by Karen Wolff
“It’s wonderful,” I breathed, and it was. An orchestra played polka music, and then there was an announcer talking about the Gurney Seed Company and how it wasn’t too late to buy vegetable seeds for a bountiful garden. Next, a man’s deep voice began a news report of a train that ran into a herd of cows near Kansas City. I was thrilled. I could have stood there all day listening to this magical box. I knew I was grinning like a fool.
“Of course we have lots of different models for you to try. Would you like to hear another one?”
I shook my head “no.” I was smitten. I wanted that Ozarka.
“How much is it?” I asked. “
“It’s $35 ‘cause it’s on sale. It should be $67 but Mr. Steele, that’s my boss, has ordered a lot of new ones, and he’ll sell these at a bargain price.”
I had to have that radio. I wanted to be ready the minute the electrical line came through.
“I’ll take it.”
Ty looked at me like I had taken leave of my senses. “That’s a lot of money, Harry. We don’t even have electricity yet.”
“Don’t worry. I can manage.” I fished some bills out of my pocket to pay the salesman. Ty stared open-mouthed. “Where did you get that?” he squawked.
“From my bank account. Where do you think?”
He watched in wonder as the salesman took a new radio from the shelf, still in its box, and handed it to me. We headed out the door, and then I had a thought.
“Ty, would you take this to the car? I’ll be out in a minute.” I ran back to the store where I had a few words with the salesman and then with Mr. Steele. This time when I reached the car I had two more boxes of radios.
“Harry, what in the world? What have you done?” Ty looked flabbergasted.
“Well, I thought if I wanted a radio so much, other people’d want one too. So I asked what the price would be if I bought three radios instead of one. The salesman went to get his boss, and that’s when I met Mr. Steele. He told me I was an enterprising lad and that he’d let me have the three radios for seventy-five dollars.”
“But, Harry. What if nobody’ll buy them? Then what will you do?”
“I’ll sell ‘em. I know I can, and I’ll make ten dollars on each radio. Then I’ll buy some more. Don’t you see?”
And that’s how my big business venture got started.
I SOLD THOSE RADIOS fast. Miranda Phelps and her husband always liked to be the first in town to get anything new. They bought the first one. My second sale was to Sally McVay.
“I’m stuck in the house every day,” she said. “It would be nice to have the diversion of a radio, and your dad might enjoy it too.”
I hoped she was right. He might hear things that would send him into a rant. If she was willing to chance it, I was keen to sell her one.
Those sales were easy, and I was eager to get back to Sioux City to buy more radios. Gram said, “You’d better wait until the line gets strung and we actually have electricity.” She was afraid, if it never happened, I’d have a lot of merchandise to return. I grumbled, impatient, fretting that someone else might jump on my scheme.
Granddad put up a shelf on the kitchen wall where my own radio sat useless. Every time I looked at it, my frustration grew. When would it come to life? When would we hear all the exciting stuff I knew was in there? Sometimes I fiddled with the dials and pretended what it would be like. That tortured me even more.
We’d about given up hope when a truck rolled into town loaded with huge spools of wire. The driver pulled right up to each pole, and men with cleats on their shoes climbed up and strung the line. Then they ran a wire to each house and connected it to the wiring they had already installed. It was slow work, and another week passed before the job ended.
Late on a Friday afternoon, Smitty came into the store and said, “We’ve finally got the whole line done even out to River Sioux. The power will be turned on at noon next Tuesday.”
Everybody in the store cheered and clapped and then rushed home to tell the news. Ty and I hung up a sign in the window so everyone would know. Then we waited through the long weekend, trying to go about our life normally.
“Harry, you’re as jittery as water on a hot griddle,” Gram said. “You better forget about that electricity till Tuesday. It might not work, you know.”
“Oh, I think it will, Gram. It’s just got to.”
“I hope you’re right, but don’t let it break your heart if it doesn’t.”
On the appointed day, Gram and Granddad and I stood in the kitchen waiting for the miracle to happen. We counted down the minutes until the clock said twelve, the three of us staring at the light on the wall. Nothing happened. We waited, my hope lingering, but there was nothing.
Gram sighed and said, “We might as well eat our dinner while it’s hot. No point standing here like fools.”
“Well,” Granddad said. “We’ve lived a long time without it. It won’t kill us to wait a little longer.”
I sat down at the table sick with disappointment and tried to eat. The food stuck in my throat, and I finally gave up. What could have gone wrong?
A few minutes later my brother burst into the house and said, “Isn’t it wonderful! You can see every single thing in the store. Even in the bar.” He looked around. “Why don’t you have it on? Don’t you want to see what it’s like?” He walked over to the wall fixture and turned the switch. Light flooded the room.
I felt a thrill go right through me followed immediately by red-faced embarrassment. Of course. You had to turn on the switch. Why was I so stupid? We went through the house and turned on each light, looking all around as if we’d never seen those rooms before, marveling at the difference the lights made.
“The radio. Let’s try the radio.” I raced back to the kitchen, switched it on and spun the dial to tune in a station. It took a minute to warm up, and then we began to hear static and weak signals. I continued twisting the dial until a station came in loud and clear. A baseball game was underway and a male voice was describing every play. We figured out that it was St. Louis playing Cincinnati. I didn’t care a whit about that game, but I listened as though my life depended on knowing every detail. I watched the clock, knowing I would have to leave soon for the skating rink. The hardest thing I ever did was to turn the radio off that afternoon so I could go to work. I groaned and complained, but finally did it. When I got out to the rink, I couldn’t help showing off for the younger fellows. “It’s the Reds five to three at the end of the third inning,” I said.
“Wow, Harry. How do you know? Do you have a radio?”
I nodded proudly. “Sure do. Heard it for the first time today.”
UNUSUAL THINGS OCCURRED in the coming days. The housewives in our town began to see dirt, cobwebs, chipped paint, peeling wallpaper, stains from water leaks, and every kind of shabbiness that you could think of. And they were ashamed. In no time they had their men trekking into the store to buy paint and brushes and turpentine.
“My wife says I have to paint the bedroom,” one would say. Another might complain, “She says the kitchen ceiling is greasy and dark. I’ve got to clean it and paint it.”
The women came in one at a time to peek at the book of wallpaper samples and pick new flowered patterns for their living rooms. Granddad got busy and ordered buckets of paint in yellow, lavender, blue, and lots of cream from Aalf’s Manufacturing in Sioux City.
The whole town went into a frenzy of cleaning, painting, and papering, and our house was no exception. Gram didn’t admit it outright, but would say, “I’m really tired of that forget-me-not flowered paper in the living room,” or “I’ve thought for quite a while that we need to paint this kitchen woodwork.”
We watched as the pot of wallpaper paste got mixed and the big brushes came out, the plumb line with its wooden knob at the end. Gram commandeered the kitchen table, spreading strips of wallpaper facedown and using a brush to smear on the paste. Then Ty or I would fold up one end and carry the strip to the living room,
climb the ladder, and stick the thing to the wall. Gram checked to be sure each strip was plumb, that the patterns matched, and the overlap was just right. When she was satisfied, we used a dry brush to smooth out the lumps and bubbles, wiping up paste that oozed out the sides and trying not to tear the fragile paper. In the evenings, the women visited each other’s homes, chattering about the merits of cornstarch versus flour to make wallpaper paste and admiring the fresh, new looks. Our town must have been the cleanest, shiniest place in the country, all of it due to those skinny wires that brought light to every corner.
AS SOON AS I could get away, I went back to the Castle Electric Company in Sioux City. This time I spoke directly to Mr. Steele.
“Sir,” I said. “I’ve got a chance to sell a lot of radios in our town because we’ve just had electricity installed in everybody’s houses.”
He smiled at me. “Interesting. What’s your name, young man?”
“Harry Spencer, sir. I live in Richmond.”
“Well, I think we may be able to help you. Let’s see what we can do.”
I looked at all the radios again and decided to buy three more Ozarkas like I’d bought before, and then I picked three Crosleys. When it came time to settle on a price, I said, “Mr. Steele, do you think…is it possible…it seems to me that I should get a better price if I buy six radios.”
His eyes widened as if he were surprised or annoyed at my nerve. I thought he might get mad, but after a minute he said, “Well, Harry. I guess maybe we could discount them some. How does $23 each sound?”
That was pretty good, but something compelled me to try for more. I said, “I was thinking more like $21, Mr. Steele.”
“That’d be highway robbery, Harry.”
I swallowed hard. “I think I can sell a lot more in the next few weeks.” He thought it over, and I was sure the issue was dead when he said, “Okay, I guess we can let you have them for $22.00.”
Wow! That meant I would make thirteen dollars on each radio. I was going to be rich.
Then I had another idea. “Mr. Steele, if I promise to come back in a week to settle up, would you let me have these radios on credit? See, I’ve got lots of possible customers, and nobody else sells this stuff in our town. I know I can do it.”
“I do like your get-up-and-go, young man, but that’s a lot of money to have tied up. I’d have to have a down payment. Have you got thirty dollars?”
“I’ve only got twenty,” I said.
He sighed and said, “I guess that’ll have to do.”
I gave him the money and signed the charge before he could change his mind. We shook hands.
“I’ll expect to see you in a week, Harry. You’re quite a young business man.”
“Thank you, Mr. Steele. I’ll be here,” I promised. And I was.
FOLKS WHO CAME into the store at home treated me like I was the expert on electric appliances. They asked me about radios, refrigerators, stoves, fans, and Miranda Phelps wanted to know about waffle irons. The attention puffed me up, and I played the big shot once in a while, making up facts when I didn’t know for sure, like telling Mrs. Trometer that a refrigerator would make ice in twenty minutes or that you could get toast in a minute and a half. They believed me.
The next time I went to Sioux City, I bought ten irons in addition to radios. The regular price was $6.75, but I got them for $5.00 each. When I got home, I stacked nine of them in the store with a price tag of $7. I took the tenth one home and handed it, still in its box, to Gram.
“What’s this?” she said looking at me, surprised.
“Open it, Gram. You’ll see.”
She pulled back the flaps on the box and peered inside. “Why, it’s an iron. Harry. Is this an electric iron?”
“It sure is, Gram. Do you like it?”
“You mean it’s for me?” She sat down in her rocker with the box on her lap, her surprised eyes on my face.
I laughed. “Well, I sure as heck don’t know how to use it. Yes. It’s for you. Now you can get rid of those heavy old flat irons.”
She removed the shiny Hotpoint from the box, trailing the cord through her fingers. “I don’t know what to say, Harry. It’s so lightweight. I’m flabbergasted.” She grabbed her hanky from her apron pocket and began to mop her eyes, and I realized she was teary. I had never seen Gram cry, ever. Even that awful night when the store was attacked. And yet here she was blubbering over an iron. I was tickled she liked it so much. I don’t remember her getting a gift in all the years I’d knew her. Our family just wasn’t one for presents, I guess.
Aunt Lida and Uncle Carl decided they’d like to try out a radio, so I took one to their house and set it up for them. Ever since I’d been selling electrical equipment, I’d kept a notebook, writing down names of customers, what they bought, and what I charged them. Sometimes folks had to stretch their payments over two or three weeks, and I had to keep track of that too. My notebook was a mess with crossed out information and erasures. Sometimes I forgot what I told people and had to make a guess. I’d laid that notebook on the table while I was hooking up the radio, and Aunt Lida saw it there.
“What’s this thing, Harry?”
I looked up, hot and sweaty from my work. “My customer accounts,” I said.
“Pretty messy, I’d say. How in the world do you know where you stand with this kind of bookkeeping?”
It was a good question. I didn’t know. All I could say for sure was that I always sold things for more than I paid and figured I’d come out all right in the end. Even so, she was right about the sloppiness.
“I just don’t have time to do it right,” I said. “There’s work in the store every morning until noon. Then I work at the skating rink from three ‘til nine, so the only time I have for selling is in the early afternoon.”
“I see,” she said. “Yes, you do have a problem.”
She said no more about it but paid me for the radio, and I left. That night when I got home, tired and ready to fall into bed, Gram said, “Lida stopped by tonight. She had an idea for you that might help in managing your business.”
That’s all I needed, I thought, was for those two old gals to get into my affairs.
“What would that be?” I asked, sourly.
“We were thinking. Now that Cal has learned to write with his left hand, maybe he could set up a system and keep track of your income and your costs so you know where you stand. It might be a good thing for him too. Help him feel useful.”
I looked at her in disbelief. “My dad? You think he could do that?”
“Well, yes, I do. You know, he did bookkeeping years ago.”
“He did? Nobody ever told me.”
“Well, he did. That’s what he was doing when he met your mother.”
I could scarcely believe it. I didn’t know much about Dad’s life before I was born, but he’d been mostly useless since the war. I wasn’t sure I wanted him involved in my business. I was afraid I couldn’t count on him for much.
“He’s a smart man, Harry. He just had a bad thing happen to him, and it affected him.”
“I dunno, Gram. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”
“Maybe you should just think about it, Harry.”
I PONDERED GRAM’S suggestion for a couple of days, and after looking at my jumble of names and figures in my notebook again, I decided to go see my dad.
He sat alone at the table in Sally’s kitchen, and his face lit up when he saw me. “Harry, I thought you’d be over to see me.”
“What made you think that, Dad?”
He didn’t answer but picked up a dusty, black ledger book from the table and waved it at me. “I found this in my things. Forgot I had it. I can use it to set up a system for your business. Help you keep track of everything.”
I knew then that Gram or Aunt Lida had been here ahead of me. Nothing was private in this town, that was for sure, but I needed help. I laid my messy notebook on the table, and we went to work. He labeled one page INCOME and the oppo
site page EXPENSES. It was awkward for him to reach around with his left hand to write, and I was astonished at how quickly he grasped every detail. He began to enter the items from my notebook.
“Dad, how do you know how to do all this?”
“I was always good at numbers, Harry. I did bookkeeping when I first met your mother and married her. I thought we had a good life back then even with you kids coming along so fast.”
“Why’d you quit, Dad?”
“I didn’t want to. I didn’t have much choice.” He laid his pencil down, and put his good hand to his head. His eyes became cloudy and took on that faraway look he often got. I worried he’d forget what we were doing, and might get up and walk away.
“It was Rachel. Your mother. Just like that, she got sick, lost the baby, and then she was gone. Without her, I didn’t know what to do. It was such a bad time.” He stared off somewhere, not moving. Then he said in a whisper, “I miss her.”
I swallowed hard at his words. They filled me with the old longing to know my mother, to have her love. Even though it couldn’t be, I still wanted it. I shook my head to help me put the thought aside. Goodness knows, I’d had to do it often enough. After a couple of minutes I said, “Is that why we ended up at Granny Marigold’s?” My question drew him back from his reverie. His eyes focused on me.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “She offered us a place to live, and I jumped at it. She needed someone to help with her house, and I had all you kids. It worked out. That is, until she died and we sold her house.”
He got up and poured us each a cup of coffee from Sally’s graniteware pot. It was slow work for him with just one hand. As I watched him, some ornery thing, some old resentment, rose up in me, and I didn’t get up to help him. He didn’t seem to notice anything.
“The trouble was that Granny lived over by Westfield, and there weren’t any businesses around there where I could get a job keeping books. So I went to work on Harvey’s farm. Didn’t especially want to, but that’s what there was.”