lessons and wrote the firm a frightened letter. They
came back grandly. "You have shown so much
ability that our proposition should be a veritable
gold mine for you. We are not a fly-by-night con-
cern but operate all the year round. Once a Gaiety
Card Man, always a Gaiety Card Man is the motto
of hundreds of our men and boys. Get the wife to
chip in and win some pin money on our special offer.
Cash in on this Bonanza." Then there was a P. S.
saying to send an advance of three dollars for forty
cards just as "security." Fred dug up the three dol-
lars, which they assured him would be "refunded,"
and waited for the cards.
The farm boys kept dropping in during the day
hindering him, but he worked at night coloring little
daisies and wreaths and golden-haired sweethearts
looking out the windows of tiny coaches. The boys
were beginning to talk wild, so that Fred even with
his preoccupation would think of what they said
after they were gone. Hens weren't laying. Cows
were eating more feed than they were giving down
milk. Folks were getting foreclosed, and lots were
hungry enough to try for relief.
Fred thought proudly he would never take charity.
Sometimes when the boys got angry and Pete
Krieger said by God they couldn't take away a fel-
ler's place he'd worked for all his life, Fred felt
he'd heard something like that before. There was
something familiar about wha·Hhe boys were saying.
He'd figure it out when he got his money, and then
he would be able to get electric lights like the city
folks, and he would put on a big splash for the boys,
with every damn bulb going on full tilt all over the
house.
It took Fred several days hard, fidgety work to
get the cards fixed up. Then he sent back the cards.
He would get six dollars for them plus the three
dollars advanced, making nine dollars. It was not
much, but a starter. He felt good about it. He wait-
ed for ten days, and his stock of supplies was run-
ning low. Christmas was coming on. He wrote the
firm again. Then he plucked up courage and wrote
to Mrs. Gridley in the city, for whom he did the
most work every summer. He asked if she would
advance him five dollars, as he was all out of money
and no work to be got. She didn't answer.
He had a fire in the stove, and it was too bad he
couldn't eat wood because there was plenty of it.
He had some flour, but the flour cakes began tasting
like wool. When the boys dropped in he sat very
still, looking kind of hurt and pale. They wondered
what in hell had gotten into old Fred.
Day before Christmas, if he didn't get a package
from the firm! He tore off the cover. It was his own
cards back again. There was a breezy little note at-
tached. "Dear Friend: Good work. We are sure of
your success. Now take these cards to the many
friends in your neighborhood that are certain to be
anxious to encourage you, and you can easily get
6
fifteen cents apiece for them. This will leave you a
nice, net CASH reward. Then forward same amount
as before for another batch and roll up the money.
Easter cards are the next buy. Order now."
Fred sat a long time staring at the cards. Noone
had any money for a fifteen-cent card. Or a ten-cent
one. Or a five-cent one. Then he got up stifHy and
mixed up some flour pancakes and tried to fry them.
There wasn't enough grease in the pan. He sat
down again, and some of the flour paste stuck to the
cards. He rubbed at them absently with his sleeve.
The wind had begun to blow up and he could hear it
chawing away at the windows. He shivered and got
up and locked the door tight. There was a paper on
the table, a letter he had begun. "Dear Aunt: I am
getting along nicely. I just took up a very good
proposition and expect .... " He crumpled the letter
and absently wiped his nose on it. Then he sat listen-
ing to a roaring in his ears like the time the tornado
broke. Even the floor seemed to heave like the water
had when the tornado had been a long way off and
there was a heavy groundswell under the raft shud.
dering like the beginning of an earthquake.
He tried to think what to do next. His heart felt
eaten out of him. He was ashamed to try any more
city folks. Hell, they didn't have gardens in winter,
what did they care? Only that morning he had
sneaked around to the relief office, hitchhiking all the
way, to try for a little something to tide him over.
After his big, mysterious hints to the boys he was
ashamed to tell them. The preacher from the church
up the holler had been there too, and he had carried
on a confab with the old maid, looking at Fred while
he talked. When it came his turn, the old maid had
spoken up loud enough to be heard a block. She said
they weren't there to help bums, but the deserving.
If he had saved his money instead of blowing it out
on filthy drink, he wouldn't be asking for charity.
She said if she helped him she'd be robbing the de·
serving, and it should teach him a lesson, not that
you could teach that kind of person (in a loud aside
to the preacher) anything.
He stood in the kitchen, moving now and then
to the window and back again, and dark came on.
He lay down on the bed with his clothes on, and in
the night he shivered and slept and woke and dozed
and moaned, shaking as if the raft was wallowing
with him in the trough of the sea. His head seemed
all on fire. Sometimes he was on the raft and some.
times on the wharf. He'd hear Jensen roar out his
laugh and shout at him. Words that Jensen, had
spoken long ago began to sprout in the heat of his
head. He stood off from them, looking at them the
way he used to watch the young stuff come up in the
garden in early spring after a late frost. He
watched kind of anxious, thinking of the words and
of gardens too. Next summer by God he'd have to
put in a good garden. He felt an awful fool now
not to have gone with the boys to the courthouse.
MARCH,
1936
