The Voice of the People by Ellen Glasgow

So Nicholas's first fight for his manhood was fought and won. He went back to his books -- went back because his intellect ordained it, and the ordinance of intellect is fate -- but bitterness had gone out of him, and he had come into his own. From the stress of the last year he had found security in acceptance. His life might not be such as he had planned it -- whose was? -- his work might not be the thing he wanted -- again, whose was? -- but life and work were with him, and it remained for him to make the best of them. Fate might make him a shopkeeper; he would see to it that it made him a successful one. Success read backwards spelt work, and work was his inheritance -- a heritage of sweat and labour.

He went to Jerry Pollard's an hour earlier that he might rearrange to advantage the shelves. His employer had secured, below cost, a supply of dry goods, and preparations were in the making for the first summer sale in Kingsborough. Nicholas conducted the arrangements as conscientiously as he might have conducted a legal argument. It was the thing before him, and it must not fail.