ hidden behind a rail-fence, an’ these fellers riz up all
to once an’ give it to ’em straight, an’ they wilted right there, an’ laid
down, an’ there they was after dusk when the rebs come out an’
started lookin’ round for guns an’ blankets an’ prisoners. Most of ’em
was dead, or badly hurt, but they was a few who’d simply lain there
in the hollow because it’d have bin death to git up. An’ Jeff was one
o’ them.”
“You said yourself ’t he had been hurt—some,” interposed M’rye,
with snapping eyes.
“Jest a scratch on his arm,” declared Ni. “Well, then they marched
the well ones back to the rear of the reb line, an’ there they jest
skinned ’em of everything they had—watch an’ jack-knife an’ wallet
an’ everything—an’ put ’em to sleep on the bare ground. Next day
they started ’em out on the march toward Richmond, an’ after four
or five days o’ that, they got to a railroad, and there was cattle cars
for ’em to ride the rest o’ the way in. An’ that’s how it was.”
“No,” said Abner, sternly; “you haven’t told us. How badly is he
hurt?”

“Well,” replied Ni, “it was only a scratch, as I said, but it got worse
on that march, an’ I s’pose it wasn’t tended to anyways decently, an’
so—an’ so—”
M’rye had sprung to her feet and stood now drawn up to her full
height, with her sharp nose in air as if upon some strange scent, and
her eyes fairly glowing in eager excitement. All at once she made a
bound past us and ran to the doors, furiously digging her fingers in
the crevice between them, then, with a superb sweep of the
shoulders, sending them both rattling back on their wheels with a
bang.
“I knew it!” she screamed in triumph.
We who looked out beheld M’rye’s black hair and brown calico
dress suddenly suffer a partial eclipse of pale blue, which for the
moment seemed in some way a part of the bright winter sky
beyond. Then we saw that it was a soldier who had his arm about
M’rye, and his cap bent down tenderly over the head she had laid on
his shoulder.
Our Jeff had come home.
A general instinct rooted us to our places and kept us silent, the
while mother and son stood there in the broad open doorway.
Then the two advanced toward us, M’rye breathing hard, and with
tears and smiles struggling together on her face under the shadow
of a wrathful frown. We noted nothing of Jeff’s appearance save that
he had grown a big yellow beard, and seemed to be smiling. It was
the mother’s distraught countenance at which we looked instead.
She halted in front of Abner, and lifted the blue cape from Jeff’s
left shoulder, with an abrupt gesture.
“Look there!” she said, hoarsely. “See what they’ve done to my
boy!”

We now saw that the left sleeve of Jeff’s army overcoat was
empty and hung pinned against his breast. On the instant we were
all swarming about him, shaking the hand that remained to him and
striving against one another in a babel of questions, comments, and
expressions of sympathy with his loss, satisfaction at his return. It
seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should kiss
Esther Hagadorn, and that Janey Wilcox should reach up on tiptoes
and kiss him. When the Underwood girl would have done the same,
however, M’rye brusquely shouldered her aside.
So beside ourselves with excitement were we all, each in turn
seeking to get in a word edgewise, that no one noticed the approach
and entrance of a stranger, who paused just over the threshold of
the barn and coughed in a loud perfunctory way to attract our
attention. I had to nudge Abner twice before he turned from where
he stood at Jeff’s side, with his hand on the luckless shoulder, and
surveyed the newcomer.
The sun was shining so brightly on the snow outside, that it was
not for the moment easy to make out the identity of this shadowed
figure. Abner took a forward step or two before he recognized his
visitor. It was Squire Avery, the rich man of the Corners, and justice
of the peace, who had once even run for Congress.
“How d’ do?” said Abner, shading his eyes with a massive hand.
“Won’t you step in?”
The Squire moved forward a little and held forth his hand, which
the farmer took and shook doubtfully. We others were as silent now
as the grave, feeling this visit to be even stranger than all that had
gone before.
“I drove up right after breakfast, Mr. Beech,” said the Squire,
making his accustomed slow delivery a trifle more pompous and
circumspect than usual, “to express to you the feeling of such
neighbors as I have, in this limited space of time, being able to
foregather with. I believe, sir, that I may speak for them all when I

say that we regret, deplore, and contemplate with indignation the
outrage and injury to which certain thoughtless elements of the
community last night, sir, subjected you and your household.”
“It’s right neighborly of you, Square, to come an’ say so,”
remarked Abner. “Won’t you set down? You see, my son Jeff’s jest
come home from the war, an’ the house bein’ burnt, an’ so on, we’re
rather upset for the minute.”
The Squire put on his spectacles and smiled with surprise at
seeing Jeff. He shook hands with him warmly, and spoke with what
we felt to be the right feeling about that missing arm; but he could
not sit down, he said. The cutter was waiting for him, and he must
hurry back.
“I am glad, however,” he added, “to have been the first, Mr.
Beech, to welcome your brave son back, and to express to you the
hope, sir, that with this additional link of sympathy between us, sir,
bygones may be allowed to become bygones.”
“I don’t bear no ill will,” said Abner, guardedly. “I s’pose in the long
run folks act pooty close to about what they think is right. I’m willin’
to give ’em that credit—the same as I take to myself. They ain’t
been much disposition to give me that credit, but then, as our
school-ma’am here was a-sayin’ last night, people ’ve been a good
deal worked up about the war—havin’ them that’s close to ’em right
down in the thick of it—an’ I dessay it was natural enough they
should git hot in the collar about it. As I said afore, I don’t bear no ill
will—though prob’ly I’m entitled to.”
The Squire shook hands with Abner again. “Your sentiments, Mr.
Beech,” he said, in his stateliest manner, “do credit alike to your
heart and your head. There is a feeling, sir, that this would be an
auspicious occasion for you to resume sending your milk to the
cheese-factory.”
Abner pondered the suggestion for a moment. “It would be
handier,” he said, slowly; “but, you know, I ain’t goin’ to eat no

humble pie. That Rod Bidwell was downright insultin’ to my man, an’
me too—”
“It was all, I assure you, sir, an unfortunate misunderstanding,”
pursued the Squire, “and is now buried deep in oblivion. And it is
further suggested, that, when you have reached that stage of
preparation for your new house, if you will communicate with me,
the neighbors will be glad to come up and extend their assistance to
you in what is commonly known as a raising-bee. They will desire, I
believe, to bring with them their own provisions. And, moreover, Mr.
Beech”—here the Squire dropped his oratorical voice and stepped
close to the farmer—“if this thing has cramped you any, that is to
say, if you find yourself in need of—of—any accommodation—”
“No, nothin’ o’ that sort,” said Abner. He stopped at that, and kept
silence for a little, with his head down and his gaze meditatively
fixed on the barn floor. At last he raised his face and spoke again, his
deep voice shaking a little in spite of itself.
“What you’ve said, Square, an’ your comin’ here, has done me a
lot o’ good. It’s pooty nigh wuth bein’ burnt out for—to have this sort
o’ thing come on behind as an after-clap. Sometimes, I tell you, sir,
I’ve despaired o’ the republic. I admit it, though it’s to my shame.
I’ve said to myself that when American citizens, born an’ raised right
on the same hill-side, got to behavin’ to each other in such an all-
fired mean an’ cantankerous way, why, the hull blamed thing wasn’t
worth tryin’ to save. But you see I was wrong—I admit I was wrong.
It was jest a passin’ flurry—a kind o’ snow-squall in hayin’ time. All
the while, right down ’t the bottom, their hearts was sound an’
sweet as a butternut. It fetches me—that does—it makes me
prouder than ever I was before in all my born days to be an
American—yes, sir—that’s the way I—I feel about it.”
There were actually tears in the big farmer’s eyes, and he got out
those finishing words of his in fragmentary gulps. None of us had
ever seen him so affected before.

After the Squire had shaken hands again and started off, Abner
stood at the open door, looking after him, then gazing in a
contemplative general way upon all out-doors. The vivid sunlight
reflected up from the melting snow made his face to shine as if from
an inner radiance. He stood still and looked across the yards with
their piles of wet straw smoking in the forenoon heat, and the black
puddles eating into the snow as the thaw went on; over the further
prospect, made weirdly unfamiliar by the disappearance of the big
old farm-house; down the long broad sloping hill-side with its
winding road, its checkered irregular patches of yellow stubble and
stacked fodder, of deep umber ploughed land and warm gray
woodland, all pushing aside their premature mantle of sparkling
white, and the scattered homesteads and red barns beyond—and
there was in his eyes the far-away look of one who saw still other
things.
He turned at last and came in, walking over to where Jeff and
Esther stood hand in hand beside the bed on the floor. Old Jee
Hagadorn was sitting up now, and had exchanged some words with
the couple.
“Well, Brother Hagadorn,” said the farmer, “I hope you’re feelin’
better.”
“Yes, a good deal—B—Brother Beech, thank’ee,” replied the
cooper, slowly and with hesitation.
Abner laid a fatherly hand on Esther’s shoulder and another on
Jeff’s. A smile began to steal over his big face, broadening the
square which his mouth cut down into his beard, and deepening the
pleasant wrinkles about his eyes. He called M’rye over to the group
with beckoning nod of the head.
“It’s jest occurred to me, mother,” he said, with the mock gravity
of tone we once had known so well and of late had heard so little
—“I jest be’n thinkin’ we might’a’ killed two birds with one stun while

the Square was up here. He’s justice o’ the peace, you know—an’
they say them kind o’ marriages turn out better ’n all the others.”
“Go ’long with yeh!” said Ma’rye, vivaciously. But she too put a
hand on Esther’s other shoulder.
The school-teacher nestled against M’rye’s side. “I tell you what,”
she said, softly, “if Jeff ever turns out to be half the man his father
is, I’ll just be prouder than my skin can hold.”

M
I
arsena Pulford, what time the village of Octavius knew him,
was a slender and tall man, apparently skirting upon the
thirties, with sloping shoulders and a romantic aspect.
It was not alone his flowing black hair, and his broad shirt-collars
turned down after the ascertained manner of the British poets,
which stamped him in our humble minds as a living brother to “The
Corsair,” “The Last of the Suliotes,” and other heroic personages
engraved in the albums and keepsakes of the period. His face, with
its darkling eyes and distinguished features, conveyed wherever it
went an impression of proudly silent melancholy. In those days—that
is, just before the war—one could not look so convincingly and
uniformly sad as Marsena did without raising the general
presumption of having been crossed in love. We had a respectful
feeling, in his case, that the lady ought to have been named Iñez, or
at the very least Oriana.
Although he went to the Presbyterian Church with entire
regularity, was never seen in public save in a long-tailed black coat,
and in the winter wore gloves instead of mittens, the local
conscience had always, I think, sundry reservations about the moral
character of his past. It would not have been reckoned against him,
then, that he was obviously poor. We had not learned in those
primitive times to measure people by dollar-mark standards. Under
ordinary conditions, too, the fact that he came from New England—
had indeed lived in Boston—must have counted rather in his favor
than otherwise. But it was known that he had been an artist, a
professional painter of pictures and portraits, and we understood in
Octavius that this involved acquaintanceship, if not even familiarity,
with all sorts of occult and deleterious phases of city life.

Our village held all vice, and especially the vice of other and larger
places, in stern reprobation. Yet, though it turned this matter of the
newcomer’s previous occupation over a good deal in its mind,
Marsena carried himself with such a gentle picturesqueness of
subdued sorrow that these suspicions were disarmed, or, at the
worst, only added to the fascinated interest with which Octavius
watched his spare and solitary figure upon its streets, and noted the
progress of his efforts to find a footing for himself in its social
economy.
It was taken for granted among us that he possessed a fine and
well-cultivated mind, to match that thoughtful countenance and that
dignified deportment.
This assumption continued to hold its own in the face of a long
series of failures in the attempt to draw him out. Almost everybody
who was anybody at one time or another tried to tap Marsena’s
mental reservoirs—and all in vain. Beyond the barest commonplaces
of civil conversation he could, never be tempted. Once, indeed, he
had volunteered to the Rev. Mr. Bunce the statement that he
regarded Washington Allston as in several respects superior to
Copley; but as no one in Octavius knew who these men were, the
remark did not help us much. It was quoted frequently, however, as
indicating the lofty and recondite nature of the thoughts with which
Mr. Pulford occupied his intellect. As it became more apparent, too,
that his reserve must be the outgrowth of some crushing and
incurable heart grief, people grew to defer to it and to avoid vexing
his silent moods with talk.
Thus, when he had been a resident and neighbor for over two
years, though no one knew him at all well, the whole community
regarded him with kindly and even respectful emotions, and the girls
in particular felt that he was a distinct acquisition to the place.
I have said that Marsena Pulford was poor. Hardly anybody in
Octavius ever knew to what pathetic depths his poverty during the
second winter descended. There was a period of several months, in

sober truth, during which he fed himself upon six or seven cents a
day. As he was too proud to dream of asking credit at the grocer’s
and butcher’s, and walked about more primly erect than ever,
meantime, in his frock-coat and gloves, no idea of these privations
got abroad. And at the end of this long evil winter there came a
remarkable spring, which altered in a violent way the fortunes of
millions of people—among them Marsena. We have to do with
events somewhat subsequent to that even, and with the period of
Mr. Pulford’s prosperity.
The last discredited strips of snow up in the ravines on the hill-
sides were melting away; the robins had come again, and were
bustling busily across between the willows, already in the leaf, and
the budded elms; men were going about the village streets without
their overcoats, and boys were telling exciting tales about the
suckers in the creek; our old friend Homer Sage had returned from
his winter’s sojourn in the county poorhouse at Thessaly, and could
be seen daily sitting in the sunshine on the broad stoop of the
Excelsior Hotel. It was April of 1862.
A whole year had gone by since that sudden and memorable turn
in Marsena Pulford’s luck. So far from there being signs now of a
possible adverse change, this new springtide brought such an
increase of good fortune, with its attendant responsibilities, that
Marsena was unable to bear the halcyon burden alone. He took in a
partner to help him, and then the firm jointly hired a boy. The
partner painted a signboard to mark this double event, in bold red
letters of independent form upon a yellow ground:=
````PULFORD & SHULL.

```Empire State Portrait Athenæum and
`````Studio.
```War Likenesses at Peace Prices.=
Marsena discouraged the idea of hanging this out on the street;
and, as a compromise, it was finally placed at the end of the
operating-room, where for years thereafter it served for the sitters to
stare at when their skulls had been clasped in the iron headrest and
they had been adjured to look pleasant. A more modest and
conventional announcement of the new firm’s existence was put
outside, and Octavius accepted it as proof that the liberal arts were
at last established within its borders on a firm and lucrative basis.
The head of the firm was not much altered by this great wave of
prosperity. He had been drilled by adversity into such careful ways
with his wardrobe that he did not need to get any new clothes.
Although the villagers, always kindly, sought now with cordial
effusiveness to make him feel one of themselves, and although he
accepted all their invitations and showed himself at every public
meeting in his capacity as a representative and even prominent
citizen, yet the heart of his mystery remained unplucked. Marsena
was too busy in these days to be much upon the streets. When he
did appear he still walked alone, slowly and with an air of settled
gloom. He saluted such passers-by as he knew in stately silence. If
they stopped him or joined him in his progress, at the most he
would talk sparingly of the weather and the roads.
Neither at the fortnightly sociables of the Ladies’ Church Mite
Society, given in turn at the more important members’ homes, nor in
the more casual social assemblages of the place, did Marsena ever
unbend. It was not that he held himself aloof, as some others did,
from the simple amusements of the evening. He never shrank from
bearing his part in “pillow,” “clap in and clap out,” “post-office,” or in
whatever other game was to be played, and he went through the
kissing penalties and rewards involved without apparent aversion. It

was also to be noted, in fairness, that, if any one smiled at him full
in the face, he instantly smiled in response. But neither smile nor
chaste salute served to lift for even the fleeting instant that veil of
reserve which hung over him.
Those who thought that by having Marsena Pul-ford take their
pictures they would get on more intimate terms with him fell into
grievous error. He was more sententious and unapproachable in his
studio, as he called it, than anywhere else. In the old days, before
the partnership, when he did everything himself, his manner in the
reception-room downstairs, where he showed samples, gave the
prices of frames, and took orders, had no equal for formal frigidity—
except his subsequent demeanor in the operating-room upstairs.
The girls used to declare that they always emerged from the gallery
with “cold shivers all over them.” This, however, did not deter them
from going again, repeatedly, after the outbreak of the war had
started up the universal notion of being photographed.
When the new partner came in, in this April of 1862, Marsena was
able to devote himself exclusively to the technical business of the
camera and the dark-room, on the second floor. He signalled this
change by wearing now every day an old russet-colored velveteen
jacket, which we had never seen before. This made him look even
more romantically melancholy and picturesque than ever, and
revived something of the fascinating curiosity as to his hidden past;
but it did nothing toward thawing the icebound shell which somehow
came at every point between him and the good-fellowship of the
community.
The partnership was scarcely a week old when something
happened. The new partner, standing behind the little show-case in
the reception-room, transacted some preliminary business with two
customers who had come in. Then, while the sound of their
ascending footsteps was still to be heard on the stairs, he hastily left
his post and entered the little work-room at the back of the counter.

“You couldn’t guess in a baker’s dozen of tries who’s gone
upstairs,” he said to the boy. Without waiting for even one effort, he
added: “It’s the Parmalee girl, and Dwight Ransom’s with her, and
he’s got a Lootenant’s uniform on, and they’re goin’ to be took
together!”
“What of it?” asked the unimaginative boy. He was bending over a
crock of nitric acid, transferring from it one by one to a tub of water
a lot of spoiled glass plates. The sickening fumes from the jar, and
the sting of the acid on his cracked skin, still further diminished his
interest in contemporary sociology. “Well, what of it?” he repeated,
sulkily.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the new partner, in a listless, disappointed
way. “It seemed kind o’ curious, that’s all. Holdin’ her head up as
high in the air as she does, you wouldn’t think she’d so much as look
at an ordinary fellow like Dwight Ransom.”
“I suppose this is a free country,” remarked the boy, rising to rest
his back.
“Oh, my, yes,” returned the other; “if she’s pleased, I’m quite
agreeable. And—I don’t know, too—I dare say she’s gettin’ pretty
well along. Maybe she thinks they ain’t any too much time to lose,
and is making a grab at what comes handiest. Still, I should ’a’
thought she could ’a’ done better than Dwight. I worked with him for
a spell once, you know.”
There seemed to be very few people with whom Newton Shull had
not at one time or another worked. Apparently there was no craft or
calling which he did not know something about. The old phrase,
“Jack of all trades,” must surely have been coined in prophecy for
him. He had turned up in Octavius originally, some years before, as
the general manager of a “Whaler’s Life on the Rolling Deep” show,
which was specially adapted for moral exhibitions in connection with
church fairs. Calamity, however, had long marked this enterprise for
its own, and at our village its career culminated under the auspices

of a sheriff’s officer. The boat, the harpoons, the panorama sheet
and rollers, the whale’s jaw, the music-box with its nautical tunes—
these were sold and dispersed. Newton Shull remained, and began
work as a mender of clocks. Incidentally, he cut out stencil-plates for
farmers to label their cheese-boxes with, and painted or gilded
ornamental designs on chair-backs through perforated paper
patterns. For a time he was a maker of children’s sleds. In slack
seasons he got jobs to help the druggist, the tinsmith, the dentist, or
the Town Clerk, and was equally at home with each. He was one of
the founders of the Octavius Philharmonics, and offered to play any
instrument they liked, though his preference was for what he called
the bull fiddle. He spoke often of having travelled as a bandsman
with a circus. We boys believed that he was quite capable of riding a
horse bareback as well.
When Marsena Pulford, then, decided that he must have some
help, Newton Shull was obviously the man. How the arrangement
came to take the form of a partnership was never explained, save on
the conservative village theory that Marsena must have reasoned
that a partner would be safer with the cash-box downstairs, while he
was taking pictures upstairs, than a mere hired man. More likely it
grew out of their temperamental affinity. Shull was also a man of
grave and depressed moods (as, indeed, is the case with all who
play the bass viol), only his melancholy differed from Marsena’s in
being of a tirelessly garrulous character. This was not always an
advantage. When customers came in, in the afternoon, it was his
friendly impulse to engage them in conversation at such length that
frequently the light would fail altogether before they got upstairs. He
recognized this tendency as a fault, and manfully combated it—
leaving the reception-room with abruptness at the earliest possible
moment, and talking to the boy in the work-room instead.
Mr. Shull was a short, round man, with a beard which was
beginning to show gray under the lip. His reception-room manners
were urbane and persuasive to a degree, and he particularly excelled
in convincing people that the portraits of themselves, which Marsena

had sent down to him in the dummy to be dried and varnished, and
which they hated vehemently at first sight, were really unique and
precious works of art. He had also much success in inducing country
folks to despise the cheap ferrotype which they had intended to
have made, and to venture upon the costlier ambrotype,
daguerreotype, or even photograph instead. If they did not go away
with a family album or an assortment of frames that would come in
handy as well, it was no fault of his.
He made these frames himself, on a bench which he had fitted up
in the work-room. Here he constructed show-cases, too, cut out
mats and mounts, and did many other things as adjuncts to the
business, which honest Marsena had never dreamed of.
“Yes,” he went on now, “I carried a chain for Dwight the best part
o’ one whole summer, when he was layin’ levels for that Nedahma
Valley Railroad they were figurin’ on buildin’. Guess they ruther let
him in over that job—though he paid me fair enough. It ain’t much
of a business, that surveyin’. You spend about half your time in
findin’ out for people the way they could do things if they only had
the money to do ’em, and the other half in settlin’ miserable farmers’
squabbles about the boundaries of their land. You’ve got to pay a
man day’s wages for totin’ round your chain and axe and stakes—
and, as like as not, you never get even that money back, let alone
any pay for yourself. I know something about a good many trades,
and I say surveyin’ is pretty nigh the poorest of ’em all.”
“George Washington was a surveyor,” commented the boy,
stooping down to his task once more.
“Yes,” admitted Mr. Shull; “so he was, for a fact. But then he had
influence enough to get government jobs. I don’t say there ain’t
money in that. If Dwight, now, could get a berth on the canal, say, it
’ud be a horse of another color. They say, there’s some places there
that pay as much as $3 a day. That’s how George Washington got
his start, and, besides, he owned his own house and lot to begin
with. But you’ll take notice that he dropped surveyin’ like a hot

potato the minute there was any soldierin’ to do. He knew which
side his bread was buttered on!”
“Well,” said the boy, slapping the last plates sharply into the tub,
“that’s just what Dwight’s doin’ too, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” Mr. Shull conceded; “but it ain’t the same thing. You won’t
find Dwight Ransom get-tin’ to be general, or much of anything else.
He’s a nice fellow enough, in his way, of course; but, somehow, after
it’s all said and done, there ain’t much to him. I always sort o’ felt,
when I was out with him, that by good rights I ought to be working
the level and him hammerin’ in the stakes.”
The boy sniffed audibly as he bore away the acid-jar.
Mr. Shull went over to the bench, and took up a chisel with a
meditative air. After a moment he lifted his head and listened, with
aroused interest written all over his face.
There had been audible from the floor above, at intervals, the
customary noises of the camera being wheeled about to different
points under the skylight. There came echoing downward now quite
other and most unfamiliar sounds—the clatter of animated, even
gay, conversation, punctuated by frank outbursts of laughter.
Newton Shull could hardly believe his ears: but they certainly did tell
him that there were three parties to that merriment overhead. It was
so strange that he laid aside the chisel, and tiptoed out into the
reception-room, with a notion of listening at the stair door. Then he
even more hurriedly ran back again. They were coming downstairs.
It might have been a whole wedding-party that trooped down the
resounding stairway, the voices rising above the clump of Dwight’s
artillery boots and sword on step after step, and overflowed into the
stuffy little reception-room with a cheerful tumult of babble. The
new partner and the boy looked at each other, then directed a joint
stare of bewilderment toward the door.

Julia Parmalee had pushed her way behind the show-case, and
stood in the entrance to the workroom, peering about her with an
affectation of excited curiosity which she may have thought pretty
and playful, but which the boy, at least, held to be absurd.
She had been talking thirteen to the dozen all the time. “Oh, I
really must see everything!” she rattled on now. “If I could be
trusted alone in the dark-room with you, Mr. Pulford, I surely may be
allowed to explore all these minor mysteries. Oh, I see,” she added,
glancing round, and incidentally looking quite through Mr. Shull and
the boy, as if they had been transparent: “here’s where the frames
and the washing are done. How interesting!”
What really was interesting was the face of Marsena Pulford,
discernible in the shadow over her shoulder. No one in Octavius had
ever seen such a beaming smile on his saturnine countenance
before.

N
II
ext to the War, the chief topic of interest and conversation in
Octavius at this time was easily Miss Julia Parmalee.
To begin with, her family had for two generations or more
been the most important family in the village. When Lafayette
stopped here to receive an address of welcome, on his tour through
the State in 1825, it was a Parmalee who read that address, and
who also, as tradition runs, made on his own account several
remarks to the hero in the French language, all of which were
understood. The elder son of this man has a secure place in history.
He is the Judge Parmalee whose portrait hangs in the Court House,
and whose learned work on “The Treaties of the Tuscarora Nation,”
handsomely bound in morocco, used to have a place of honor on the
parlor table of every well-to-do and cultured Octavius home.
This Judge was a banker, too, and did pretty well for himself in a
number of other commercial paths. He it was who built the big
Parmalee house, with a stone wall in front and the great garden and
orchard stretching back to the next street, and the buff-colored
statues on either side of the gravelled walk, where the Second
National Dearborn County Bank now stands. The Judge had no
children, and, on his widow’s death, the property went to his much
younger brother Charles, who, from having been as a stripling on
some forgotten Governor’s staff, bore through life the title of Colonel
in the local speech.
This Colonel Parmalee had a certain distinction, too, though not of
a martial character. His home was in New York, and for many years
Octavius never laid eyes on him. He was understood to occupy a
respected place among American men of letters, though exactly
what he wrote did not come to our knowledge. It was said that he

had been at Brook Farm. I have not been able to find any one who
remembers him there, but the report is of use as showing the
impression of superior intellectual force which he created, even by
hearsay, in his native village. When he finally came back to us, to
play his part as the head of the Parmalee house, we saw at intervals,
when the sun was warm and the sidewalks were dry, the lean and
bent figure of an old man, with a very yellow face and a sharp-
edged brown wig, moving feebly about with a thick gray shawl over
his shoulders. His housekeeper was an elderly maiden cousin, who
seemed never to come out at all, whether the sun was shining or
not.
There were three or four of the Colonel’s daughters—all tall, well-
made girls, with strikingly dark skins, and what we took to be
gypsyish faces. Their appearance certainly bore out the rumor that
their mother had been an opera-singer—some said an Italian, others
a lady of Louisiana Creole extraction. No information, except that
she was dead, ever came to hand about this person. Her daughters,
however, were very much in evidence. They seemed always to wear
white dresses, and they were always to be seen somewhere, either
on their lawn playing croquet, or in the streets, or at the windows of
their house. The consciousness of their existence pervaded the
whole village from morning till night. To watch their goings and
comings, and to speculate upon the identity and business of the
friends from strange parts who were continually arriving to visit
them, grew to be quite the standing occupation of the idler portion
of the community.
Before such of our young people as naturally took the lead in
these matters had had time to decide how best to utilize for the
general good this influx of beauty, wealth, and ancestral dignity, the
village was startled by an unlooked-for occurrence. A red carpet was
spread one forenoon from the curb to the doorway of the Episcopal
church: the old-fashioned Parmalee carriage turned out, with its
driver clasping white reins in white cotton gloves; we had a confused
glimpse of the dark Parmalee girls with bouquets in their hands, and

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