The Big Front Yard and Other Stories Read Free Page B

trade on it. There was the table model TV set that he had traded a pair of ice skates for last winter. Those folks out Woodman way might conceivably be happy to trade the bed for a reconditioned TV set, almost like brand new. After all, they probably weren’t using the bed and, he hoped fervently, had no idea of the value of it.
    He ate the doughnuts hurriedly and gulped down an extra cup of coffee. He fixed a plate of scraps for Towser and set it outside the door. Then he went down into the basement and got the table TV set and put it in the pickup truck. As an afterthought, he added a reconditioned shotgun which would be perfectly all right if a man were careful not to use these far-reaching, powerful shells, and a few other odds and ends that might come in handy on a trade.
    II
    He got back late, for it had been a busy and quite satisfactory day. Not only did he have the four-poster loaded on the truck, but he had as well a rocking chair, a fire screen, a bundle of ancient magazines, an old-fashioned barrel churn, a walnut highboy and a Governor Winthrop on which some half-baked, slap-happy decorator had applied a coat of apple-green paint. The television set, the shotgun and five dollars had gone into the trade. And what was better yet – he’d managed it so well that the Woodman family probably was dying of laughter at this very moment about how they’d taken him.
    He felt a little ashamed of it – they’d been such friendly people. They had treated him so kindly and had him stay for dinner and had sat and talked with him and shown him about the farm and even asked him to stop by if he went through that way again.
    He’d wasted the entire day, he thought, and he rather hated that, but maybe it had been worth it to build up his reputation out that way as the sort of character who had softening of the head and didn’t know the value of a dollar. That way, maybe some other day, he could do some more business in the neighborhood.
    He heard the television set as he opened the back door, sounding loud and clear, and he went clattering down the basement stairs in something close to panic. For now that he’d traded off the table model, Abbie’s set was the only one downstairs and Abbie’s set was broken.
    It was Abbie’s set, all right. It stood just where he and Beasly had put it down that morning and there was nothing wrong with it – nothing wrong at all. It was even televising color.
    Televising color!
    He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the railing for support.
    The set kept right on televising color.
    Taine stalked the set and walked around behind it.
    The back of the cabinet was off, leaning against a bench that stood behind the set, and he could see the innards of it glowing cheerily.
    He squatted on the basement floor and squinted at the lighted innards and they seemed a good deal different from the way that they should be. He’d repaired the set many times before and he thought he had a good idea of what the working parts would look like. And now they all seemed different, although just how he couldn’t tell.
    A heavy step sounded on the stairs and a hearty voice came booming down to him.
    â€œWell, Hiram, I see you got it fixed.”
    Taine jackknifed upright and stood there slightly frozen and completely speechless.
    Henry Horton stood foursquarely and happily on the stairs, looking very pleased.
    â€œI told Abbie that you wouldn’t have it done, but she said for me to come over anyway – Hey, Hiram, it’s in color! How did you do it, man?”
    Taine grinned sickly. “I just got fiddling around,” he said.
    Henry came down the rest of the stairs with a stately step and stood before the set, with his hands behind his back, staring at it fixedly in his best executive manner.
    He slowly shook his head. “I never would have thought,” he said, “that it was possible.”
    â€œAbbie mentioned that