John Fitzgerald (3 page)

   
I had my own ideas about character but
didn't mention them. There is something about housecleaning that completely
changes a woman's character. Mamma had been a strange woman with a very sharp
tongue for six days. She had been bossing me around all that time. I felt like
telling her that
us
slaves didn't care whether we had
a good or a bad character. But I was just too tired to start an argument.

"Good
night," I said.

   
"Just a minute," Mamma said.
"Your father has something for you."

   
I forgot how tired I was as I watched Papa
take out his purse and remove a half-dollar from it.

   
"Your mother tells me you have earned
this, J.D.," he said.

   
"Thanks, Papa, and you too,
Mamma," I said, as astonished as I was grateful. I was astonished at how
dumb I'd been in thinking Papa and Mamma thought of me as just a free hired
hand around the place. I was grateful because a half-dollar was a fortune.

   
Papa celebrated the end of the fall
housecleaning by inviting a stranger to dinner the next day. Papa was always
inviting strangers to Sunday dinner. I mean, they were strangers to Mamma, Aunt
Bertha, and me. Papa knew all the traveling salesmen who came to town. They
were called "drummers" in those days. He also knew people who lived
on ranches miles from town who only came to
Adenville
a couple of times each year. He made it his business to meet every stranger who
arrived. From all these people he got news about other parts of Utah which he
published in his newspaper. But Papa had a bad habit of always forgetting to
tell Mamma he had invited somebody for Sunday dinner. She was used to it and
always made sure there was plenty to eat for these unexpected guests.

   
It was no surprise to Mamma when she
answered the front doorbell at noon and saw a complete stranger standing before
her. He was a tall middle-aged man with a black mustache so long it wiggled
when he talked.

   
"You must be Mrs. Fitzgerald," he
said, taking off his black hat. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Alex
Kramer. Your husband invited me for Sunday dinner."

   
"Come right in, Mr. Kramer,"
Mamma said. "My husband will be with you in a few minutes. There are
cigars in the humidor if you care to smoke. Dinner will be ready in about half
an hour."

"Thank you
kindly, ma'am," Mr. Kramer said.

   
Papa was on the back porch with me. We were
repacking the ice cream freezer with ice and salt. We had made the ice cream
earlier. We had to be careful because we both had on our Sunday clothes. We had
just finished when Mamma came to the back porch.

"Just who is
Alex Kramer?" she asked.

   
Papa snapped his fingers. "I forgot to
tell you,
Tena
," he said. "I invited Alex
to dinner."

"You didn't
answer my question," Mamma said.

   
Papa hesitated for a moment. "Well,
you might say that Alex is a trader," he said.

   
"And what else might you say about
him?" Mamma asked.

   
Papa shrugged. "I suppose some people
would call him a sharpie," he said. "And others might go so far as to
call him
a swindler of-sorts
."

   
"I knew it just by looking at
him," Mamma said, as if exasperated. "You just don't seem to care who
you invite into our home, do you?"

   
"Alex is all right," Papa said.
"I trust him implicitly. And he is a very interesting man to talk
to."

   
"Just make certain you count the
cigars in your humidor when you go into the parlor," Mamma said.
"Bertha and I will count the silverware after dinner."

   
Papa stared at the screen door as Mamma
slammed it going into the kitchen. "It is a strange thing about women,
J.D.," he said, shaking his head. "A man never knows what to expect
from them. And the longer you are married to them, the less you know what to
expect. We will wash our hands and then I'll introduce you to Mr. Kramer."

   
The man in the parlor was wearing a blue
suit and shiny black boots. He had on a ruffled shirt with a shoestring
necktie. He was smoking a cigar. And I couldn't help noticing that he had five
cigars in the breast pocket of his suit. Papa noticed too.

"I see you
found the cigars, Alex," he said.

   
"Didn't think you would mind,
Fitz," Mr. Kramer said. Hardly anybody called Papa by his first name. Men,
especially, called him Fitz.

   
"Meet my youngest son, John,"
Papa said. "John, this is Mr. Kramer."

   
Mr. Kramer shook my hand. "Glad to
know you, young man," he said.

   
"I'm glad to know you, sir," I said.

   
Mr. Kramer looked at Papa. "Your wife
is both beautiful and charming," he said.

 
I wondered how charming he would have thought
Mamma was if he could have heard what she said about him. "Thank
you," Papa said. "Sit down, Alex. We have time for a smoke before
dinner."

   
Mr. Kramer sat down on the black leather
chair that matched our couch. Papa sat in his rocking chair. He took a cigar
from the humidor and used the clipper on the end of his watch chain to snip off
the end. Then he lit the cigar and leaned back in his chair.

   
"It has been a long time, Alex,"
Papa said, blowing some smoke toward the ceiling. "The last time I saw you
I was publishing the
Silverlode
Advocate before the
mining camp became a ghost town."

"Must be
close to fifteen years," Mr. Kramer said.

"How is
business with you?" Papa asked.

   
"Not too good," Mr. Kramer
answered. "I remember the time when I could start out with a sheep dog and
trade myself right up to a good team of horses in no time at all. Either I am
getting rusty or people are getting smarter."

   
Papa laughed as he exhaled some smoke.
"I remember one time in
Silverlode
when you
started out with a pocketknife and ended up with a milk cow."

   
"I recall that deal," Mr. Kramer
said, puffing on his cigar. "I bought the pocketknife in
Abie
Classman's Emporium for fifty cents. I sold the milk
cow to a Mormon for twenty dollars."

   
"I think you topped that one the time
you started out with a burro and ended up with a team of horses and a
buggy," Papa said. I was listening so hard it felt as if my ears had
doubled in size. Mr. Kramer made my brother Tom look like a piker. I knew it
was rude to interrupt my elders but I was so curious I couldn't help it.

"How did you
do those things, Mr. Kramer?" I asked.

He looked at Papa
before answering.

   
"Go ahead," Papa said. "It
might save J.D. from getting skinned trading some time."

   
Mr. Kramer knocked the ashes on his cigar
into the ashtray. "It is what you might call trading up," he said.
"First you find somebody who wants something they don't have more than
they want something they own. You always get the best of the bargain because
they are eager to exchange something they don't particularly need for something
they really do want. Let us assume that you are a prospector and you own a
horse but would rather have a burro. So you trade the horse for a burro
although you know the horse is worth more."

   
"Thank you for explaining," I
said. I just couldn't understand why Papa had called Mr. Kramer a sharpie. For
my money he was just doing people a favor, getting them something they wanted
for something they didn't want.

   
"I came into town riding a gentle
saddle horse," Mr. Kramer said to Papa. "It would make a good horse
for a lady. Know anybody who needs one?"

   
"Not offhand," Papa said.
"But if you can get your hands on a good team of mules I know where you
can get a very good price for them. Pete Ferguson, who runs a logging camp
about twenty miles from here, is looking for a good team of mules."

 
  
Mr.
Kramer smiled. "Then I'll just have to trade my saddle horse up to a team
of mules," he said.

   
"And I will bet you do it," Papa
said with a laugh. Then his face became serious. "How are you fixed for
money, Alex?"

   
"I was hoping you would ask," Mr.
Kramer said. "I could use the loan of twenty dollars until I get Mr.
Ferguson his team of mules."

   
Papa took out his purse. He handed Mr.
Kramer four five-dollar gold pieces. Then he looked at me.

"Mum's the
word, J.D.," he said.

   
"Mum's the word," I said, knowing
Mamma wouldn't like Papa handing out twenty dollars to a man she believed to be
a swindler. And I couldn't help wondering what made Papa think he could trust
Mr. Kramer to pay him back.

   
In a little while Mamma came into the parlor
with Aunt Bertha. She introduced Aunt Bertha to Mr. Kramer and then said that
dinner was ready.

   
Papa was sure right about Mr. Kramer being
an interesting man. He had Mamma and Aunt Bertha eating right out of his hand
as he told them about the latest in ladies' fashions, and about some plays he'd
seen at the Salt Lake Theater his last trip there. But best of all were the
stories he told Papa and me later in the parlor while Mamma and Aunt Bertha
were doing the dishes. One of them I remember very well.

   
There was an old prospector named Harvey
Reynolds who had been prospecting all over Colorado, Utah, and Nevada for many
years without ever making a strike. He had a claim he was working near Eureka,
Utah. One day he walked over to where another prospector named Gordon was
working a claim. He offered to trade his claim to Gordon for six sticks of
dynamite. The trade was made and Reynolds signed his claim over to Gordon. Then
Reynolds said he wanted to get some tools out of the shaft of his claim. Instead,
he went down to the bottom of the shaft, sat down on the six sticks of
dynamite, and touched them off, blowing himself to smithereens. Gordon heard
the explosion and ran over to the claim. He had to wait until the dust from the
explosion had settled. There wasn't much left of Reynolds when Gordon got to
the bottom of the shaft. But the dynamite blast had uncovered one of the
richest veins of gold ore ever discovered in Eureka. Harvey Reynolds was within
a foot of hitting this vein when he blew himself to kingdom come.

   
The next morning I took a notebook with me
to school. Mr. Alex Kramer had given me an idea which would make me the richest
kid in
Adenville
and maybe in all of Utah. I figured
if an adult could trade up, so could a kid. During the morning and afternoon
recesses I talked to nine kids. When I came home from school I had the
following list:

Howard Kay Wants
an Indian Suit and War Bonnet

Jimmie Peterson
Wants a Cap Pistol and Holster

Roger Gillis
Wants a Wagon

Basil
Kokovinis
Wants an Air Rifle

Parley Benson
Wants a Belgian
Hare
Doe Rabbit

Frank Jensen
Wants an Indian Scout Knife

Seth Smith Wants
a Genuine Indian Bow and Arrow

Danny Forester
Wants a Riding Quirt

Andy Anderson
Wants a Male Puppy

   
I went up to my room to study the list. Mr.
Kramer had said all a trader had to do was to find something somebody wanted. I
knew what all these kids wanted. But I didn't know what they had that they
didn't particularly want or need. Then, as I studied the list, I saw how easy
it was going to be. I figured I'd start my trading with Howard Kay. My
brother
Tom's Indian suit and war bonnet were too small for
him but would just fit Howard. Mamma was a saver who never threw anything away.
She had just about everything
Sweyn
, Tom, and I had
ever worn stored in the attic. I went up to the attic. It took some rummaging
around, but I finally found the Indian suit and war bonnet stored in a box with
old cowboy suits and other things.

   
Howard was sitting on the steps of his back
porch when I arrived.

   
"Would you rather have an Indian suit
and war bonnet or your cap pistol and holster?" I asked him.

   
He looked at me with a puzzled expression
on his pumpkin-like face. "Why do you want another cap pistol?" he
asked.

   
"I'm just doing you a favor because
you're my friend," I said. "You told me this morning you wanted an
Indian suit and war bonnet."