John Fitzgerald Read Free

Papa with pleading eyes. He had always said it was brains
that counted and not muscle. He would appreciate how smart I had been. I
couldn't have been more wrong than a mouse who spits
in a cat's face.
        "That is a splendid idea," Papa
said, as if he enjoyed making a slave out of his own flesh and blood. "I
thought I might have to hire a man to do it, with Tom gone. But J.D. is big
enough to handle it."
        "And when he finishes that job,"
Mamma said, as if she were doing me a big favor, "he can help Bertha and
me with the fall housecleaning. The wallpaper needs cleaning in all the upstairs
rooms and in the two bedrooms downstairs. He won't have to bother with the
parlor and dining room because I'm going to put new wallpaper in both rooms.
And there will be windows to wash and rugs to beat and a lot of other things he
can do to help."
        I knew there was no appealing one of
Mamma's decisions. I also knew that if I listened to any more I'd burst out
crying. I excused myself from the table and ran up to my room. I threw myself
on the bed. I tried to hold back the tears but couldn't. If ever a fellow had a
right to cry, I sure did.
        I would ten times rather do my chores than
haul manure, which meant I had to take a bath every night before supper. I
would a hundred times rather do my chores than help with the fall
housecleaning. And the worst part of housecleaning was cleaning the wallpaper.
You had to do it with a homemade dough that really
smelled bad. I don't know what Mamma put into it but it was like having a skunk
in your hand. And you had to rub it over every inch of the wallpaper. I admit
it really cleaned wallpaper, taking off the grime and dirt just like an eraser.
But it was back-breaking work and the smell was enough to make a fellow sick to
his stomach.
        For the next four days after school and all
day on Saturday I hauled manure and took baths. Papa had often said that a man
profits more spiritually from failure than he does from success. But I sure as
heck didn't get any spiritual uplift unless maybe taking so many baths washed
some of my sins away.
        But I wasn't going to let one failure get
me down. I'd made the best deal of my life with Tom by renting his bike from
him for ten cents a week while he was away at school. I had a scheme all
figured out for making a fortune with the bike. Monday morning during recess I got
all the kids together who didn't own bikes. I told them I would rent out Tom's
bike for five cents a day and would be in our barn to sign up customers after
school.
        I stopped at the Z.C.M.I. store after
school and got a calendar from Mr. Harmon. The full name was Zion's Cooperative
Mercantile Institute. They were stores owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints all over Utah which sold everything from toothpicks to
wagons.
        Sammy Leeds was waiting in our barn when I
arrived. He was puffing as if he'd run all the way from the schoolhouse. I
didn't like Sammy because he was a smart aleck and bully, but business was
business. I was both surprised and delighted when Sammy said he would take
twenty days and dumped a total of one dollar in dimes, nickels, and pennies in
a box I had in the barn.
        I tore off all the months on the calendar
up to September and told Sammy to write his name on the twenty days he wanted
to rent the bike. Parley Benson, wearing his coon-skin cap, came into the barn
with Basil Kokovinis , a Greek boy whose father owned
the Palace Cafe. Danny Forester, Howard Kay, Jimmie Peterson, and Seth Smith
came in right behind them. They waited until Sammy had signed his name twenty
times on the calendar and I had marked each day paid.
    "Before you
fellows lay your money on the line," Sammy said, "I've taken all the
Saturdays and Sundays for the next ten weeks. That means I'll get to ride the
bike all day for my nickel but you fellows will only get to ride it after
school for a couple of hours for your nickel."