Miss Enders was receptive to Uncle Ulysses up and comingness, and, what’s more, she had the money to be receptive and up and coming with. Almost before the week was up, Miss Enders and the Judge (who was her lawyer) and Uncle Ulysses were having conferences. They wrote letters to Detroit, where they have assembly lines and sub-assembly lines and huge presses that can stamp out the whole side of a house just as easily as stamping out the body of a car or a section of a ship. They hired up and coming designers and landscape architects too. Almost before she knew it, Miss Enders had made arrangements for one hundred houses—a whole suburb!—to be built on the estate around the Enders Homestead. As Uncle Ulysses so wisely put it: “It don’t pay to go to all the trouble of mixing batter and getting the machine hot for two or three doughnuts. Might just as well make a hundred while you’re at it!”
The plans were finally finished and the arrangements all made. The workmen arrived at the Enders estate and then things really began to happen. The trees were chopped down and hauled away; the land was leveled by huge tractors, and streets were laid out around the old Homestead in a day or two. Then power diggers arrived right on schedule and dug one foundation right after another.
Homer drove over to the suburb with Uncle Ulysses and Miss Enders to see how things were going. Uncle Ulysses watched the dirt fly, and counted as the machines dug foundations. “Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four. I tell you, my boy,” he said to Homer, “you are witnessing the beginning of a new era in city planning and housing! Eighty, eighty-one . . . Why, tomorrow they will start to build; by the end of the week people will live here.”
“Simply marvelous,” exclaimed Miss Enders. “Just think. Last week there were only grass and trees and squirrels on this spot!”
Everything happened right on schedule, just as Uncle Ulysses had predicted.
Huge trucks and trailers drove along the streets, unloaded sub-assembled sides and floors and roofs of houses, all complete to the last window, doorknob, light bulb, and hot and cold water. It was just a matter of an hour or so for the workmen to fasten the sides and floors together and put on the roof.
As the Centerburg newspaper said in an editorial, “Truly we are witnessing a modern miracle. Little did Ezekiel Enders know when he founded this town one hundred and fifty years ago that such things as this would come to pass. The Centerburg Bugle is sponsoring a ‘One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week’ to be celebrated when this new part of town is finished. Judge Shank and Miss Enders are heading the Committee and handling the celebration. Anyone wishing to take part in the Pageant, please get in touch with the Committee or call at the Bugle Office.”
Toward the end of the week a truckload of mass produced furniture was moved into every house. Each front yard had its own climbing rose bush, two dwarf cedars, and maple trees, all planted and sodded round about. Each back yard had its mass produced ash can, bird house complete with weather vane, and revolving clothes line. In fact modern production genius had thought of everything: sheets, towels, pillow cases, and a print of Whistler’s Mother for over every fireplace. The houses were complete and ready to be moved into. They were moved into too! As you can see, moving in was little more than signing a paper and hanging your hat on the mass produced hanger in the hall.
Uncle Ulysses was very busy these days attending to last minute details. The Judge and Miss Enders were working frantically on the Pageant for “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week.”
Uncle Ulysses attended to street lights and fire plugs, and one afternoon he met Homer on the street and asked, “Have you seen Dulcey Dooner around lately? I have to make arrangements to have street signs put up in the new suburb. Have you heard, Homer,” he added proudly, “they’re going to name one of the streets Ulysses Terrace in honor of me!”
“Why yes, Uncle Ulysses, I just saw Dulcey coming out of the cigar store across the square.”
Uncle Ulysses and Homer hurried back to catch Dulcey Dooner, the town’s street sign putter upper.
“Hi there, Dulcey,” shouted Uncle Ulysses. “I’d like to discuss a matter of business with you . . . Street signs, street signs for our new suburb!”
Dulcey turned around and said, “Hi Ulysses. Hi Homer. I’ve been hearing about this new part of town.”
“It’s a great thing for Centerburg,” said Uncle Ulysses. “We’ll need about seventy street signs, Dulcey. The signs are all made, and they can be fastened to the corner lamp posts. We’ll pay a dollar a sign to have them put up.”
“Well,” said Dulcey, “that’s only seventy dollars, and I’m not so sure that the Street Sign Putter Uppers Union would agree to that.”
“But Dulcey, there are almost thirty other signs to put up. That makes one hundred dollars. The union surely wouldn’t object to that!”
“Yes,” said Dulcey, “I know, but I can’t fasten the signs onto the corner street lamps, because the Street Sign Putter Uppers Union rules say that any ‘street sign put up by a brother of this here Union must be fastened to a post erected by a brother of this here Union, set in a post hole dug by a brother of this here Union.’ The complete union rate is ten dollars a street sign for the hole, post and sign.”
“But we don’t need another post on each corner. The lamp posts will do very well,” said Uncle Ulysses, growing frantic.
“Couldn’t you arbitrate or something?” suggested Homer.
“Yes,” agreed Uncle Ulysses, “I’ll write to the President of your Union and ask him . . .”
“Well, Ulysses,” said Dulcey proudly, “I’m the President of the Street Sign Putter Uppers Union. I’m the Secretary Treasurer too. Ya see, Ulysses, I make all the union rules, pay all the dues (and collect them too) so what I say goes.”
“But certainly you must have up and coming ideas like the rest of the citizens of Centerburg. There must be some compromise. Say five dollars a sign!”
“Nope,” said Dulcey firmly, “it’s ten dollars or nothing. Street Sign putter upping is a seasonal occupation, and I can’t run the Union on five bucks a sign!”
“Well,” sighed Uncle Ulysses, “I guess we’ll have to make other arrangements.”
“If you make other arrangements, the Union will have to picket your new part of town,” said Dulcey.
Uncle Ulysses began to get mad. Homer hadn’t seen him so upset since the night the doughnut machine wouldn’t stop making doughnuts. He shouted something about Dulcey being a wrench in the wheels of progress, but Dulcey just repeated, “Ten dollars apiece, or strike.”
Homer had to rush off before the argument was finished, because tonight (Friday) was the dress rehearsal of the Pageant. Homer and Freddy and a couple of their friends were taking the part of Indians. They were going to be powdered all over with cocoa, striped with mercurochrome, and draped with towels around their middles.
Homer had to get to rehearsal right on the dot, because he started the Pageant by rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Most of the Pageant was historical, all about Ezekiel Enders and the founding of Centerburg. The organist of the African Baptist Church wrote the words and music for a long choral work, which the choir was going to sing all the while the Pageant was being acted.
The rehearsal went very well. The choir was in good voice, and the citizens taking the parts of Ezekiel Enders and the early settlers performed just right. So did Homer and Freddy and the boys, except for their scalping scene which had to be modified somewhat. The grand “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week” was drawing near!
Meanwhile every one of the hundred houses had been rented to a deserving family.
Homer hadn’t seen Uncle Ulysses in the past two days, but he knew he must be having his troubles. For one thing, the street signs still hadn’t been put up.
As all of the streets looked alike, this caused some slight confusion to the deserving tenants. The fact that all of the hundred houses looked as alike as a hundred doughnuts added to this slight confusion. However t
he deserving tenants soon found that by counting houses from the Enders Homestead, they could find their way home without much trouble. Freddy’s aunt was one of the deserving tenants, and when Freddy and Homer called on her, they had to count three houses down from the Enders’ Homstead, six houses to the left, and the next house to the right was Freddy’s aunt’s. “It’s a sort of a game,” Freddy said to Homer.
Miss Enders was proud as Punch of her suburb. She decided to call it Enders’ Heights, even though it was flat as a board. “It’s marvelous,” she said. “Simply marvelous!”
The only thing she wasn’t happy about was that her house (The Homestead) seemed out of place, sitting as it did in the middle of Enders’ Heights. Uncle Ulysses and the Judge agreed that The Homestead did stand out like a sore thumb. They decided that the best thing to do was move it away and build another house there. It would have to be done quickly so as to be complete by the time the Pageant started, that night. Uncle Ulysses late that day ironed out his difficulty with Dulcey Dooner. Dulcey, for $10 a sign, and a slight increase for overtime and having to miss the Pageant, agreed to have all the street signs up by the time the Pageant ended that night.
By eight o’clock the town square was crowded. Everyone was there to celebrate the “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week.” Promptly at eight-fifteen Homer, as an Indian, started rubbing his sticks together to make a fire. After the fire was lighted, Homer, Freddy, and the other Indians left the stage.
The Judge was Commentator, and while the Pageant was being acted in pantomime, he read from the History of Enders County. The African Baptist Choir chanted in the background.
“Ezekiel Enders,” boomed the Judge, “set foot on American soil owning but two shillings, an extra shirt, and a formula for making a Cough Syrup and Elixir of Life Compound that had been handed down in the Enders family for years. Soon after arriving, he took himself a wife, and was soon the father of a child.” The judge looked up from the text and said, “This child was destined to be the grandfather of our own dear public spirited citizen Miss Naomi Enders.” (Loud applause.) The judge continued: “Hearing of the fertile lands to the West, Ezekiel Enders packed his beloved wife and son and his formula into a covered wagon, and with a few brave followers, started toward the West . . . The Land of Plenty. Trouble seemed to follow Ezekiel and his brave little band. Their food ran out, game was scarce, and one day they found themselves in the wilderness with no food to sustain life. It was on that day, one hundred and fifty years ago, on this very spot, that Ezekiel found forty-two pounds of edible fungus growing in the forest.” (Here the African Baptist Choir sang out in full rich harmony)
“Forty-two pounds of edible fungus
In the Wilderness a-growin’
Saved the settlers from starvation,
Helped the founding of this nation.
Forty-two pounds of edible fungus
In the Wilderness a-growin’.”
“Ezekiel took it to be a sign, so he and his followers founded a town on this spot. Ezekiel purchased two thousand acres of land from the Indians with a jug of Cough Syrup. They named the town Edible Fungus, and they tilled the land and prospered.
“Peace and prosperity rested like a benediction on the brave company until the Indians, having become addicted to Ezekiel’s Cough Syrup and Elixir of Life Compound, rose in arms against them. Ezekiel buried his supply of the Compound in his cabin floor and guarded his Formula and his loved ones. In time the Indian uprising was quelled, and once more peace and prosperity came to Edible Fungus.
(The Choir sang . . .)
“Peace again in Edible Fungus
Prosperity now rests among us.”
“We now skip seventy-five years, to the time Ezekiel’s son founded the Enders Patent Medicine Company and the Mill. The town had grown and prospered, and its name was changed from Edible Fungus to Centerburg.”
(Loud cheering)
The rest of the Pageant was very symbolic. Uncle Telly’s wife, the former Miss Terwilliger, was dressed as The Spirit of Water Power. Miss Enders was The Spirit of Cough Syrup and Vitamin B Compound. The Ladies of the Grange were the Spirits of Agriculture.
The Judge then told the story of the building of Enders’ Heights, while Aunt Aggy (Uncle Ulysses’ wife), dressed as The Spirit of Progress and Up and Comingness, hovered on the platform.
The celebration ended with a torchlight procession to Enders Heights.
But lo! Once again the peace and comfort of Edible Fungus, alias Centerburg, i.e. Enders Heights was threatened!
The street signs were not up! The Enders Homestead had been moved!
Another house, like all the others, stood in its place. One hundred and one houses, all alike, down to the last door knob! Each with its climbing rose bush, two dwarf cedars, and maple tree sodded round about. Just as alike as one hundred and one doughnuts, and nothing, no nothing to count from to find out which was which and whose was whose. There was a mad scramble, with much shouting, with the deserving tenants trying frantically to find out which house was which.
The shouting broke into a chant of “We want Dulcey. We want Dulcey. We want Dulcey Doooooooooner.”
Uncle Ulysses could do nothing. He had given his plans and diagrams to Dulcey—so the signs could be put up correctly. Miss Enders had another set of plans and diagrams in one of her handbags or somewhere, but it couldn’t be located at the moment.
“We want Dulcey Dooner!” the crowd roared.
The Judge began to worry about the reputation of the town. “There has never been a lynching in Enders County,” he said.
It was Homer and Freddy who finally found Dulcey, quietly sleeping on a street corner that was just like all the other street corners, except for the post hole Dulcey’d started to dig.
The crowd gathered around. They shook and prodded Dulcey, shouting “Where are the plans?”
“Where are the diagrams?”
“Where is Ulysses Terrace?”
“Where is Ezekiel Road?”
It was soon apparent that Dulcey was more than just asleep. He finally opened one eye and answered all questions the same: a shrug of the shoulders, “I dunno,” and a hiccough. The plans and diagrams couldn’t be found.
It was Homer and Freddy (still dressed as Indians, of course) who found the little wooden keg near the corner. They smelled it. They tasted it. Freddy shouted, “I know—it’s cough syrup!”
“And Elixir Compound!” added Homer. “Dulcey dug it up! This is where Ezekiel buried it! And this is where the Homestead stood!”
That was it! And it didn’t take the worthy tenants long to count their way home.
Old Doctor Pelly diagnosed Dulcey’s trouble as “an overdose of Cough Syrup and Elixir of Life Compound, aged over a hundred years in a wooden keg.” Dulcey was up and about the business of installing street signs late the next day.
“One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week” came to a close with peace and prosperity. Time and progress move ahead. The Ezekiel Enders Homestead moved back to take the place of the one hundred and first house too. You see, the worthy tenants, though up and coming, aren’t taking any chances.
Meanwhile the whole nation is singing:
“Forty-two pounds of Edible Fungus
In the Wilderness a-growin’
Saved the Settlers from Starvation,
Helped the founding of the Nation.
Forty-two pounds of Edible Fungus
In the Wilderness a-growin’.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert McCloskey was born in Hamilton, Ohio, and lived there until he won a scholarship to the Vesper George Art School in Boston. After two years there he went back to his home town to carry out his first important commission, the bas-reliefs for the municipal building. Several months later he moved to New York and entered the National Academy of Design. While in New York he went to call on an editor of children’s books, with his portfolio under his arm. “She looked at the examples o
f ‘great art’ that I had brought along (they were woodcuts, fraught with black drama). I don’t remember just the words she used to tell me to get wise to myself and to shelve the dragons, Pegasus, and limpid pool business, and learn how and what to ‘art’ with. I think we talked mostly of Ohio.”
He began to draw and paint the things around him in everyday life. The result was Lentil, the story of a boy and a harmonica in a typical Midwestern town.
In the six preposterous stories of Homer Price, Mr. McCloskey looks back with humor and affection at the Midwest America of this childhood. When you realize how much Homer resembles his grown-up author-illustrator, it adds to the fun. In fact, Mr. McCloskey, like Homer, was once an inventor: “I built trains and cranes with remote controls, my family’s Christmas trees revolved, lights flashed and buzzers buzzed, fuses blew and sparks flew!”
Two of Mr. McCloskey’s picture books, Make Way for Ducklings and Time of Wonder, have been awarded the Caldecott Medal, given annually for “the most distinguished American picture book for children.” He was the first artist to receive this honor twice.
Robert McCloskey and his wife divided their year between the Virgin Islands in the winter and their island in Maine in the summer, until his death in 2003.
Homer Price Page 7