Orphan Hero

by John Babb

  He put on a clean shirt and collar, ate a decent breakfast, and walked over to the Rayl store in a light rain. At least this was one piece of luck—he wasn’t stuck out on the road in the weather. Luther Rayl was the only one in the store at that early hour, and thankfully he seemed friendly enough. He had received B. F.’s letter and appeared glad to be asked for his advice. The lack of customers allowed them an opportunity to at least begin a dialogue about what to sell, where to buy supplies and goods, how to display items, what to offer only via a catalogue, and how to determine a fair price.

  When a couple of ladies came in, Mister Rayl turned his attention to them, and B. F. began wandering around the store to look at stock. He had written two pages of notes on his tablet when the front door opened again and he looked up. As it happened, he was standing in front of shelving that positioned him directly between the door and the back office, so he was literally the first thing she saw as she stepped through the doorway. She had a parasol in her hand and was trying to get the rain shaken off when they made eye contact. He dropped his pencil and she lost her grip on the umbrella.

  B. F. quickly stepped over and retrieved her parasol from the floor.

  “Why, Mister Windes, you gave me a start. What brings you back to Waynesville?”

  “A couple of things. Your father is helping me get squared away with a store I’ve bought down in Keetsville.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “What?”

  “The other thing. You said you were here for a couple of things.”

  He looked at her for a good fifteen seconds. She could feel her cheeks warming up, and realized she must be blushing. He glanced toward the two women and Mister Rayl and saw that all three of them had fallen silent and were looking at them. He turned back to face Crocia and gave her a little sheepish grin. “I can’t remember right this minute.”

  She also finally noticed their audience, quickly clutched her umbrella, and stepped past him, heading toward the safety of the office. “It’s nice to see you again, Mister Windes.”

  He spent the balance of the day talking to Luther Rayl, interspersed by periods when he was occupied by customers, leaving B. F. to roam the store and write in his expanding tablet. About three o’clock, he noticed Crocia and her father having a conversation in the office, and he wondered if he came up in the discussion. This was apparently correct, as Mister Rayl invited him to supper when he emerged from the office.

  Crocia went home shortly after that, and B. F. used this opportunity to give her father the Colt pistol. Luther’s beat-up face came alive when he realized the pistol was a gift in appreciation of the information he was sharing. He had never shot one of the percussion cap weapons before and was delighted to now have one of his own. The two men closed the store together, with the promise that the next day would be spent talking about record keeping to complete their discussion.

  B. F. retrieved the other gifts from his hotel room and his horse from the livery stable before making his way to the Rayl home. Crocia met him at the door and he couldn’t help noticing that she had changed her dress since coming home from the store. He told her she looked nice, but he was particularly attracted to the smells coming from the kitchen. He believed he could identify the vapors from a heavenly mix of fried chicken and freshly baked sourdough bread.

  The end of the meal brought something he had never even heard of—sweet potato pie. How in the world one could turn such a tasteless tuber into a wonderful pie like that, he could not imagine. Much as he wanted second and third helpings, he restrained himself in front of his hostess, but he could not contain his praise for Missus Rayl’s pie.

  “Oh, that was Crocia’s pie. She makes them better than I can.”

  He looked at her with a whole new level of appreciation. “It is truly fine pie.” And for the second time that day he saw her cheeks turn color.

  He used this opportunity to present the women with their gifts and thanked each of them for a wonderful dinner. Crocia inspected the mirror, brush, and comb, and pronounced them beautiful, then looked at her reflection. “Do you think me vain, Mister Windes?”

  He was surprised, then embarrassed. “Why, no. I never thought about it!”

  “I just wondered if that was why you picked out a mirror for me.”

  “Of course not. I picked it because I thought you would like it. If you don’t, I’ll find something else.”

  “No.” She smiled. “I love it.”

  Elizabeth Rayl spoke up. “Thank you very much for the beautiful tray.” She put her hand on his arm. “I promise to use it when you come again.” She looked at her daughter with a half-smile.

  The next day, B. F. and Luther began with the intention of spending a majority of their time talking about keeping the books, but got side tracked into things like holding accounts for customers, catalog ordering, changing merchandise from time to time, and traveling to St. Louis to find out what the latest merchandise looked like.

  Rayl also made suggestions about what kinds of goods should be displayed in full view rather than stacked on shelves, and B. F. asked his opinion about something he had seen in San Francisco. Stores there had a habit of displaying special items in the front windows of the store in order to get people to stop and come in and look. Rayl remarked he had seen the same thing in a store in St. Louis, but he had shelving stacked too close to his windows to make it practical. B. F. talked about how his store was to be laid out, and they agreed it might be worth a try to fill the windows with new, appealing merchandise.

  They then began to put together an initial order for goods and supplies, primarily from a company in St. Louis, but also more basic supplies from one in Springfield. B. F. would post the St. Louis order the next day at the stage stop, and hand-carry the other one to Springfield on his way back to Keetsville. That would give him a chance to compare merchandise before ordering.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, it became evident that they had talked through just about everything they could think of, so B. F. took the opportunity to ask the question he had practiced in his hotel room. “Mister Rayl, I really appreciate all the time you’ve spent with me. I hope I can remember half of what you’ve said.”

  Rayl interrupted, nodding toward his lap. “From the size of that tablet, you won’t forget a thing.”

  “Maybe you don’t know me very well, but I’m the kind of person that believes in straight talk, and I have no regard for sneaky activity. I want to write to your daughter, and I’d appreciate your permission.”

  Rayl’s face was completely without expression. “What does Crocia think about that?”

  “I really don’t know. I hope she’ll be for it, but I haven’t asked her yet.”

  “How old are you, B. F.?”

  “Twenty-four, sir. But I figure Crocia wouldn’t get on too well with someone her own age. She’s already a strong-minded woman, and that doesn’t bother me one whit. Unless I’m mistaken, you married a strong-minded woman yourself—and neither one of you seems to be worse for it.”

  Luther had to smile at this, remembering some of his own early days in dealing with Elizabeth. “So you noticed that, huh?”

  “Yes sir. I believe I did.”

  “As long as your letters are all right with Crocia, Lizbeth and I won’t have no problem with it.”

  B. F. stuck out his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Oh, before I forget. You’re expected for supper tonight. Probably won’t get no sweet tater pie, but it might be passable.”

  Supper was ham, white beans, and cornbread—plain food—but superb. Toward the end of the meal, Luther turned to his daughter. “Crocia, have we got any buttermilk?”

  As realization hit Crocia, she appealed to her mother. “Mama, don’t let him do it.”

  Elizabeth just shook her head from side to side. “Honey, you know your Papa by now, and you know I can’t do a thing with him.”

  Crocia resignedly left the table and came back with a glass of buttermi
lk. She set it down in front of her father and arched an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you the one who always told me to mind my manners in front of company?”

  Luther calmly accepted the buttermilk, crumbled a wedge of cornbread into the glass, and began eating the mixture with a spoon. “Crocia, B. F. ain’t really company. After all, he says he wants to start writing to you.”

  B. F.’s eyes almost rolled back in his head. Crocia gave him a look that couldn’t be interpreted, and Mister Rayl realized he had spoken out of turn. “Uh, have you had a chance to talk about that yet, B. F.?”

  “No, sir—not ’til right this minute.” There was no other way now. He turned to Crocia. “I asked your pa if I could write to you this afternoon—and I asked him first because I didn’t want to go behind your folks’ backs. I was going to ask you this evening.”

  Elizabeth looked at her husband. “You really should mind your manners, Luther.” Then she couldn’t hold back any longer and started laughing. Then her husband started chuckling with her.

  He looked at his daughter. “I’m sorry, honey. I believe that’s what you call one of them faux pas!”

  Elizabeth was still giggling. “You sure you want to get involved with this family, B. F.?”

  He peeked across the table at her daughter, who looked like she was still deciding whether to choke them all. “I guess that depends on Crocia, ma’am.”

  Elizabeth then turned to her daughter. “Come on, Crocia. Let’s try some of that cherry cobbler you put together.”

  Crocia stood up and looked at her pa and B. F. “There might not be enough to go around for these two.”

  B. F. found himself scraping the bottom of his bowl to get every last morsel of the cobbler. He looked over and saw that Crocia was watching him. “I didn’t think your pie could be beat, but I believe that cobbler was the absolute best.”

  Elizabeth stood up and put her hand on Luther’s shoulder. “Come help me in the kitchen.”

  “But I wanted . . .” Luther looked at her raised eyebrow, “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

  When they were alone at the table, B. F. began. “That wasn’t exactly how I had planned to ask you if we might write each other.”

  “I know that. It’s just that I was surprised to hear it from Papa.”

  B. F. put his forearms on the table and interlaced his fingers. “Well?”

  Crocia stood up, pulled her chair beside his, and put her hand over his. “You’d better write me, B. F. Windes. I don’t like not hearing from you.”

  He smiled and folded her hand into his. They stood up and faced one another. Once again, he was surprised to note her height and her ability to stand flat-footed and look him straight in the eye. “With the store opening soon, it’s not likely that I can come back to Waynesville anytime in the next few months. But I bet Sue would like to have you and your mother come to visit in Keetsville. I want to show you the store. And I forgot to tell you that I bought a farm on the edge of town with a small house on it. The house will take quite a bit of work, but I need somebody to tell me exactly what should be done. Do you know anybody that might be willing to give me some advice?”

  She pulled his hand behind her back and stepped to within inches of his face. “I might know somebody.”

  He touched his forehead to hers and stood there like that for a full minute. “I’m going to miss you.”

  Forty-Four

  The Raffle

  Keetsville, Missouri 1865

  Journal Entry—September 24, 1865

  I can’t believe it, but the store is finished! Supplies have been trickling in from St. Louis and Springfield over the last couple of weeks, and there was enough merchandise to actually open for business. The first day I had a grand total of two customers—Sue and Minnie Durham—and they didn’t buy anything. However, they did give me plenty of “gentle” hints to change this or that in the store.

  At the end of the first week, I have taken in a total of six dollars and eighty cents in cash, plus two dozen eggs and ten pounds of potatoes in trade. If I think too hard about the money I’ve spent in the last month—$400 to buy the store, $750 to renovate, and $1,100 to purchase merchandise—I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to go back to being a barber. But a haircut in Keetsville is only ten cents—at least before the barber took off to St. Louis. That’s a far cry from the price I charged in California.

  He knew people in the area had little money, but he hoped it wasn’t as bad as his first week made it appear. There was also a doubt about whether anybody even knew he was open for business. With no newspaper in town, it would be necessary to do something himself to let people know his new store was ready and waiting on them to stop by.

  B. F. spent his free time the next week lettering paper hand-bills on his counter:

  Open for Business

  Windes Mercantile & Supply

  Main Street, Keetsville

  Everything for the Family

  On Saturday evening, he rode down to Rollers Ridge to a pie supper and put one of his hand-bills on the seat of every wagon sitting outside the church. Then on Sunday afternoon, he went house-to-house in Keetsville and up and down the Wire Road, handing out his advertisement. Between the pie supper and his Sunday afternoon venture, he calculated that he had given out about eighty hand-bills.

  On Monday morning, he was not a little curious to see what kind of result his work would produce in the store. His business tripled to just over twenty-two dollars, three dozen eggs, and a roasting hen during the second week. But that still left a lot of dead time—time that he usually spent worrying about his business or thinking about Crocia.

  They had traded one letter apiece, and it was his turn to write again. But she had asked about his store, and he hated to admit it wasn’t going the way he had planned. So he’d put off the letter for almost a week now, hoping the store would give him something positive to say about his investment and his newly adopted home.

  At least once a day he would lock his door and visit the other store owners in the town. It only provided marginal comfort to know that the lack of business wasn’t confined to the Windes Mercantile. None of the stores had very much traffic. In talking to the others, it was evident that business had significantly declined in the three years that the Union Army had been in virtual control of the area. Two of the men postulated that quite a few families tried to stay away from town for fear of being harassed, or worse, by the Army. They hoped their stores might come back to life when the troops disappeared.

  B. F. prayed they were right, but he doubted that this by itself would bring about the change they needed. He had an idea, but it would require the endorsement of almost all of the store owners to make it practical. He invited the other nine men to his store one afternoon “to sample some new root beer and hear an idea.”

  Squire Cave, Joseph Peevey, A.J. Stewart, John Burton, John Cureton, James Andrews, and D.O. George showed up, while McClure and Brown stayed away. “When I was in California, we had trouble getting anybody to come into town when the winter settled in; so the businesses came up with a scheme that I think would help here. But it won’t work unless all of us agree to do it.” They looked from one to the other.

  B. F. explained, “I know I’m new here, and you men know the people a lot better than I do. But we’ve got to get them coming back to Keetsville. Right now, people are still going to Cassville and Rollers Ridge to get their goods. Give me a minute to explain.

  “We start holding a lottery in downtown Keetsville every Saturday at noon. The only way people can get a lottery ticket is to spend money in one of our stores. We give them half a ticket every time they spend a dollar, and on Saturday we put the other halves of all those tickets in a big bowl, and hold a drawing of all the tickets that we gave away during the week. First prize is five dollars, and second prize is two dollars.”

  “Five dollars? That’s a lot of money, friend.”

  “If each of us puts in a dollar a week, that will pay for the prize money with a
dollar left over to print lottery tickets. If it works here the way it did in California, your stores will take in at least ten extra dollars a week—maybe even twenty. And on Saturday, Main Street will be full of people, because they have to be at the drawing to claim the prize.”

  “How’re folks gonna hear about this idea?”

  “We put up signs here in town and out on the Wire Road. We put out hand-bills at churches and anywhere there’s a group of people. If you’ll agree to try it for four weeks, I think you’ll be convinced. But if it’s not working by then, we’ll stop.”

  Peevey was the first to speak up. “Sounds like a durn good idea to me. I’m in.”

  “Peevey figures to sell more likker. That’s why he’s for it.”

  B. F. spoke again. “That’s just the point. All of us will benefit if we bring another hundred people to town every week. Think how that will help if just twenty of them stop in your business.”

  “Who’ll hold the money? Would that be you, Windes?”

  “No, Mr. Burton, not me. You men know each other. You decide.”

  They bought five hundred tickets from a printer in Cassville. The first week they handed out just over one hundred tickets, and by ten o’clock on Saturday the town was full of would-be winners. There were horses and wagons tied to every available hitch on Main Street.

  Squire Cave emerged from his saddle and bridle store at ten minutes before noon with an iron pot, and proceeded to make his rounds to collect the torn half-tickets from the seven other shop keepers. The Windes Mercantile had the most elevated frontage on Main Street, thus Cave stood there so he could be seen, and called for the youngest person and the oldest person in the crowd to come forward. In the loudest voice he could muster, he announced the strategy to the assembly. “All right, folks. Missus Moore here will pick the winner of the two dollar prize, and General Brixey will pick the five dollar winner.”