shot in the
stomach.
The Spruce Falls annual Hobby Show took place in the church
basement three weeks after Newell Cady’s election to the fire department.
During the intervening twenty-one days, Hal Brayton, the grocer, had stopped
adding bills on paper sacks and bought an adding machine, and had moved his
counters around so as to transform his customer space from a jammed box canyon
into a racetrack. Mrs. Dickie, the postmistress, had moved her leafy children
and their table out of her cage and had had the lowest tier of mailboxes raised
to eye level. The fire department had voted down scarlet and blue capes for the
band as unnecessary for firefighting. And startling figures had been produced
in a school meeting proving beyond any doubt that it would cost seven dollars,
twenty-nine cents, and six mills more per student per year to maintain the
Spruce Falls Grade School than it would to ship the children to the big,
efficient, centralized school in Ilium.
The whole populace looked as though it had received a powerful
stimulant. People walked and drove faster, concluded business more quickly,
and every eye seemed wider and brighter—even frenzied. And moving proudly
through this brave new world were the two men who were shaping it, constant
companions after working hours now. Newell Cady and Upton Beaton. Beaton’s
function was to provide Cady with the facts and figures behind village activities
and then to endorse outrageously Cady’s realistic suggestions for reforms,
which followed facts and figures as the night the day.
The judges of the Hobby Show were Newell Cady, Upton Beaton,
and Chief Stanley Atkins, and they moved slowly along the great assemblage of
tables on which the entries were displayed. Atkins, who had lost weight and
grown listless since informed public opinion had turned against the new fire
truck, carried a shoe box in which lay neat stacks of blue prize ribbons.
“Surely we won’t need all these ribbons,” said Cady.
“Wouldn’t do to run out,” said Atkins. “We did one year, and
there was hell to pay.”
“There are a lot of classes of entries,” explained Beaton, “with
first prizes in each.” He held out his hand to Atkins. “One with a pin, please,
Chief.” He pinned a ribbon to a dirty gray ball four feet in diameter.
“See here,” said Cady. “I mean, aren’t we going to talk this
over? I mean, we shouldn’t all merrily go our own ways, should we, sticking ribbons
wherever we happen to take a notion to? Heavens, here you’re giving first prize
to this frightful blob, and I don’t even know what it is.”
“String,” said Atkins. “It’s Ted Batsford’s string. Can you
believe it—the very first bit he ever started saving, right in the center of
this ball, he picked up during the second Cleveland administration.”
“Um,” said Cady. “And he decided to enter it in the show
this year.”
“Every show since I can remember,” said Beaton. “I knew this
thing when it was no bigger than a bowling ball.”
“So for brute persistence, I suppose we should at last award
him a first prize, eh?” Cady said wearily.
“At last?” said Beaton. “He’s always gotten first prize in the
string-saving class.”
Cady was about to say something caustic about this, when his
attention was diverted. “Good Lord in heaven!” he said. “What is that mess of
garbage you’re giving first prize to now?”
Atkins looked bewildered. “Why, it’s Mrs. Dickie’s flower arrangement,
of course.”
“That jumble is a flower arrangement?” said Cady. “I could
do better with a rusty bucket and a handful of toadstools. And you’re giving it
first prize. Where’s the competition?”
“Nobody enters anybody else’s class,” said Beaton, laying a
ribbon across the poop deck of a half-finished ship model.
Cady snatched the ribbon away from the model. “Hold on!
Everybody gets a prize—am I right?”
“Why, yes, in his or her own class,” said Beaton.
“So
stomach.
The Spruce Falls annual Hobby Show took place in the church
basement three weeks after Newell Cady’s election to the fire department.
During the intervening twenty-one days, Hal Brayton, the grocer, had stopped
adding bills on paper sacks and bought an adding machine, and had moved his
counters around so as to transform his customer space from a jammed box canyon
into a racetrack. Mrs. Dickie, the postmistress, had moved her leafy children
and their table out of her cage and had had the lowest tier of mailboxes raised
to eye level. The fire department had voted down scarlet and blue capes for the
band as unnecessary for firefighting. And startling figures had been produced
in a school meeting proving beyond any doubt that it would cost seven dollars,
twenty-nine cents, and six mills more per student per year to maintain the
Spruce Falls Grade School than it would to ship the children to the big,
efficient, centralized school in Ilium.
The whole populace looked as though it had received a powerful
stimulant. People walked and drove faster, concluded business more quickly,
and every eye seemed wider and brighter—even frenzied. And moving proudly
through this brave new world were the two men who were shaping it, constant
companions after working hours now. Newell Cady and Upton Beaton. Beaton’s
function was to provide Cady with the facts and figures behind village activities
and then to endorse outrageously Cady’s realistic suggestions for reforms,
which followed facts and figures as the night the day.
The judges of the Hobby Show were Newell Cady, Upton Beaton,
and Chief Stanley Atkins, and they moved slowly along the great assemblage of
tables on which the entries were displayed. Atkins, who had lost weight and
grown listless since informed public opinion had turned against the new fire
truck, carried a shoe box in which lay neat stacks of blue prize ribbons.
“Surely we won’t need all these ribbons,” said Cady.
“Wouldn’t do to run out,” said Atkins. “We did one year, and
there was hell to pay.”
“There are a lot of classes of entries,” explained Beaton, “with
first prizes in each.” He held out his hand to Atkins. “One with a pin, please,
Chief.” He pinned a ribbon to a dirty gray ball four feet in diameter.
“See here,” said Cady. “I mean, aren’t we going to talk this
over? I mean, we shouldn’t all merrily go our own ways, should we, sticking ribbons
wherever we happen to take a notion to? Heavens, here you’re giving first prize
to this frightful blob, and I don’t even know what it is.”
“String,” said Atkins. “It’s Ted Batsford’s string. Can you
believe it—the very first bit he ever started saving, right in the center of
this ball, he picked up during the second Cleveland administration.”
“Um,” said Cady. “And he decided to enter it in the show
this year.”
“Every show since I can remember,” said Beaton. “I knew this
thing when it was no bigger than a bowling ball.”
“So for brute persistence, I suppose we should at last award
him a first prize, eh?” Cady said wearily.
“At last?” said Beaton. “He’s always gotten first prize in the
string-saving class.”
Cady was about to say something caustic about this, when his
attention was diverted. “Good Lord in heaven!” he said. “What is that mess of
garbage you’re giving first prize to now?”
Atkins looked bewildered. “Why, it’s Mrs. Dickie’s flower arrangement,
of course.”
“That jumble is a flower arrangement?” said Cady. “I could
do better with a rusty bucket and a handful of toadstools. And you’re giving it
first prize. Where’s the competition?”
“Nobody enters anybody else’s class,” said Beaton, laying a
ribbon across the poop deck of a half-finished ship model.
Cady snatched the ribbon away from the model. “Hold on!
Everybody gets a prize—am I right?”
“Why, yes, in his or her own class,” said Beaton.
“So
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