TRANSITIONS

[patience]

Chapter 52


The darkening gray sky could hardly be seen for the big snowflakes as Robert drove the truck home. There were no tracks showing on the county road in the mile and a half past the corner store. At home, the snow was getting in their shoes as they walked to the house. Supper was waiting, and the kitchen was warm. William pulled himself up on a kitchen chair and blinked when snowflakes hit him from someone's coat being hung up. Blondie the cat rubbed around the toddler's legs and got in everyone's way as he sniffed at what was cooking on the stove. Jake was curled up behind the kitchen stove asleep, but he looked up to see who came in.

Bill said, "Looks like we're gonna get some snow. Radio said a foot or more, but what do they know? I carried a bunch of wood into the basement this afternoon, 'cuz I didn't want to do it knee deep in snow in the mornin'. Got the fire stoked up for tonight."

Robert said, "We could use some more wood at the store, so I think I'll load some up tonight. The weight will help get around in the snow tomorrow. The bed cover will keep the snow off of it."

Cindy said, "I hate to think about Chad out in this. I wish we could still afford cell phones."

Robert said, "If he hasn't come by for you by the time I get the wood loaded, I'd better take you on home."

She said, "The kids will be all right for a couple hours. He should be here soon."

While Erin was getting supper on the table, Cindy helped Robert load the truck with wood. They both came to the back porch brushing snow off each other when Chad came in the driveway in his manlift bucket truck.

He came to the porch and said, "It's blowing some out on the highway and drifting already, so I told the boss if he wanted me tomorrow, I'd better drive this thing home. The truck radio said we could get over a foot and the wind is supposed to pick up tonight and drift it."

"That will be a real mess. The County doesn't have but one plow truck going, I heard," Robert said.

"Same with the State. They have one truck to take care of highways in the county. It could choke things up pretty bad."

Robert looked at Cindy and said, "Do you want to stay home tomorrow? They'll call off school, for sure."

She let out a deep breath that made a fog of steam around her and said, "Yeah, I'd better. Have to keep the stove going and it's sure to get colder when the snow stops. It always does."
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Robert hurried to button his shirt as he came into the kitchen.

Erin looked out the kitchen window and said, "Take your time. You're not going anyplace today."

He peered out the frosty window at his truck, or rather, the shape of his truck almost completely covered in a snowdrift. Another drift covered half the barn door, but the driveway was almost bare. Robert went to the living room window and saw the county road was clear on one edge, but had a drift waist high on the other edge. A hundred yards away where the road dipped down, it was drifted level with the fields around it, at least 8 feet deep.

He went to the wood range and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Looks like we get a day off. I'll call Cindy."

Carol came to the kitchen and opened the back door to look out the storm door. Jake came over and wanted out. He made it a few feet off the porch and did his business and trotted back to the door. She said, "The chickens are probably good and warm under that snow. All you can see is the roof from this side."

Bill walked in and said, "Knee deep to an elephant out there. You're all stayin' home today, I reckon."

Robert said, "No point in getting stuck in it. Won't be any customers anyway."

"Won't be much better tomorrow," Bill said. "The county truck is probably stuck somewhere."

Erin said, "We can use some milk. William's about out. Can somebody get down to Thad's today?"

Bill said, "My truck will make it. It's 4 wheel drive, and I got tire chains."

Robert said, "Aren't tire chains illegal in Indiana now?"

Bill chuckled and said, "What the State don't know won't hurt 'em. I got my chains mail order. I won't use 'em on the highway, but we can get around the neighborhood. Thad's gonna want to get milk down to the store, too, so I'll go see if he wants me to do that for him. Jake? You goin' with me?"

The old dog gave him a sad look and shook his head until his ears flopped, then laid down behind the stove.

"I guess not, huh?"

He came back an hour later with 24 quart jars of milk. "Store said they couldn't sell as much today, so Thad give it to me for makin' the delivery. Where do you want it?"

"Let it sit in the pantry for now and get warm so the cream will rise faster. Put 6 jars in the fridge and I'll make butter out of the rest," Erin said.

"There wasn't any tracks from on down the road, so I don't think Chad went out today, either," Bill said.
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"Chad went to work down the south road today. It's pretty clear, and he had something to fix down that way," Cindy told Robert on the phone. "It buried our woodpile, so the kids are diggng some out to put on the porch."

"I'm not going in today, so relax. You doing okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine. I just hope Chad doesn't get stuck in the drifts."

"He'll be all right. That truck will go through a lot. Call us if you need anything."
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Three days later the roads were either cleared, or had enough traffic to make them passable. The temperature had come up to the low 30's, so the snow was melting on the roads. Customers tramped through the snow to buy eggs, snow shovels, gloves, and rubber boots at the hardware store. Robert went across the street and down a few doors to see his insurance agent, the only one in town now. Premiums had rocketed higher and only 4 insurance companies were still in existence in the country. When they finished revising things, Robert had reduced coverage on both car and truck, and dropped their homeowners insurance altogether. His bill was still double what it had been last year. He had reduced the store insurance to fire, wind and hail coverage only, and hoped the business made enough money to justify what he'd paid for that.

Back at the store, Robert told the women, "He said that all the insurance companies went bust when their investments crashed. The government financed these 4, or they would be gone, too."

Robert looked over the business bills from suppliers and the electric company. They would have some repricing to do on several items. The electric bill for the store was over $400, and that was for lights only. Their electric bill at home $248 for the month, and he was determined to do something about that. Part of what he'd stocked up on last year was solar panels that he'd bought when China was desperate to sell them. The batteries were much higher now than when he'd stocked the warehouse, even at his wholesale price. Robert made a call and ordered more batteries, cables, and heavy gauge copper wire. The 12 volt flourescent light fixtures he'd bought last year for under $20 were now $76, but he ordered a few of those as well to restock. He and his Dad were going to be doing some wiring soon.
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Chapter 53

The barn roof was the only south facing roof he had that didn't have any trees in the way of sunlight for the solar panels. He made a trip to the welding shop and bought some steel angle in 20 foot lengths to build a mounting for the panels.

"We need to power the fridge, the freezer, the lights, TV, the water pump, and the furnace blower," he told Erin. "The water pump is the worst, and the furnace uses a lot of power, too. It's going to take a lot of solar panels, about 3,200 watts, if I did the math right. I got the panels cheap enough, but the batteries are outrageous. Thing is, the electric bill is going to get worse, according to Chad, so if we don't do this now it will cost more either way."

Carol said, "I think we're going to see a lot of electric powered things for sale soon. People can't pay that much for the electric bill with everything else so high."

Robert said, "I've sold 3 of those tiny refrigerators lately, the kind they used to sell for college dorm rooms. They only hold a gallon of milk and a few dishes of food, but they run really cheap. The smaller sizes of CFL light bulbs sell pretty good, too."

Carol said, "I talked to one young woman who said she does her laundry in the kitchen sink to keep from running the washing machine and to save on hot water. She was buying some washing soda and borax to make her own laundry soap, too. Said she makes her hand soap out of meat grease she saves. People are doing everything they can to get by now."

Bill said, "Sounds like I did the right thing."

Carol asked, "What's that?"

Bill grinned and said, "I bought every wringer washing machine I could find, a bunch of cast iron skillets, a stack of washtubs, old hand well pumps, a whole bunch of old timey stuff. Thing is, none of those things uses much electric power and a lot of it doesn't use any at all. It's time I get busy and fix it all up so it works good. Come springtime, I'll be havin' a sale in the parking lot next door. The building is too full of stuff to have it in there."

Robert asked, "What all is in there? I saw you hauling it in by the truckload."

Bill said, "A little of everything, none of it new. I bought hand tools, garden tools, treadle sewing machines, hand corn shellers, a seed cleaner or two, axes and splittin' wedges, log chains, an' some real nice old butter churns. I got some of everything I remember from when I was a kid. The way folks lived then is what they're gonna hafta do now. I worked on some of that stuff until it got too cold out. Lots more to do, though. Gotta make it look nice for people to buy it, especially the women."

Erin said, "You're a crafty old devil, aren't you?"

"Just common sense, if you think about it. When times are hard, you sell folks what they need to get by."

Carol asked, "Are you going to have an auction?"

"Oh, no. I'll put a price on everything, and leave me some room to dicker. Make 'em think they got a good deal. "I'll put an ad in the paper when the weather gets nice out and list some prices for things, an' tell 'em I can do some tradin'. That'll be half the fun of it."

"Are you going to buy more things and keep going at this?"

"Hunh-uh. When I get the building cleaned out we can do something else with it. I'm thinkin' it would be a good place to make stuff, like those boys are makin' wood stoves at the welding shop. I could sell the building, or rent it out to a mechanic, or woodworker, or a machine shop like it was before. If I get the building sold, I still got the ground beside it, about 4 acres on this side."
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The solar panel mounts went up on the barn roof without a problem. Getting the panels up there safely was more trouble and took a whole day. Robert had to borrow a long ladder from Thad and hire Jim and Justin to help. The process involved safety ropes and careful maneuvering in the cold, windy weather. Wiring them to a junction box was a miserable job with cold, numb fingers.

More wiring followed, each section using color coded wire and cable to assure proper polarity, where mistakes could damage components. At last the panels were wired into the charge contoller and from there to the pair of huge 24 volt fork lift batteries. A pair of 5,000 watt sine wave inverters were wall mounted on a piece of plywood. The inverters changed the 24 volts DC power to 120 volts AC. A transfer switch connected that 120 volts to the house power with overhead wiring for now. Robert wanted to bury that line in conduit, but it would have to wait for warmer weather.

Erin said, "So, we are now off the grid, as they say?"

"Yes, with some cautions about that. We have to really conserve power, or we will not have enough," Robert said. "Assume we only have half the total power available, and can only use that half as much of the time."

"Couldn't you have put up more soalr stuff so we'd have more power?"

"I spent more on what we put up than we paid for the house and that was at my wholesale cost. It's not worth it to go bigger. We'd be ahead to just pay the electric bill."

Erin was shocked at the cost. "You're kidding me! It cost that much?"

"Yes, it did. We can make this work by cutting our useage, but that means a lot of changes."

"What kind of changes?"

"Replace a lot of things with more efficient ones, like the fridge and freezer especially. The lights could be smaller wattage and we already have a smaller water pump that is lower horsepower than the original. Quit using the microwave so much, and get one of Dad's wringer washing machines that use less than half the power of the automatic. Can't use the electric clothes dryer at all."

"I guess I can live with that," Erin said. "It still seems like it's a big step down to not have enough electricity, though."

"Not as big a step as doing without it completely like some are now. I've had customers at the store tell me they had to shut off their electricity because they couldn;t pay the bill. Life is changing."
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[patience]

Chapter 54 February, 2017


The battery monitor was showing 85% charge level after breakfast. Robert was satisfied. The new energy efficient refrigerator and freezer had made the difference, along with completely disconnecting the water heater. The new appliances only used about 800 watt-hours per 24 hour day, compared to 3 times that much the old ones had used, according to his Kil-a-Watt meter. They hadn't been using the water heater during the winter anyway, and it was impossible to power it with limited solar.

For the past month they had been totally off grid. Robert had shifted the transfer switch to the solar side, only using what power they made, but he had not yet told the power company to remove the meter. He wanted to make sure they could get along without it first. Apparently they could do fine without grid power, so he decided to get rid of that bill this month, at $112 a month minimum charge, even not using any power at all.

He had to use the generator only once in the past month after 3 days of very dense overcast weather, when the battery charge level got down to 70%, as low as he wanted to let it go. Deep discharging cut their life expectancy greatly. They had a plan for such times that involved unplugging the freezer that had been moved to the unheated barn, and unplugging the fridge and using a cooler on the back porch, instead. If the weather was cold enough, that worked perfectly. But Robert had been afraid of thawing their frozen meat and ran the small Honda 2000 watt generator a couple hours a day, morning and evening to keep the batteries charged up and kept the freezer turned on. It required discipline to stay on top of things.

Erin was getting along nicely with the wringer washing machine Bill had fixed up for her and said it saved her time, overall, doing 4 loads an hour with it. The old wringer machine had a 1/3 horsepower motor on it, compared to the automatic at 1/2 horsepower. That difference wasn't much, but the fact it only had to run an hour a week instead of 3 or 4 hours like the automatic was the big factor, making the overall power less than 1/4 as much. It used less water, too, an important matter with a cistern for water supply for 4 adults and a baby. If Erin could wait until a week end to do laundry, Carol helped and they got it finished fast.

The problem was drying clothes in the winter, so Bill had strung clotheslines in the barn where they could hang until they dried, even if it took 2 or 3 days. Anything they needed sooner they could hang behind the kitchen stove and be dry in less than an hour. Diapers dried fast hung in William's room. That all worked out fine. Life no longer moved at the frenetic pace it had only a couple years before.
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Like millions of other people, life hadn't been easy for Carol, beginning with being raised with 4 brothers and one sister that kept the family on the edge of poverty. There was no money for her to get an education beyond high school, so she had gone to work. She'd had a series of menial jobs from graduation until she got married the first time at 22. Her husband had been killed in an accident at the chemical plant where he worked in Louisville, leaving her with 3 pre-school kids to raise and only enough life insurance to cover her debts at the time.

She remarried when the kids were nearly grown. Harold had been a fine man and made her life a lot easier, until he died of a heart attack 8 years ago. Since then, Carol had been on her own, her children scattered around the country following jobs and one boy in the military. She had worked at the hardware store since she was widowed, and while she was lonely, there were few chances to meet men, and decent single men her age were scarce.

At the point when she'd met Bill, Carol knew she would have to continue working as long as she could, her Social Security based on her last husband's amount was barely enough to live on. She had liked Bill from the beginning, and he had proven to be all she'd hoped for. Somehow, they had both made it through nearly 70 years of life with their sense of humor intact and in reasonably good health.

Carol had sold her old home to a reverse mortgage company, and had needed the additional income, but when the crash happened, that company had gone bankrupt, so the house ownership was tied up in court with a long list of other homes. Waiting for that to be settled, she had rented the house and moved in with Bill. He had told her he had enough money that she didn't need to worry about it, and gave her some details. Now, with her income from work and very low expenses she had some financial security for the first time in her life. She smiled when Bill kissed her and woke her each morning.
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Robert and the women had gone to work and Bill had gone off to his building next door, so Erin was cleaning the kitchen. William shrieked and sat down in the kitchen floor crying. Erin saw what happened but was too far away to prevent it. The boy had grabbed the handle of the ash door on the kitchen stove to pull himself up, and found out it was HOT. It wasn't hot enough to make a serious burn, but his fingers were a little red.

"You finally did it. How many times have I pulled you away from that stove? Let's see those fingers."

William kept crying until she ran cold water over his hand and then he screamed, more shocked at the cold than anything.

"I'll fix it babe." Erin got the Aloe Vera plant off the window ledge and snipped off the tip of a thick leaf. She peeled that open exposing the jelly inside and gently rubbed that on his fingers. The relief was almost instantaneous. William blubbered a while longer, but soon was in the floor happily looking for more trouble to get into. He did give the stove a wide berth, though, and Erin was grateful. Maybe it was fortunate he learned that lesson with no greater injury, she thought. She dabbed the Aloe on his fingers a couple more times when it dried, and he seemed no worse for the wear. If he stuck his fingers in his mouth, it wouldn't hurt him, she knew, and that was good thing because he tasted everything.

It wasn't long until Blondie the cat shrieked, followed by a cry from William. The cat ran out of the kitchen and disappeared. William was sporting a scratch on his face.

"I told you not to mess with him. You're learning a lot of new things the hard way, aren't you?"

Erin patiently got the first aid cream and smeared it on his face. It wasn't the cat's fault, because he had been hurt first. Erin wondered how little boys lived long enough to grow up. She sighed and put him in his playpen, just outside the kitchen door where she could watch him. Erin went to the bathroom for a moment of peace.

Jake was watching carefully from his spot behind the stove. When the baby was safely in the playpen, the old dog gave a big sigh and laid his head down again. Human puppies were always trouble, he thought. He and the baby were both almost asleep when the back door opened slowly. Jake could see under the stove that it wasn't Bill's shoes, and he smelled the nasty scent of fear and the acrid scent of gunpowder. He tensed up and began to get up quietly as Erin came back into the kitchen.

The man rushed at Erin and grabbed her, sticking his gun at her head. "Hold it right there! Where's your purse? I want money! Now!"

Erin was too shocked to speak. The man gouged her hard with the gun and yelled in her ear, "Get me your purse!"

Jake growled low in his throat and lunged from behind the stove, slipping on the slick floor. He only had a couple feet to go, though, and got one hind foot against a stove leg to propel him forward at the man's leg. He clamped his jaw on it as hard as he could, and the man yelled.

Erin got one hand loose and grabbed at the kitchen table, shoving it into the man and pushing herself toward the cabinets. The man had dropped his gun and only had hold of her with one hand. Erin stretched as far as she could and got to the wooden block that held kitchen knives. The one that came out was long and sharp. She drove it into his midsection with all her might and fell against him. They went to the floor, but she held onto the knife for dear life.

The man was struggling to get his gun from the floor when Jake gave up his hold on the leg and went for his throat, just missing Erin. Trying to fend off the dog, the man forgot about the gun and grabbed for Jake, but he weakened quickly and slowly began to relax.

Minutes later, Erin found herself kneeling over the dead man, and looked at William in the playpen screaming loudly. But she figured out the loudest screams were hers. Jake was still throttling the man and shaking him as best he could when she managed to get to her feet.
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When Bill got to the back door, gun drawn, he saw Erin standing silently over the dead man with the butcher knife. Bill wisely spoke to Erin before going in.

"Are you okay?"

Jake heard his master and redoubled his efforts to chew the man's head off.

Erin didn't say anything, so Bill asked again, louder, "Erin! Are you okay?"

She looked at him and then sagged down onto a chair, knife still in her hand. Bill came in slowly and Erin finally answered very softly, "I think so," as blood ran down the side of her head from a small gouge.
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Robert made it there before the Sheriff's car, barely, sliding the truck to a stop and running to the house with a gun in his hand, yelling at Cindy to stay in the truck. Two deputies followed, a few feet behind him. Bill met them outside and said, "It's okay, the guy's dead, and Erin's all right."

The deputies had guns drawn, one pointed at Bill whose pistol was in his belt, hands raised. Erin still sat in the chair, the bloody knife on the floor now. Bill had locked Jake in his bedroom where he was raising bloody hell, barking his head off. The baby was still screaming bloody murder and the deputies were white faced at the sight on the floor. One went outside and promptly lost his breakfast. The other one looked like he wanted to do the same. Robert went to Erin and held her against him.
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Hours later, The Sheriff himself had come to the scene with the coroner. They all agreed to the facts that things happened the way Erin was finally able to tell them. Cindy calmed the baby down and had gotten him a bottle of warm milk. He was asleep in his bed while Erin made her statement. Bill took Jake out for a walk with a leash and had trouble holding him from going into the kitchen. The deputies were terrified of the dog, as well they might be, having seen that he had nearly beheaded the corpse. Bill left him tied on the back porch.

"We'll have to take the dog because he attacked somebody," one deputy said.

Bill looked him in the eye and said, "Over my dead body!"

"That's the law! We have to take him and hold him."

Bill said, "That dog just saved my son's wife and my grandson. You touch him and you're a dead man!"

Bill had his hand on his gun as did the deputy when the Sheriff said, "Hold everything! You two calm down! The dog's not going anywhere. Jacob's, you shut the hell up! Ain't you got a grain of sense? Now, everybody, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"

Some minutes later the gray haired Sheriff explained. "The dog is supposed to be quarantined in case he has Rabies. I can see as plain as anybody what happened, so we will leave the dog here and you will be responsible for keeping him contained for two weeks. I'm not going to tell you how to do that. Just make sure he doesn't run off, okay?"

To the deputy he said softly, "You know as well as I do that the animal shelter is no longer in existence. Did you plan on sleeping with that dog for the two weeks, or what? Now, apologize to these people."

It took him a minute to compose himself, but the younger deputy made his apology. It was quiet enough in the kitchen that everyone could hear Jake whine on the back porch. Slowly, the lawmen went outside and let the coroner do his thing. A body bag was retrieved from the Sheriff's car and the body loaded in the back seat. Another hour was spent getting formal statements written and signed. It was past lunchtime when the lawmen left, but nobody was hungry.

Cindy spent some time cleaning and bandaging Erin's head, then went to work on the kitchen. The Sheriff had taken the knife and the intruder's gun. Erin was still pale and shaking when Bill came in with a thin, hand rolled cigarette and told her to smoke it. "Not in the house," she said. Erin struggled into her coat and walked with him and Robert to the barn. She was pleasantly relaxed when she came back inside.
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[patience]

Chapter 55



When Robert got off the phone at the store, Carol asked, "Well, who was it? Do they know?"

Robert said, "The Sheriff told me it was some guy from Jeffersonville. He had some ID and his fingerprints matched up to records. He'd been in trouble all his life, but they had no idea what he was doing out here."

Cindy said, "Let's hope that's all of it. We've got enough problems without this, people going hungry and all..."

Robert said, "He told me to stay alert, because there was another man from Jeffersonville found shot dead along the road somewhere east of town. Might not be connected, but two guys from there and not far apart makes him wonder. We'll be tightening things up around home, and here at the store, too. From now on, you wear your jackets in the store and carry your guns ALL the time, okay?"

Cindy said, "I do that now. I want one of those belt buckle knives you've got in the sporting goods section, too. No time like the present. Take it off my pay for this week." She walked off to get one from the display case.

Carol said, "I don't know how Erin did it. She's just a little thing and she had to be scared to death."

"That's how she did it. She was scared and she was protecting her child. Nothing on earth more vicious than a mother protecting her young," Robert said. "She's still plenty upset. Dad's staying close to her until she calms down some."

Cindy came back and said, "Don't forget Jake's there, too."

Roberts smiled and said, "That dog is eating better than I am now. Erin thinks the world of him."
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Erin was paranoid and she knew it. William was insecure and hard to get along with, crying at the least provocation, and staying close to Erin, wanting to be held. Bill did give her some respite by spending more time with the boy.

"Bill, you're not gettng anything done on your fix-up work, are you?"

"That can wait. It's cold out there now. Jake doesn't want to go out and keep me company, either."

"How about you bring stuff over to the barn to work on? I'll be fine in here."

"I'm doing some of that. I like to be where I can keep an eye on the place."

Erin said, "I hate this! We used to be able to feel safe at home, and now I'm wearing a gunbelt like in some cheap western movie."

"The world ain't what it used to be, that's for sure. I never carried a gun in my life, 'til lately. Looks like I'll be carryin' one from now on. Maybe I should have sooner, come to think about it. Guns make people a lot more polite, I've noticed."
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Rachel was beginning to feel like she wasn't quite so poor now. She had saved enough money this winter to buy herself a winter coat and she had some decent clothes in the closet. There was an old desk in her room where she stashed odds and ends of pencils, scrap paper, used envelopes she had saved from the trash, bits of string and other oddments she picked up in trash when she went to town. People didn't throw away stuff like they used to, but Rachel was always on the lookout for anything free, or close to it, that she could use.

She had collected enough old aluminum cans from parking lots to sell and pay for her new coat. It wasn't new, but it looked like new and she'd gotten it cheap at a garage sale. People had garage sales all the time now, even in winter trying to raise some money any way they could. She thought some of the stuff she'd seen for sale was probably looted from empty houses. There was a lot of that going on, she'd heard. She decided that she would never do that, but she couldn't afford to pass up something good when the price was right, stolen or not.

Some of the yard sales had been shifty places. She couldn't quite say how she knew, but the people just hadn't felt right to her. Thad had warned her about stopping just anywhere to shop like that, and offered her a gun to carry. She took the gun, a small .380 automatic, and kept it in her pants pocket. She wore her clothes big and loose for several reasons. It hid the pistol and it made her look bigger and less attractive to some of the characters around town. She'd practiced walking like she was in rough ground, instead of the come-on walk of the young girls who were flirting with boys. Town wasn't so safe anymore.

Nowhere was really safe now. After Erin got attacked at home, everyone around had taken to carrying a gun and probably a knife, too. Rachel had a knife she got at a garage sale, a thick Old Hickory slicing knife. She had found an old boot in a dumpster and cut the top off of it to make a sheath. She'd looked closely at the knife sheaths in the hardware store when she went in there with Jim one day and had cut a pattern from cardboard.

She had needed to find a way to sew the leather, and Thad said he'd show her how. He used a piece of a tree limb and drove a small nail in the the end of it, then filed the head off and made a point for punching holes in the leather. He gave her a needle and some fishing line, the old braided kind that was tough. She had worked at sewing the leather, one stitch at a time. It was hard work, especially after milking 6 cows twice a day, but she was finished finally. The sheath had a loop for her belt and had been wetted and pressed flat under some bricks until it dried.

It held the knife perfectly and was hidden against her back if she wore a coat. She could even get in her pockets without exposing it. Thad had loaned her a whetstone and showed her how to use it. It hung at an angle so she could reach around and get to it fast. She felt a little safer feeling the knife there.
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Like most teenagers, Justin didn't miss much that interested him, and he was very interested in Rachel. She dressed like a farmhand, but he had seen her cleaned up and she was really a pretty girl. She kept her hair cut short, but it was a beautiful shiny brown with gold highlights. He had to be less obvious about it, because Kyle was ribbing him about her. Rachel seemed oblivious to him, though, and that made him feel like he would never be good enough to attract her attention.

Rachel had been really upset when she first moved here. Justin knew what that felt like, so he tried to be nice to her, and she seemed to like that, but she always kept to herself as though she didn't want anything to do with boys. She loved Thad, that was plain, but everybody liked him. He sounded rough and all , but he was really a nice old man.

Justin had thought about it a lot and decided that Rachel was a lot more grown up than he was. She wasn't at all like any of the girls he had known before. She seemed like she was much older than him, always saving her money and taking care of her old car. He had been able to help with that a little, because he knew about changing oil and spark plugs from helping his Dad. He'd found her the tools and showed her how to do it, and got a nice smile and thanked for that. He really liked to see her smile.

Kimberly had seen Justin fall hard for Rachel. She was a nice girl and Justin was a good boy, but he wasn't ready for a girl like her yet. Rachel had lived hard and knew she could do it if she had to. Justin had never seen anything like that, and Kimberly saw his immaturity showing when he was around Rachel. Probably I don't have anything to worry about, Kimberly thought, at least not yet.
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Chapter 56 March, 2017



"I would kill for some chocolate," Erin said. "I don't suppose you brought me a candy bar?"

Robert began to empty the cloth shopping bag and said, "I didn't see any of the kinds you like at the grocery, but I did find 2 cans of outdated cocoa. I don't think it really goes bad. I got 10 pounds of sugar, too, but it cost me $24.99."

"Oh, thank you! I'm making a batch of fudge with some of that butter I just made. That is gonna be SO good!"

"Make that cocoa last. It wasn't cheap," He said. "I think the only reason the cocoa was still around is because most people can't afford anything but the basics, and not enough of that. It's not like the old days at Wal Mart. Marty Shoemaker only gets a truck in about every 2 or 3 weeks. He said he orders from a warehouse and only gets about a third of what he asks for, and most of that is in bulk bags. He had to put a sign up to bring your own containers. He gets things he didn't order and has to take it or they threaten to not fill his next order. Can't get fresh produce at all, except from that greenhouse up north of town and they have been down during all the cold weather."

"We should get a greenhouse going. I'm craving something better than canned greens. I can't wait until Spring to have a fresh salad again," Erin said.

"I've been hoping to find some windows to make coldframes, but I haven't had any luck. You want to try Craigslist?"

"I'll look, but there's not much on there now. It's mostly junk at crazy prices," Erin said. "I don't think many people can afford to pay for internet now, and the ones on there are trying to make all they can to pay for it."
_______________

"Good thing Erin saved milk jugs," Bill said. "We can save this oil and use it again."

Robert said, "It's got water in it. Hydraulic oil always gets water in it from condensation, I guess. It's no good."

His Dad said, "I thought I showed you how to get the water out, but maybe not. You just save it in those jugs and set it behind the cookstove in the kitchen. It'll stay warm and the water will settle to the bottom. Then you can pour off the clean oil that's on top. The dirt settles out with it, and you can strain it through a coffee filter before you use it again. The filter in the tractor will get anything left in it. Make me think, we need to change all the filters on this tractor, too."

"I'll try it. Oil is expensive now, but tractor parts are even worse, so it has to come out clean."

"Oh, it will. I've done it for years on the farm. I left jugs of oil sitting in the south shop window for a summer and it would come out clean as a pin."

"I wondered what those jugs were. Now I know," Robert said. "I wonder if it would work with motor oil?"

"Not good enough. Too much carbon and dirt in motor oil. It gets clean enough to use for oilin' rough stuff, though. I used it for a lot of things. If it was still dirty after a summer of sittin' in the sun, I used to paint the bottom end of wood fence posts before I put 'em in the ground. Makes 'em last longer."

"I remember you had me painting that old rusty corn planter with it, too," Robert said.

"Yeah, it soaks into the old bolts and makes 'em easier to get loose if you have to work on it."

The maintenance work finished, the two men went to the house to clean up and get some lunch.

"No, you can't set that oil on the floor," Erin said. "William will get into it, or jake will knock it over. If you want to keep it warm, set it on top of the warming oven on the stove, but we'll have to put it in a pan in case the jugs leak. I don't want an oil fire in the house."

Robert said, "That still sounds too risky to me. I'll make a shelf on the wall for it and put it in those big pans I found at the dump, the ones that came from a restaurant."

Erin said, "That's a lot of trouble for some old dirty oil."

"Have you seen the price of oil lately? Hydraulic oil is over $200 for a 5 gallon bucket."

Erin sighed, "It's like everything else. Costs 4 times the money and we've got half the income."

Bill said, "I used to think my Social Security check was pretty good at $1,450 a month. Now it takes $300 to fill my truck with diesel and $65 to change oil in it. That's if I do it myself. I don't know what they want to do it downtown. No surprise that there ain't much traffic on the roads . I wonder how folks are gettin' by?"

Erin said, "What I see on the TV says there's some kind of new government handout program for emergency food. They are giving out the food stamp cards to anybody that asks, is what it amounts to. The problem is there isn't enough food in the stores, so they fight over it and the troops shoot into the middle of it and kill some until it stops. Louisville is not the place to be now."

Carol said, "I heard about that food stamp thing. You just go to their office and give them your name and they give you a card good for $200 worth of food. But one person can't eat for a month on $200. Better than nothing, I guess, but the only place around here that will take those cards is the Jay Cee Store and they are expensive. Shoemaker's won't do it because it takes the government so long to pay him."

Robert said, "I bet that's why he can't get what he orders, too. You know the wholesalers are going to be told to ship to the big city stores first. That's what they do to me when I order things. I learned that from the truck drivers. They didn't have any nails for my order, but he'd just dropped off a pallet of them at Home Depot."

Bill said, "Just what we need is another program to spend money they ain't got. They'll just print more and next week prices will be up again on everything and MORE people will have to sign up for the handout."

Erin said, "They're just trying to get the cities calmed down. You can't run businesses in a city that's out of control."

Bill said, "Yeah, and our money goes to hell in the process. It's gotta stop, or the money won't be worth anything."
_____________________

Shantal Jones was hungry, and his homeboys hadn't scored anything today at the market. Them damn soldiers was there and shot one of his boyz, too. They did a knockout on a woman and took her bag, but they busted up part of it when it hit the street.

Marlease said, "I cain't make nuffin' outa dis stuff. We needs some meat an' beans. I got ONE can uh beans an'.."

"NUFF WOMAN! Cook dat $h!t and quit moufin' off, or I bust ya one!"

Five lean, hungry looking young men shuffled into the kitchen and one handed her a can of pork and beans. Another came out with a small jar of instant coffee and a few potatoes.

"Truck done runned over da rest," he said.

"Shoulda seed him grabbin' 'em! Look like a bird grabbin' fries at da Mac shack!"

"Nuffa dat! Din' see you gittin' nuffin'."

"We gotta bust a move onna STO', man," Too-Tall said. "Ain' nobody buyin' no dope."

"Dey all got shotguns in dere, man. You git yo'seff dead, iss whut yo' git."

Shantal knew they had to move pretty soon. The old couple they killed to get in this house would be missed soon enough, and the po-leece would be comin' 'round. He didn't want to leave, though, because the gas was still on, so it was warm and they could cook and had hot water. They were out of bullets for their guns, except for four he had in his G-lock. That might be enough to knock off a store, like Too-Tall said.

Late that night, he went alone to the Quik Mart half a mile down the 4 lane street. Shantal was still hungry after their small meal. The store had a cage in front of the checkout, but it was wire, so he wasn't worried about a bullet going through it. The convenience store clerk had a shotgun, all right, but he didn't get a chance to grab it before Shantal shot him twice. Shantal didn't see the woman in the store room before she unloaded her shotgun at him. He just felt a thump in his chest like he'd been hit by a truck. He was lying on the floor looking at the ceiling when the lights went out.
________________

[patience]

Chapter 57


Kimberly had all the south window sills filled with old egg cartons that had been filled with black dirt Thad brought in. She had cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, and onion seeds started and coming up. It was a tedious job to water each tiny pocket with just a few drops twice each day, but she did that diligently. Those plants meant food to eat later.
____________

Erin had located some windows to buy. Rachel had found them when she was checking garage sales in town. They had come from a mobile home, she thought, or maybe they were storm windows. They had aluminum frames and screens, and were in pretty good shape. Robert had brought them home and Bill found enough old lumber to make some cold frames. They had hauled manure from the pig lot and got cow manure from Thad to fill a long narrow bed, then covered the manure with dirt on the south side of the house. Erin removed the screens to save for other possible uses, since they would block some light from the emrging plants. She thought they might be useful to make a food dryer later on.

The cold frames consisted of rectangular wood boxes with a window on top and no bottom. Placed directly on the dirt, the decomposing manure inderground would warm the soil to make the seeds germinate sooner than in the garden. A few dry days had allowed tilling the garden, expanded this year to almost an acre, but the ground was still too cold for seed to sprout there. Erin had sown lettuce, radishes, kale, and chard in a strip on the sunniest side anyway. They would come up when they were ready, and she hoped it was soon.
______________

Officer Tatlock of the Metro Police Department and his partner were called to the Quik Mart and did a preliminary investigation. They took the surviving clerk downtown to headquarters for a thorough questioning where she signed her official statement of what had transpired, then took her back to the Quik Mart where she'd left her car. After the Coroner and various police officials had done their work, the dead clerk had relatives notified who sent a funeral home to pick up the body. Shantal Jones was identified by fingerprints, being a repeat offender, and ultimately his body would be disposed of at the expense of the City, having no known relatives to claim it.

Taylor Connelly, the 22 year old surviving clerk, having been notified that this was immediately determined to be a "clean" shooting in self defense, was told no charges would be filed against her, but she should be available for further questioning as the investigation proceeded. Having seen some of this happen to acquaintances, she dutifully gave her address and all needed information and went on her way. The Quick Mart was opened again the next day, so she went in to work and having made her plans she filled her small car with gas and bought some things with her employee discount. Then she told her boss that the experience was too much for her that day and went home early from work.

At the cheap apartment she shared with 4 other women, she stuffed what belongings she wanted to keep in plastic trash bags and loaded them in her car. She made one stop at her branch bank and cashed a check for all but $4 in her account and drove across the Second Street bridge to Indiana, never to be seen again in Kentucky. She had an uncle she was planning to go see. She fervently hoped he remembered her, because she couldn't think of any other place to go and she was not going to sleep another night in Louisville.
______________


Chad was worn out by the time he got home from work. It had been a tough day, and he'd stopped at his parents' house on the way out of town to check on them. He noticed they had the upstairs and the spare room downstairs closed off to save heat, and it wasn't all that warm, either. His mother gave him a cup of coffee while he visited for a few minutes. He'd glanced in the refrigerator when she got some milk out for her coffee and saw there wasn't much in it.

He knew they didn't have all that much income from Social Security, and he thought the time was coming when he should do his best to get them to move in with him and Cindy. He knew they didn't want to give up their place, but sometime they would have to face the fact they couldn't afford to live there after his Dad's pension fund went broke and prices continued to rise.

Cindy had supper ready and he was famished. It wasn't all that cold out now, but it was damp and hard to keep warm 20 feet up in the hydraulic lift bucket.

"Mmm, that cornbread is good," he said. "Where'd you get the corn meal?"

"Bill ground some for me. Said he was grinding feed anyway, so he caught some ground corn in a bucket before he mixed the other stuff with it. Erin wanted some, and he gave me a sack full."

"How're we doing for groceries? Need anything?"

"Not really. I could use some spices and a few other things, but nothing important. The pantry is crammed full."

Nick said, "I made the butter, Dad!"

"How did you do that?"

"Mom got cream from Mr. Wright and got a churn from Mr. Evans and I cranked it till it made butter. It was a lot of work. I did't think it would ever get done."

Cindy said, "Now don't be telling anybody we got cream from Thad. He's not supposed to be selling it because of the Health Department rules. We're lucky to get it, so don't mess up the deal, okay?"

Chad said, "He sells milk to the corner store. What's wrong with selling cream?"

"I don't know, but that's what he said, so better keep quiet about it."

"That means we've got buttermilk! I want pancakes for breakfast. That will be so good. Wait a minute. Have we got syrup for pancakes?"

"I can make some. We've got all that sugar I bought and some maple flavoring I got when Erin and I went on that big shopping trip way back when. I can make gallons of syrup. I throw in a little molasses for flavor and it tastes like you bought it."

"Cool. I'm worried about Mom and Dad. They're hard up and won't admit it. That's why I was asking about the groceries."

"They need to move in with us where we can make sure they take care of themselves. We've got plenty of food. There's all that fish you caught last summer and the beef we butchered, and still a lot of chicken in the freezer. They don't eat much anyway. Can you talk 'em into it?"

"I don't know. I'll try."

"They might be waiting for you to ask."
_________________


Chapter 58


Taylor wasn't sure where he lived. She got off the interstate at Corydon and drove slowly past an old Waffle stop that was closed and a strip mall where only the grocery seemed to be open. The street took her to the old downtown area where she saw a big hardware store that said it was open and parked at the curb. The breeze was chilly, so she zipped her jacket and hurried toward the front door. There were open cartons of brown eggs in the window, and every kind of old kitchen tool she'd ever seen and some she had never seen.

Carol said, "Hi. Can I help you?"

"I need to find my uncle and I'm not sure where he lives now, do you have a phone book?"

"Sure. Here you are."

As the girl was paging through the directory, Carol said, "Who are ya lookin' for? I probably know 'em. Been here all my life."

"A man named Daulton. Chad Daulton. My mother's name was Daulton."

"What do you need with Chad?" Cindy had walked up just then and overheard.

"He's my uncle," Taylor said. "I'm Taylor Connelly."

Cindy smiled and said, "I'm his wife. I've heard about you! You can follow us home and see him. He'll be off work a little after I get home."

Taylor said, "I hope he remembers me. I haven't seen him since I was in grade school. I really need help and I don't know where else to go."

Cindy heard the quavering voice and saw the tears start. She said, "Chad has been worried about you and your mother since things got so bad. Hadn't heard from you and the phone didn't work. Are your folks okay?"

"They got killed when our house burned in the riots. I was at work and there was nothing there when I went home. I lived in the car for a few days until I got a room with some girls I worked with. They helped what they could, but none of us had much. We worked at the Quik Mart, and..."

Cindy went to the girl and gave her a hug saying, "Don't you worry hon', you're gonna be all right."

"It just keeps getting worse." Taylor leaned on Cindy and sobbed a few times, then breathed deeply and let it out slowly. She said, "I gotta get it together. It's been a bad week."

"We're about ready to close, so you just sit down here and we'll take you home in a minute. Carol, can you get her a drink of water? I'll go clean out the register and turn the lights off. Where'd Robert get to?"

Carol said, "He's just making rounds to lock up. He'll be here soon."

The women decided that since Taylor was driving, Cindy would ride home with her. They introduced the girl to Robert and told him their plans, then locked the front door and left for home.
___________________

Taylor silently followed directions with Cindy as co-pilot and made their way out of town. The car was fairly new, a tiny Chevy. Cindy tried to get her talking by saying, "This is a nice car. I bet it gets good gas mileage."

"Yeah. My Dad just bought it for me when I graduated from high school."

Her voice was tight, and she stopped talking then. Cindy saw tears roll down her face and said nothing more until it was time to turn onto the county road.

They followed Robert's truck slowly out the road, dodging potholes. "Robert will turn into his driveway up here on the right. We live a ways on down this road, but I'd like to stop here for a minute if you don't mind and see his wife Erin. We've been friends since grade school."

They parked behind Robert and Cindy said, "If you feel up to it, c'mon in and meet the crew. They're like family to me."

Taylor followed in her footsteps and was greeted joyfully by Jake, then got a look from Blondie sitting on the porch rail. It was quiet outside, but the sounds of cooking and conversation came from the back door.

"Hi Cindy! Who ya got with ya there?"

"Erin, this is Taylor Connelly, Chad's neice. She came out from Louisville to visit."

"Hi, Taylor. Ya hungry? We got supper about ready here."

"No, thanks. I can't just come in and eat," she said.

"You can out here in the country. If you're here at mealtime, you eat with the rest of us. It's nothin' special, just chili, but I'll set you bowl out."

"Uh, I think Cindy wants to get home, right?"

Cindy said, "The kids'll be all right for awhile. Did you have lunch today?"

"I, uh, I guess not. I've been busy."

"Sit down here, next to Bill. Taylor, this is Bill Evans, Robert's Dad, and you've met Carol and Robert. That's William in the high chair making a mess with the crackers."

"Uh, hi everybody."

"How about a glass of milk with that? Or, I've got a pot of coffee?"

"Milk would be good."

Cindy said, "You just relax and eat. We eat pretty late at home, so maybe you'll have an appetite by the time I get it ready. The kids will be having an after school snack now, so that will work out fine. I'm gonna get some of this chili, too."

Erin said, "Cindy, there's some milk in the fridge for you, and some cream, too."

Between mouthfuls, Cindy said, "I'll pay you before we leave."

Erin saw an odd look on Taylor's face and thought there was more to it than just being among new people. The girl looked like she'd seen a ghost or something. Whatever it was, she was on the edge. Cindy was good with people, though, so it should work out, whatever it was.
_______________

"Wow! I didn't know Chad had a farm! The last time we were out here he was living in town."

Cindy's mind clicked and she said, "Hm, okay, since then maybe you didn't know, but his wife passed away."

"Yeah, Mom told me about that. Some rare disease, I think."

"Right, and they had the 3 kids. Chad did a fine job of raising them by himself, but it was hard. I met him just a year ago and we hit it off. I wanted to make sure you knew that before we go in to see the kids. They call me Mom now, though. Just so you know."

"Thanks. Let's see, he had 3, right?"

"Yep, 2 big boys and a girl. You need to bring in anything right now? Or we can get your stuff in later."

"Not right now, I guess."

Inside, Cindy said, "Hey guys! This is your cousin, Taylor, from Louisville. She came out to visit for a while. Okay, this is Andrew, he'll be 16 soon, and that's Nicholas. He's 10, and Callie is 8."

"I'm glad you told me, 'cause it's been so long."

Andy said, "I remember you, I think. We lived in town and you came out with your parents. I remember your blue eyes and blond hair. You were a lot nicer to me than the girls in school."

"Yeah! You would have been, maybe just starting school?"

"Uh-huh. I was probably 6 then."

Callie yelled from the window, "Daddy's home!"

She ran to the door to open it for him. Nick looked at Taylor and whispered, "Daddy's girl!"

Chad came in with muddy boots and stopped on the door mat to take them off. He smiled and said, "Hey! Who we got here? Is that you Taylor?"

Taylor beamed at that and said, "Yep, that's me. I didn't think you'd know me."

"Lemme get these boots off and I'll give you big hug. I've been worried sick about you. Couldn't get you on the phone and no idea where you were. Boy, you grew up to be a pretty girl!"

He walked to her and gave her a bear hug. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Well, I'm here. I'm not sure about okay."

"What happened? I never heard a word."

Taylor took a deep breath and said, "It's a long story."

Cindy interrupted with, "Coffee's hot if you want it."

They sat down at the table and heard her story. When it was finished, everybody was crying and it got really quiet for a while.

Chad whispered, "My God, girl, that's awful," as he reached for her hand and squeezed it gently.

Andy said, "I don't know if I could shoot somebody or not. You've got a lot of heart to do that. You're really brave."

Taylor looked at him and said, "No! I'm not! He was gonna kill me! He killed Carl and he was pointing it at ME!" She broke down and bawled, laying her head on the table. "I can't stop SEEING it!"

Andrew was closest. He went to her and held her while she cried. Cindy and Chad got up and went to her side. Cindy said, "Let it out. It has to come out, so you just cry and let it go."

Chad put a hand on her shoulder and said, "You're with family now. It's going to be okay."
_______________

[patience]

Chapter 59



Chad was thankful that tomorrow was Saturday. There was too much to do for Taylor without the burden of both him and Cindy going to work and the kids being gone to school. The girl had only a pitiful amount of clothing. They carried all her belongings into the house in one trip. The kids took the food she'd bought into the kitchen to be sorted out. It only took one trip with a couple bags each for Taylor and Cindy to get her moved into the small bedroom upstairs.

Cindy said, "If you want to wash some of your things, I'm doing laundry tomorrow."

"Yeah. I guess it all needs it. I've been doing it by hand in the sink and I was out of clean clothes. Show me how and I'll do it. I mean, where to find things."

"Sure. It's all new to you here, so there's a lot to see. We can get a load in and then go see the rest of the place. Chad's got the stove going tonight so there isn't much to do this evening. It doesn't take much heat now, but it's a little chilly without having a fire."

"A fire?!" There was panic in her voice.

"In the wood stove. We heat with firewood. Gas just costs too much, and we can cut firewood for nearly nothing, like a lot of things we do to save money."

"I'll get a job and I won't stay any longer than I have to. I know it costs a lot for everything."

"Now calm down. I just meant that the way we live, it doesn't cost much. We have a well for water, so there is no water bill, and we heat with wood so that doesn't cost hardly anything. Chad paid off the mortgage, so there is no payment to make. We grow most all of what we eat, so the groceries don't cost much either, see?"

"But I have to do something. I can't just live off you and Chad. I'll get a job."

"Jobs are impossible to find. You can just help around here. There's a lot to do and it's not hard, just different than what you're used to. Just follow me around tomorrow, and you'll see how it all works."
_______________

The next day, after a big breakfast of buttermilk pancakes, maple flavored syrup, butter, and fried ham on the side, they were doing dishes.

"I've never eaten that much in my life," Taylor said. "It was so good. Food costs so much we never had anything like that after things got so expensive. You must be rich."

"We're not rich, but the food didn't cost us much. We raised the pig and butchered it ourselves, and we got the flour from Robert when he ground feed. Thad Wright has dairy cows, and we buy cream from him to make butter. The buttermilk is left over from churning butter. We give Thad some eggs for the cream, but he's got some chickens going now so when they start laying we'll find another wayto pay him. The flour is part of my wages for working at the hardware store. We don't use money any more than we have to."

"How can you live without money?"

"Like I've been telling you. We find other ways to get what we need. Sounds complicated, but it's not, really. We just trade around with the neighbors. You always lived in the city?"

"Yeah. I grew up in south Louisville."

"You'll get to see how it all works, but we should go shopping soon and get you a work coat, and you'll need some jeans, and boots. It gets muddy in the springtime."

"I don't have much money left."

"Not planning to spend much. We'll hit the garage sales and thrift shops. How about you come to work with me tomorrow, and we'll go out at lunchtime and after work? You can get better acquainted with the town and the folks we know, too. We take a lunch to work, so we don't spend money to eat."

"Okay. I don't know what else I'd be doing."

"There. Dishes are all put away. Let's go to the henhouse and then feed that new calf and the pigs."

Cindy stuck her revolver in her waistband holster and put on a ball cap and an old jacket.

"You carry a gun out here?"

"Everybody does now, since Erin got attacked. I guess you hadn't heard about that yet. Some guy came in their house to rob them and they tangled in the kitchen. Erin and Jake put an end to that."

"Erin? Who's Jake?"

"That old dog of Bill's. He mostly sleeps behind the stove and he's as sweet as they come, but he sure didn't like that man attacking Erin. Like to chewed his head off. Erin stuck the guy with a butcher knife and Jake finished him off."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. Maybe you should get better acquainted with Erin and talk to her some. C'mon in the henhouse. You'll get your shoes dirty, but it'll come off in the grass. You can gather the eggs while I get some feed for 'em and clean out the waterer."

Cindy handed her a basket as they went in and got a bucket of feed out of the barrel. "In the nests there. If there's a hen on the nest, just let her be. She's thinkin' about layin' an egg."
_______________

Bill said, "Looks like the weather might get ahead of me on gettin' my stuff ready to sell. It's warmin' up early."

Erin said, "Uh-huh. I need to get out in the garden and keep it weeded. The grass is coming up in the cold weather things I planted. You need some help with your things?"

"Now you don't worry about that. You've got enough to do."

"I was thinking about that girl Taylor that's stayin' with Cindy and Chad. She said she worked at a Quik Mart, so she's got some ambition. You might get some help there, if Cindy doesn't keep her too busy."

Bill said, "Worth askin', I guess. All she can do is say no. A girl might be good help there, knowin' what women look for when they buy something. Appearances, and all."
________________

The next day at lunch Cindy and Taylor were munching on sandwiches as they walked down the street.

"Thad said his girl Rachel has done pretty good at this garage sale place. Let's look in there," Cindy said.

There were clothes piled on tables in the garage and on an enclosed back porch. Rather than search too much, Cindy asked, "Do you have some work clothes that would fit her? Jeans and heavy shirts, and boots for farm work."

The woman led them to a table of clothes in her size, and pointed out the shoes and boots in the corner, then left them to pick out what they wanted.

Taylor waited until they were almost back to the hardware store and said, "I can't believe how cheap that stuff was!"

"They are one of the best according to Rachel," Cindy said. "I keep wondering where they get their things. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't looted from some empty houses, but there's no way to know."

"Empty houses?"

"A lot of people died last winter from not enough heat, not enough food, or who knows? But the people are gone and there are empty houses everywhere. The banks foreclosed on hundreds of them and people moved in with family, or somebody. Not many homeless people around that I know of, so somebody took 'em in."

"So banks own the empty ones?"

"Can't tell who owns what, because the banks went bust and are gone. I guess some bank somewhere owns them, but not around here. Some people think that if there's nobody there, it's fair game and they take what they want. People just moved out with what they could carry. Whatever was left is all trashed now, so people take what they want. The banks don't want old clothes. You might as well have it."

"I need to make some money. All I have is what you saw. The car, and some clothes, and now all I've got left is $72."

As they went back into the hardware store Cindy said, "Let me think about where you could work. There's no big rush."

________________


Chapter 60



Chad had stopped at his parent's home after work, determined to have 'the talk' as he thought of it. He didn't know an easy way. He screwed up his courage as best he could and went up the sidewalk.

Doris told Frank, "That's Chad's car. We have to tell him."

Frank Daulton said, "I never thought I'd see the day I had to ask my kids for help."

Chad came in the front door and said, "I've put it off too many times, so I have to tell you it's time you came out to stay with us. It just costs too much to live now for you to stay here."

That wasn't what his mother had been thinking. She was going to ask him to help them with food, since they grew and canned a lot. She didn't know what to say. Frank didn't have that problem. He knew there was a lot needed to be done to their house and he knew they couldn't afford it.

Frank said, "I guess I knew there would come a time, but I didn't think it would be this soon."

Doris was surprised at that from Frank, but she took her cue from him and said, "I hadn't thought about moving to your place. If we hadn't lost Frank's pension, we'd be okay. But you're right, it is hard now. We should have never borrowed money to buy a house this expensive."

Frank said, "The hell of it is, we owe more on it than it's worth. Crap. We owed more than it was worth right after we bought it. Now we couldn't sell it at any price."

Chad waited and listened. His mother said, "Frank, I've been telling you we need to just take our things and walk out. There's no reason to throw good money after bad into this place. it's my fault, because I wanted it so bad, but I was wrong. It cost too much. Let's just quit paying the damn mortgage and let the bank have it!"

Chad said, "We still have a big empty bedroom upstairs. You can have it any time you want it."

His mother asked, "Where will Taylor sleep?"

"She has the small room, the boys have the other big upstairs room, and Callie has the small bedroom downstairs. We're still in the front bedroom downstairs. I put the 1/2 bath between us and Callie, so there is the big bathroom everyone else. It'll work out."

Frank said, "There's a mortgage payment due now. I'm not going to pay it. Without that, we can pay our way with our Social Security and help you out some for staying there."

Chad suspected they didn't have much in the house to eat, so he said, "When do you want to do it? You want to come out for supper tonight? Cindy baked a ham and we've got food everywhere."

He knew he was right when his mother said, "That sounds good! Let's do that Frank. We can get our things later."
_______________

"I paid for those storm windows, so I'm not leaving them on the house. Do you have any use for 'em Chad?"

"I think we might. I have an idea they might make a fine greenhouse."

"There's the cheap ones that came on the house, too. They were going to throw them away, and I said no, put 'em in the basement. I never got around to selling them like I planned."

Chad smiled and said, "TWO sets! That would do it for sure! I can haul 'em on the way home from work. If you can get 'em taken down, I'll start tomorrow evening."

His Dad said, "Okay, I'll work on that tomorrow and haul home more of the things from the house in the car. I'll stay and help you load the windows."
________________

Doris' dining table with 8 chairs was big enough to seat everyone. Chad and his Dad took their old table and chairs to the barn loft for now. More furniture swapping was done, and more went to the barn loft.

Chad told Cindy, "I need to go see if Bill Evans might want our old furniture. He's got some kind of sale thing planned at that building he bought."

"Maybe you could trade him for something we need. We should go see what he has in there."

"You have something in mind to get from him?"

"I want a hand crank meat grinder that can stuff sausage, and a lard press. And I want to look at what he has. I might think of something else."
________________

[patience]

Chapter 61


Erin answered the phone and handed it off to Bill saying, "It's Cindy."

"I don't have a lot of room for furniture, but I can take some in trade," Bill said. "Whatcha got?"

Cindy said, "A dining room table and 6 chairs, a bedroom set, and some small tables."

"I'd be interested in the table and chairs, if you want to trade."

"That's what I had in mind. Are you going to be there today after we get home from work?"

"Sure thing."

"How about we bring the table and chairs down on the way in tomorrow morning, and we can stop on the way home to do the dickering?"

"Suits me. See ya in the morning then."
______________

Taylor rode to work with Cindy the next day to help with handling the furniture and to do more shopping in town during the day. She'd seen what was needed living out here and found some heavy socks and some gloves at a flea market. Back at the hardware store, she asked Cindy where she got her gun.

"Right here. There's some leftovers from the old days before guns laws that they didn't know what to do with. They were afraid to sell 'em after the registration thing got going and they just laid around for years."

"I want a gun. It's dangerous out here, too, so I want a pistol I can carry like you do."

"Lemme talk to Robert."

Cindy found Robert working on inventory in the office and said, "Taylor wants a handgun. You want to sell her one of those old ones?"

"Is she sensible?"

"I think so. She's got her head on straight."

"Let's go talk to her."
They made a trade for labor. Taylor would be doing the cleaning chores one day a week, for 6 weeks. In exchange, she got an old, but very good Smith and Wesson model 36, a very small 5 shot .38 caliber revolver, and 4 boxes of the lower velocity ammunition suited to it. It came with a clip on holster that she could slip inside her waistband. She was delighted with it. Robert threw in a small belt knife, a Schrade "Skinner" model that fit her small hands and was useful for many things.
_____________

Bill had looked over the table and chairs that day and thought it over. When the women returned he told Cindy, "I'll allow you $200 in trade for the dining table set. You pick out what you want."

He found a lard press that was in pretty good shape, but needed a coat of paint, and a good Chinese made meat grinder. Bill said he would trade even, if they took the things as-is.

"I haven't had time to clean up everything. I could use some help doing that."

"I can refinish furniture," Taylor said. "My mother and I did all the furniture we had. She used to buy things and fix them up and sell them to make extra money. I had a different bedroom suite at least once a month for ages. As soon as we got one refinished, she'd sell it and get another old one."

Bill asked, "You want to do some more of that?"

"Yeah! I need a job."

"I can't pay much, but I can get you some good deals on whatever I have here, if that helps," Bill said. "How about you come over with Cindy in the morning and we'll see how it works out?"

"Okay! I'll be here!"

Chad picked them up and on the way home Taylor said, "I can fix up that black thing."

"The lard press?"

"What ever it is. It just needs the rust sanded off and painted."

"Need to clean the rust off the gears, too, and smear some lard on them. That will stop rust and if some gets in the food, it won't hurt anything," Cindy said. "That's how Mom kept her's in shape. So when you get the rust out of the inside, don't paint it in there, just grease it."

Chad said, "I've got some black paint somewhere. I need to organize my workshop, but I haven't had time."

"Maybe I can do that," Taylor said. "I worked around Dad's shop a lot. But you'll have to tell me how you want it, or you'll never find anything."

"You might be real handy to have around," Chad said.

"Who's that in the driveway," Cindy asked.

She heard a pop from the house and saw somebody run into the cedar trees on the far side.

Taylor had her gun in her hand before the car got stopped.
_________________



Chapter 62


Chad reached under the seat for his pistol and Cindy had her .38 in hand when the car slid to a stop. The man had disappeared beyond the row of trees by the driveway. As Frank came around the house with a rifle, they all heard a car start some distance down the road. Frank went to the road and looked, then laid the heavy rifle atop a fence post. It barked and they heard a car crash into the ditch.

Chad got back in the car and Frank joined him. Frank couldn't get the car door shut until Chad had backed out of the driveway and started forward, when the door slammed shut. Frank had his .45 in his hand then, the rifle barrel pointed at the floor. Chad's pistol was in his hand, steering with one hand when they got to the car in the ditch. It was leaning hard to one side, making it hard for the driver to get his door open. Chad drove his bumper straight into the door to hold it shut.

"HANDS UP!" Frank shouted at the driver again, "HANDS UP NOW!" He emphasized that with a shot in the air.

Hands went up as Frank approached from his side, gun at the ready in a 2 hand grip. A young man was sitting in the driver's seat yelling, "DON'T SHOOT! DON'T SHOOT!"

Frank got to the open back window and said, "DON'T MOVE!"

Chad backed his car up a few feet, got where he could yank the door open and told the young man to get out slowly. He did with some difficulty, holding his hands up. Chad moved back where he was near his Dad and said, "LAY DOWN IN THE ROAD!"

The young man laid down, showing that the seat of his pants was wet.

Frank moved up close to him and said, "Is there any good reason I shouldn't shoot you right now?"

The young man, hardly more than a teenager, was crying.
________________

At the house, the young man was sitting in the yard with his hands tied behind him around a fence post. The Sheriff drove in with a deputy and appraised the situation. Frank and Chad were sitting on lawn chairs a few feet from the young man. There were no guns in evidence.

"What's going on here?"

"Like I told you on the phone," Frank said, "this kid came in the house with a gun and grabbed the TV and started out the door with it. I grabbed his gun, he dropped the TV and ran out the door. I got my rifle and followed him. He ran to his car out there by the road and drove toward me at a high rate of speed. I shot out his front tire and he landed in the ditch. We tied him up and called you. His gun is layin' in the kitchen floor where he dropped it."

"You should'na shot his car," the Sheriff said.

"I shoulda let him get away so he could try it again?"

"That's what the law says. There may be what we call mitigating circumstances for you. Not for him."

The Sheriff looked at the young guy and said, "You're damned lucky he shot the car instead of you."

"He tried to kill me! He shot at me!"

"If I was shootin' at you, you'd be DEAD, $hithead! I've been a contender at Camp Perry rifle matches most of my adult life. I hit what I shoot at."

Looking at the Sheriff, Frank said, "You'll find I hit the passenger side front wheel, not the tire. The bullet would exit through the tire. Shooting the wheel made it go flat faster than hitting the rubber. I wanted him stopped, and it stopped him."

"You were within your rights when he was on your property, but when he was on the road, you weren't defending your property," the Sheriff said.

"Go look at the road," Chad said. "That is the driveway into our barnlot he was on, not a public road."

The Sheriff looked at the road, which indeed looked like the county gravel road, but was in fact like Chad said. The county road made a square turn at that point. The car was still in Chad's barnlot. There was a county road sign with an cautionary arrow alerting drivers to the sharp turn.

The Sheriff scratched his chin and said, "I don't know how this will come out yet. I'm taking this kid in and charging him with armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, destruction of property and anything else I can think of. You could be charged with several things, but I doubt if that happens. Just in case, you better stay where we can find you. For your information, what you did was make a citizen's arrest and held the suspect until I could take him into custody."

"We're not going anywhere, Sheriff," Frank said. "We live here."

"Deputy, put that kid in cuffs, get him in the car and make sure he stays there." To Frank and Chad, he said, "Let's go in the house and take your statements."

After the statements had been written to the Sheriff's satisfaction, he said, "My deputy will be witnessing your signatures. Before we go out and do that, you need to know that I'm bending a few things here in your favor because I know that kid and he's been a thorn in our side for a long time. You were really pushing the limit with what you did, so don't do any more stunts like this. Frank, you're lucky that I also shot at Camp Perry and I recognize you from there. You beat me more than once, so I know what you said to be a fact. Still, that could easily be called an unjustifiable assault."

Frank said, "I'll have to take your word for that. I thought he was committing a felony leaving the scene."

"No. He committed a felony in the house, a couple of 'em. I could stop him outside that way, but only because I'm law enforcement. You as a citizen can't do that. More's the pity, but I don't make the laws. You were in the wrong. I have some leeway in enforcing the law, so be grateful for that and don't overdo it from now on, okay?"

"Yes sir," Frank said.

"If the matter ever comes up again, you were in fear for your life when he was driving at you, okay?"

"Yes sir, I was."

"Now, let's get these statements signed and witnessed. Saves you a trip to town where you might say something wrong. Keep your mouth shut about this."
________________

Camp Perry Rifle Matches: competitions.nra.org/championship-tournament/national-matches-at-camp-perry-ohio.aspx

[patience]

Chapter 63



"That kid wasn't so tough when it didn't go his way," Chad said. "He peed his pants and was crying from the time we got him outa the car."

"He mighta been scared enough to pee his pants, but he was crying because I broke his finger when I took that pistol away from him," Frank said. "That's why he dropped the TV. Notice the Sheriff handled the kid's gun so's not to disturb any fingerprints? He wants to charge him with assault with a deadly weapon and make it stick. I'm damn glad the Sheriff is on our side here. He coulda locked me up for a long time. I won't make that mistake again."

Chad said, "I would've done the same thing Dad."

"Maybe so, but you gotta be SURE you're within you're rights, or you'll be in as much trouble as the real criminal."

Chad said, "Looks like all those trips to Camp Perry paid off. I'm glad you're a good shot with that '06."

Frank said, "I'm glad your mother was upstairs taking a nap."

Chad reflected that he was glad his Dad was a big man and still strong enough to take that pistol away from the kid.

The newspaper reported that the young man was also charged with possession of drugs and precursors for making methamphetamines. Other arrests had been made in the case regarding a meth lab. Frank read that and said, "I thought his eyes looked funny."

The Sheriff was getting kudos from the State Police for helping them bust the biggest meth lab they had found in years. The State was taking over the drug case with his help and had made several arrests. Attention had focused on the drug aspect and interest in the robbery attempt faded into the background. Frank was called to testify about the robbery before a friendly prosecutor. The defense lawyer was a public defender whose main interest was getting the kid to cop a guilty plea and testify against other defendants for a sentence reduction. No further inquiry was made into the attempted robbery.

Frank was relieved when he read about the kid pleading guilty to the robbery and assault charges. He knew enough about the law to know that meant the kid could not appeal his conviction, it was the end of Frank's possible liability in court. Now he could concentrate on helping make Chad's place help support them all. He wasn't that great a carpenter, but Chad was, and they needed to get to work on building that greenhouse.
______________

Thad was doing some figuring on his farm budget for the coming year. If they had a decent crop year, things might work out all right. He wanted to plant at least 2 acres of Great Northern beans, an acre of tobacco, and expand his cream sales. If he got more hogs this year, he could feed them the skim milk after the cream was separated from it and get some of the best quality pork. There was enough help on the farm to do all that, he thought, but he'd have to hire some help for the hand work of hoeing the beans and the tobacco.

This Spring he planned to get into cutting firewood for sale next Fall. It would be in demand because of the high cost of fuel oil, propane gas, and electricity. Thad had about 60 acres of timberland that was too swampy to clear for farming, so he would leave it in timber and cut the mature trees only, so it would grow and replenish as fast as he used it. He thought that would be around a cord per acre every year, but that included any timber cut for logs to make lumber, too. He figured he could cut 40 cords a year to sell. He needed a new wood splitter, because his old one was about shot.

The government farm programs were pretty much all a thing of the past now, so Thad was thinking back to how he and his father had farmed before all that existed. The idea that his father had taught him was to have something to sell every week of the year. It could be done, if you thought about it and planned it right. He'd seen his Dad do it, but it was a lot of work.

He made a list of things to sell, some of it depending on being able to get Health Department approval.
Milk, cream, butter, buttermilk.
Dry beans
Tobacco
Firewood
Eggs
Sweet corn
Grains, winter wheat and corn, ground into flour and cornmeal.
Cured pork and lard
Beef calves

Thad realized he had a lot to do and a short time to do it. He began to write down his plans. When he had it figured out, he wanted Jim to understand it all. Thad was feeling old, and he knew he wasn't going to last forever. Somebody would have to be able to take his place someday.
_______________



Chapter 64 April, 2017


It had been a lot of work in a short time to get the greenhouse built. Chad had taken advantage of one old chicken house by removing the roof and using the old rafters to make the south-sloping part that was covered with the storm windows his Dad contributed. There were enough windows to cover the entire 24 foot length of the building in 2 rows, so the sloping glass was 8 feet high and have some spares in case some windows got broken. Another old shed had been torn down with the kids' help to make a double row of plant growing shelves. Cindy had been saving plastic containers and begging them from everyone she knew to use for growing pots. She and the kids had dug dirt for potting soil from the old barn stalls and mixed it with some from the barnyard that was rich in nutrients.

The old chicken house had been well built with tongue and groove siding that made it easy to heat, but some heat was needed. Chad bought a small cast iron wood stove from Bill Evans and ran a stove pipe out the roof. Cindy had planted seeds long before the greenhouse was finished, keeping them in the house until they sprouted. The seedlings were an inch tall by the time the greenhouse was ready. She had hundreds of tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli growing, and a few eggplant and cucumbers. Andrew, at 16 years old was growing fast and nearly 6 feet tall, so he got carry water and tend the top shelf of plants. Cassie and Kyle learned which seedlings were vegetables and which were weeds that needed to be pulled out. Kyle filled the big pan of water on the wood stove to keep the air moist. Cindy and the kids took turns keeping the plants sprinkled with water twice a day. Frank kept the little wood stove stoked during the day and monitored the temperature in the greenhouse, sometimes opening windows on warm sunny days. The plants were growing fast.
______________

Thad had burned a long brush pile as big as a bus along the edge of a field and lined the sides of the rectangular are with logs. Jim, the boys, and Rachel all got into the act to rake the ashes into the dirt, sow tobacco seeds, and cover it all with cheesecloth he had bought in bulk rolls. Stakes with wires strung over them supported the covering in the center. By The middle of April, tobacco seedlings had sprouted and were growing thick as the Spring rains came.
______________

Erin had garden seedlings started in egg cartons sitting in the kitchen double window sill out of William's reach. It was a handy place because the window faced south and it was easy to remember to water them. Soon they were outgrowing the egg cartons, so she used whatever containers she could find to transplant them. Other window sills got filled with the larger pots. It was still too cold out for tomatoes and peppers, even though she had onions, cabbage, and broccoli growing in the garden, along with some wintered over beets and spinach she was letting grow for seed this year. She had saved seeds from their sweet corn, melons, squash, cucumbers, popcorn, green beans, and dry beans last year, but it was too early to plant those outside yet.
______________

The city government was functioning to a degree after merging with the County Government, but there were only 2 council members left, plus the Mayor to make decisions and try to get them implemented. Wendell Stark was paid for his work monitoring the county landfill, but the Councilman positions were purely volunteer jobs. There was no city trash pickup because they could neither afford to fix the garbage truck nor provide fuel and a driver for it. The Sheriff and one deputy were deemed more important to have than other county services, including road maintenance which was cut to the bone with only one part time truck driver. The city Fire Department was now all volunteers, and the sewage plant was manned for 2 hours each morning and evening.


Arlen Hamilton had been a County Councilman before the cutbacks. He continued acting as a councilman, unpaid for all those long and arduous meeting sessions. Arlen had retired from his day job as Vice President of a local bank the year before things began to fall apart. He'd had a nice pension from the bank until it first merged with other banks, then failed completely. Since then, Social Security had been his only income besides the Councilman position. Then the City and County governments had merged in a desperate attempt to maintain some semblance of local government, cutting 60% of their joint employees at the same time. Arlen's wife had to pressure her brother to hire her for office work at his stone quarry business to make ends meet, but his business had fallen off dramatically as the county ordered far less stone for road repairs. Her working hours were cut to half days. Arlen was looking for ways to economize, since earning more wasn't likely.
______________

Robert knew the County government was broke, but he saw new evidence of it on the way to work. The last functioning stop light was gone, replaced by a standard stop sign at the intersection of Main and Oak Streets. He thought it was no great inconvenience, because the traffic was so light there was seldom more than one car at any intersection. Still, it was one more depressing thing to notice. He had been paying attention to the number of deserted houses on their way in town after Carol commented that she saw another one deserted where kids had been playing last week.

Carol said, "It makes me sad to see our town falling apart. Those houses used to be so pretty along the the drive into town. A lot of them are well over 100 years old and were still really nice."

Cindy said, "Seems to me that they just don't fit anymore. Nobody can afford to keep them up, and people are having to live together to make it, so we don't need as many houses. At least not that big."

As they pulled into the parking lot, Robert said, "There's going to be more changes if things don't get better soon. Half the store buildings in town are empty, or being used for storage, or for a place to live. The rest of them are going to fall apart if nobody takes care of them."

Cindy said, "I wonder what will happen to the strip mall by the highway. The tractor store is the only thing left there and they don't have much."

Once inside, Robert turned on lights and said, "I don't know who owns that, but I bet they would take a lot less for rent now. It was the high rent there that killed all those stores. They thought they had to have that highway location, but it takes a lot of sales to support a store there. The fact that we own our building is a big part of why we are still in business. Same with Bark's Drugs next to us. The old man that started it got the building paid for so his kids can make a profit with low sales. The commercial buildings that are empty were mortgaged by banks and the owners got foreclosed when their renters left. It's hard to tell who owns them now."

It was chilly in the store so Carol started to build a fire in the wood stove. She frowned and said, "All of downtown looks like a ghost town with all those empty stores. I'm surprised that somebody's not trying to live in them."

"There's too many empty houses for squatters. They don't need to live in the old stores," Cindy said. "Chad's parents hurried to get all their stuff out of their house before somebody broke in and took them. People will steal anything that's not nailed down. Frank wasn't going to take anything off the house, but Doris told him somebody would steal the doors and carpet and anything they could, so they might as well have it as them. Frank took the storm doors and used them on our greenhouse. He took out some carpet to put in the upstairs bedrooms and got the laundry sink, too. That bank in New York will never know who took the stuff."

"Once this all started, things sure went downhill fast," Carol said. "I don't think the town will ever be the same again."
________________

[patience]

Chapter 65


Erin was busy setting broccoli plants in the garden with William crawling around in the dirt nearby. Jake had found a place in the sunshine and settled down to watch. Erin looked up as the dog growled low in his throat. She automatically put her hand on her gun as she jerked her head around to see what had him riled. Rachel was walking up the driveway, so she relaxed and told Jake it was okay.

"What brings you down here?"

"I was on the way back from taking cream to the corner store and just stopped to say hi."

"Everybody okay at Thad's?"

"Yeah. Thad's gettin' old, and I can tell he's slowin' down a lot this year."

"How old is he?"

"Jim said he'd be 74 this year. He tries to do too much for a man that old," Rachel said.

"You'll never convince him of that. He'll die with his boots on, still trying to run the farm."

"I know, and Jim knows it, too. He said he's been pickin' his Dad's brain every way he can. He wants to learn all he can from him, and said he thought maybe he could get his Dad to slow down that way, and just supervise. It's kinda workin' a little. Or maybe Thad's just tires out sooner now. I'll sure miss him when he's gone."

"Everybody will," Erin said.

"Yeah, but I owe him so much. He saved me from a really bad time."

"You doin' pretty good now?"

"Oh yeah. I got my old car fixed up with a set of good used tires, and a new battery and Justin's been doin' all kinds of things to it. That boy tries so hard to please."

"He worships the ground you walk on. You know that don't you?"

Rachel looked at the ground and said, "I know, and I just don't see him as anything but a boy. He's growin' up in a lot of ways, but he's such a city kid, y'know?"

"Could be a lot worse," Erin said. "Give him a chance and see how it goes."

"I suppose I will. I just don't want to encourage him when I don't see us workin' out. That ain't right. An' I think he's just in rut like the rest of the young bucks, an' he don't really know I'm just a plain country girl."

"I think that's what he likes about you. Don't call yourself plain, either. If you ever decided to dress the part, you'd be a knockout," Erin told her. "If you decide you'd like to try it, come down some time and we'll play dress up, okay? Be careful, though, or you'll have his tongue hanging out."

Rachel made a dismissive noise that was betrayed by her self conscious smile and said, "I better go. Got lots to do."

Jake gave her a smile as she left.
_____________

Frank Daulton was happy, for the first time in a long time. He enjoyed raising plants, he'd gotten rid of that white elephant of a house that had kept him broke, and his wife seemed to be happy cooking for their son's clan. The grandkids were a joy to be around, and Cindy was a sweetheart. He thought Chad had picked another good one. He left the greenhouse and when he got to the back door he smelled apple pie.

Nick was coming in from feeding the chickens and carrying a basket of eggs. He saw his grandfather go inside, but he didn't see Andy anywhere and wondered what he was doing until he saw him coming out of the smokehouse with a ham. That would be good for breakfast, he thought, and his mouth began to water. Maybe he could talk Grandma into making pancakes and ham for breakfast. His Mom and Dad drove in, so Nick waved with his free hand and took the eggs inside. He couldn't wait for school to be out for the summer. He liked being at home a lot more.

Cindy and Chad had stayed to talk to Erin for few minutes, so they were a bit late getting home. Cindy thought to herself that it was nice to have Frank and Doris here so she didn't have to worry about the kids at all. Doris and Taylor would have supper ready soon, too. That was a load off her mind after a long day at work.

Chad said, "I need to get the rest of the garden tilled up and that old tiller is about shot. I don't know if it will do the job or not."

"Talk to Robert, or his Dad. They can bring their tractor down and do that quick. It's not that far for them to drive the tractor."

"Maybe I will. We need more garden space this year, and that would make it easy. I got manure on the ground, but the grass is growing there and it will be a job to deal with that."
______________

Bill Evans and Taylor had been busy cleaning, polishing, oiling, and painting Bill's collection of 'antiques' as he called them. They weren't halfway through the pile yet, but there was enough to start selling, he thought. It looked like the weather was finally clearing up, so he thought it was time to call the newspaper and put an ad in it. He'd made arrangements to put a sign up at the corner store to direct people down their road, but he still had to make the sign.

The shed roof where the machine shop had stored heavy steel was filled with livestock equipment. He had chicken nests, feeders and waterers, rabbit cages and feeders, metal pig troughs, rolls of good fencing, used steel fence posts, and one small trailer with stock racks on it. Inside he had cream separators, both the old gravity kind that you added cold water to the milk, and two of the centrifugal kind you had to crank. They were old, but in very good shape.

Taylor had refinished a couple very nice pieces, a beautiful roll top desk, and a Hoosier kitchen cupboard, complete with flour sifter and pull out work top. She had touched up the dings on the oak dining table and chairs they got from Chad and Cindy, too. Then she'd gone to work on two wringer washing machines, several rinse tubs, and four treadle sewing machines. He did the lubrication and minor mechanical work, replacing hoses and other parts. They had scrubbed a lot of kitchen utensils to a shine and had them arranged in boxes and trays for display. The building had been cleaned from top to bottom, and the doors kept shut to keep the dust out. As soon as he could get a couple signs made, he would be in business. They had spent one entire day pricing and tagging items for sale. Bill smiled as he walked to the house, satisfied he would make good on his investment.

When Erin got a good look at what Bill had for sale, she got busy with her sewing machine and made some embroidered dish towels cut down from old bath towels she'd found at garage sales in town. She planned to sell whatever excess garden produce and eggs they had there, too. She dug out her old jewelry displays and set up some of those on tables, then told Bill they needed a sign that said "All Trade Offers Considered".
_____________


Chapter 66 May, 2017


Bill had accumulated a lot of leftover parts after fixing up washing machines, sewing machines, old crank powered tools for shop and kitchen, and garden implements. He had thrown them all in a barrel to save in case he needed something. The first day he opened his second hand store, that barrel got a lot of attention, so he put a couple sawhorses out with boards on top and spread the stuff out where people could see it, and sold a fair amount it.

Cindy sold a lot of tomato, cabbage, and pepper plants, and several dozen eggs. Taylor had been cherry picking the garage sales in town and selected the best of the leather goods she found. Erin sold a few pieces of jewelry and all the dish towel she had that first Saturday. Coats, jackets, purses, and belts sold well after she cleaned them up and made minor repairs. Bill found that having his items clean and in good repair made them sell fast. People had seen enough of old things that didn't work, and needed useful things. Appearances made a big difference, too.

Bill sold one wringer washing machine with rinse tubs for cash, and traded another set for 6 feeder pigs. Both went to people who had their electricity shut off and were living with a small generator. The washing could be done in the wringer machines in an hour for 4 loads, compared to an hour per load for their old automatic washers. It saved a lot of fuel, and a lot of water, as well. That was important to people who had to hand pump water from a well or cistern. Bill sold a couple hand well pumps, too.

Erin thought about the laundry thing and began to collect 5 gallon buckets. Robert picked up a truckload of them for her from the grocer, who was getting bulk food items in them and repackaging them in baggies for sale. Erin had the grocer order some things for her and put together kits to make laundry soap. The next Saturday she sold 5 kits and the word began to spread that the stuff worked and was dirt cheap to use. To get people used to the idea, she mixed up a batch and gave away samples to try. Invariably, the ones who tried her samples came back the next week and bought a kit to make their own laundry soap. She decided that bleach was the logical next item, and bought a bucket of pool chlorine powder. That was sold in small baggies that would make 5 gallons of bleach. They sold like hotcakes.

The third week they were open, Marty Shoemaker, the grocer, came out to see what all the talk was about. He ended up buying the refinished oak dining table and chairs, trading Bill for credit at his grocery which suited Bill very well. Business was pretty brisk. Bill saw he would need more stock soon, and began to think about how to get it. He traded for more items and put Taylor to work getting them ready for sale. She was taking her pay in certain items she wanted and had collected enough that she begged the use of an old shed on Chad's place to store them, but the sewing machine she put in her bedroom.
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Toward the end of the month Thad and Jim had planted 2 1/2 acres of Great Northern beans, and had an acre of tobacco plants set out. The garden spot was over an acre now, with rows marked off with the corn planter and fertilizer sown when he did that. As soon as they had corn planted, they mounted the corn cultivators on the small tractor to keep all the row crops weed free. They did some hoeing, but only in the rows where the cultivators could not reach to dig out the weeds.

Rachel had sent some time at Bill's Trading Post, as he called it, and got herself a sewing machine, some wash tubs and a scrub board. She learned from Erin how to make laundry soap and did that herself. Justin had gone with her shopping there and came home with some mechanic's and carpenter's hand tools. He had been talking to his Dad about where he could build a house of his own on the farm, and they had chosen a location. Justin would soon turn 21 years old and he wanted a place of his own.
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Chad was late. Cindy waited at Robert and Erin's house for half an hour, then called the electric company office. They hadn't heard a word from him for two hours. The last they knew, he had gone to check a power outage in the south end of the county. It was very hilly down there and cell phone coverage was spotty at best. The boss wasn't too worried about him yet, but said that if he didn't call in soon, he'd have to go look for him, since there was nobody else in the office.

Cindy called home and told Doris what was going on and not to wait supper on them. Doris got frantic at the news, but Frank got on the line and said he would calm her down.

Erin told Cindy, "You need to stay here until we know what is going on so everybody knows where to find you."

"It's hard to just sit here and wait without knowing anything. I worry about him every day. He's supposed to have a partner when he goes out on a service call, but they laid him off. It's a violation of safety procedures, but Chad said he'd be okay. Now I wonder if he got hurt or killed because they're too cheap to follow safety laws."

Robert said, "Don't borrow trouble ahead of time. He's probably all right, just working late and can't call out from there."

It was 2 hours later when Chad called from his cell phone to assure Cindy he was okay. When he drove in, Cindy ran to meet him. A sober faced Chad shared the story with them all.

"I was a simple service call, really, to replace a fuse link on a transformer. I parked the truck and set the outriggers before I got in the bucket and raised it to working height. I got the fuse link replaced and moved the valve handle to let the bucket down, but it locked up. It had been acting funny and I told the boss to get a new valve for it, but he said he didn't have the money in the maintenance budget. Well, it quit this time and I was stuck up there."

"I climbed down the boom and got to the ground, but the people had no phone and my cell didn't have service. I couldn't move the truck with the boom in the air because it is too top heavy without the outriggers. The boom was up high enough to hit power lines anyway, so I couldn't drive it out of there. The old couple didn't have a car and depended on their son next door to go places, and he wasn't home."

"I could either wait for my boss to come looking for me, since he knew where I went last, or start walking. I decided to stay put, because of the truck being unsafe the way it was. If anything went wrong with the outriggers, it would be dangerous on that hillside. Mike finally showed up, an hour after quitting time. We had a serious talk on the way back to town."

Cindy said, "Wait till I get hold of him!"

"Oh, he knows how this is gonna work. I made sure of that. Before I go out in that truck again, it will have a lot of work done."

Bill asked, "What happened to the truck? Is the boom still up in the air?"

"Yep. It was getting too late to work on it tonight, so we strung out the caution tape and told everyone to leave it alone until we get back tomorrow. They'll take the service truck down and bleed the hydraulic line to get the bucket down and then they'll have to fix that valve where it sits because they can't move it on the road with the boom extended."

"I bet Mike is gonna be in hot water over this," Cindy said. "He deserves it."

Chad shrugged and said, "He can't spend what he doesn't have, but he shouldn't have sent me out knowing the truck was messed up."
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[patience]

Chapter 67


It was four days before the necessary parts were available, and another day before the maintenance man got the truck repaired. Chad lost a week's pay, and was not happy about it. He was even more upset when the mechanic told him that their other bucket truck had a new lift bucket on it, but the engine had blown a head gasket. The boss wouldn't pay him to fix the engine when they had another truck that still ran. He walked over to his truck and looked over the hydraulic lines. There were four hoses that looked dry and cracked. If one of them blew, the bucket could fall with Chad in it. He knew that hydraulic hoses were supposed to be changed after a certain period of time on overhead lift equipment. Chad went into the office mad enough to bite nails and spit out tacks.

"The maintenance guy ratted you out. That other truck has a good bucket on it. It also has a blown head gasket that he can fix with about 40 bucks worth of gaskets. You just paid $1,400 for a new valve on my old truck and it burns oil like a furnace! I'd like to hear how you came to those decisions that risked my neck before I decide I don't need this job!"

"It was the best answer at the time," Mike said. "I had to keep a truck on the road, and you know it. I have to live with a maintenance budget!"

"Yeah, and I have to live with a crappy truck that can get me killed! One screw-up with that bucket and I hit a high voltage line and you'll be looking for a new lineman AND a new truck!"

Mike was thinking how he could make the maintenance man's life miserable for running his mouth. He was catching hell from the home office about expenses today for the valve cost and why he didn't have the part on hand. He was in no mood to listen to any crap from a lowly lineman.

He remembered the last men he'd laid off, and told Chad, "I don't have to listen to your mouth and I'm not going to! There are three guys laid off that would LOVE to have your job, so if you don't like it, get out of here!"

The phone rang and Mike answered it. As soon as he wrote down the outage they were reporting and hung up, the phone rang again before Chad could say anything. It was a report of a lightening strike at a small factory in the north end of the county and sounded like a tranformer got taken out. There had been three service calls on his list before these calls came in. He made his notes and swiveled his chair to see Chad going out the door.

Mike yelled at him and said, "Where are you going? I've got 5 outages to fix and one is probably a transformer!"

Chad was mad all the way through. He said quietly, "You told me that if I didn't like this job I should leave. Well, I don't like it and I don't like you, so I'm leaving. Good luck with your outages."

Chad went out and slammed the door hard.

Mike reevaluated his position quickly and ran to the door, yelling at Chad, "You get back here! You've got work to do!"

Chad flipped him the bird and kept walking toward his car. Mike chased him and caught up as Chad closed the car door.

Mike said, "You can't just walk out! Jobs are hard to find! You leave now and you don't have a job!"

Chad debated with himself about getting out of the car and stomping Mike into the parking lot. He decided against it and said, "Get out of the way Mike. I'm going home. I've got plenty of work to do there."

Chad carefully backed out of the parking space and left Mike standing there as he drove out to the street. He drove to the parking lot in the strip mall half a mile away, parked, and grabbed at his cell phone. He had numbers for the linemen he used to work with on his phone and began making calls. He stuck to the facts and told all three men exactly what had happened. He finished the last call and smiled as he drove toward home. They all three had jobs and were getting by. Al Hardwick had been his old partner. He worked at the factory that had the power out at the moment. Al told him they had a government contract to fill and couldn't stand much downtime.

Chad stopped on the way home to talk to Bill Evans about some feeder cattle he'd heard about for sale or trade, then went to see Thad and Jim Wright about hay and grain. Chad got home in time for lunch, surprising his parents. He told them he planned to have a cattle feedlot going inside of a week. Chad wasn't too concerned about quitting his job. He had enough money saved to get by for a year or more, and they had plenty of everything they needed to get along. He couldn't say the same for Mike Summers, but then, he didn't really care what happened to him.
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Bill Evans wondered what Chad was doing home at this time of day, but he didn't ask. He'd said he'd be back to pick up Cindy at the regular time, so Bill let it go. When he'd inquired about the cattle, Bill got the idea that Chad planned to buy them and feed them out for market. Bill had seen determined looks like that before, and it occurred to him that Chad was more upset about the trouble at his job than he had let on before. Surely he wouldn't quit a good job like that, would he?
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Thad was glad to hear that Chad was in the market for some corn and hay. It would help his cash flow at the moment, and he had more than he needed after downsizing his milking herd. He had agreed to deliver the hay a wagon load at a time as he needed it. That made it easier than trying to do it all at once, since the Spring rush was on and they had a lot to do at home.
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The plant manager was furious when he was told there would be a delay getting the transformer replaced. It was a small town, after all, so he knew Al Hardwick had once worked for the electric company and might have some answers. Al told him exactly what was going on, and gave him the phone number for the power company's home office.

Two hours later, Chad got a call at home from the home office asking him if he would consider taking the position as branch manager? Chad told him yes, with conditions. He wanted to be briefed on the budget situation and he wanted control over who he hired. The district manager told him he would have what he wanted, but he had to make some things happen fast. There was some hurried discussion about salary before Chad agreed and said he'd get to work today. Chad told his parents he might be late tonight, so Frank agreed to go pick up Cindy that afternoon.

Chad hurried to work and got busy. There was lot to do. On the way in he had decided to go ahead with the feeder cattle deal. His boys needed something to do for the summer and his Dad could help.
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Chad called all the laid off linemen and offered them their jobs back. He had learned that Mike Summers had been cutting spending to try to make himself look good vying for a promotion to upper management. There was plenty of budget money to keep all the linemen and do what was needed. Al Hardwick elected to stay at the factory, in consideration of his age and the hard outdoor life of a lineman. Chad was able to hire back the other two, and one of them gave him a name of a guy in the next county to hire. Chad and one man replaced the factory transformer late that night. Two men were sent out in Chad's old truck to take care of other problems the next day, while the new third man helped the mechanic work on the truck engine.

A week later, Chad had his old truck in decent repair, and two pairs of linemen to operate the two trucks. He ordered a lot of parts and the repair response time dropped immediately. At the end of a month, the district manager gave him his first bonus for good performance.

Chad learned that there would be an audit of the branch, and pending the results of that, Mike Summers could be in a lot of trouble.
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Chapter 68 June, 2017


Crops were growing nicely along the county road as Chad drove in early to work. He had learned that the district office had suspicions about the drastically lower spending at his branch, so they had been looking into it. Further investigation this past month had found discrepancies in the accounting and payments to bogus suppliers. Parts that had been invoiced and paid for were not in stock at the branch. Many irregularities came to the surface that resulted in a warrant for the arrest of one Michael E. Summers, but he was nowhere to be found. An investigation by the Sheriff's office was still ongoing into his whereabouts.

Chad felt like he was lucky to have such a good crew, and did his best to show it. There wasn't much he could do to get them raises beyond what the company had budgetted, but he did what he could with petty cash and the maintenance budget to provide some perks with a new coffee machine and pastries available in the break room. He did his best at scheduling to get people time off when they needed it and make it up later without losing pay. His men had done their best to tell him when something needed attention so he could schedule equipment repairs and order parts in a timely manner. His reliablility report was looking steadily better, despite overall budget cuts due to a lesser amount of power sold in the branch compared to years past. His costs per megawatt sold were down slightly. When the district manager asked him about that, he attributed it to preventative maintenance and a good crew.
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Taylor had made some trades when Bill went in to lunch and thought she did pretty well. One customer had wanted an old drill press that was crank operated and some blacksmith tools. They were tagged and priced, so she looked over the trailer full of things the man had to trade and got most of it in trade. There was some furniture and a lot of good used clothing. She had a pretty good idea what it was worth and hoped Bill would be satisfied with the deal.

A woman came in with a cage full of young chickens and wanted look at shoes. She directed her to the area and went talk to other people. She took a set of nice German made kitchen knives in trade for a twin bed and mattress that didn't match anything else they had. She thought that trade was about even, but the advantage was getting more room for other goods.

When Bill got back she didn't have time to talk to him about it because there were many other customers waiting. They stayed busy until about 4:00 o'clock when the crowd pretty much left all at once, obviously trying to get home in time to feed people and livestock. Bill looked over the take for the day and told her with a smile that she was making a pretty good horse trader. Taylor beamed at him and said, "I learned from the best."

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Jim Wright went to the tractor shed to call his Dad for lunch and found him sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall beside the cultivator he'd been adjusting.

"Dad? Time for lunch. Dad?"

Jim went over to him and saw his eyes were glassy looking and his breathing was shallow.

"Dad! Are you all right?"

Thad's eyes moved his direction but that was all. Jim quickly go down on one knee and moved in close to Thad who was saying something softly. He barely heard the whispered words.

"It's yours now. You c'n do it. Yer a good boy..."

Thad let out a soft sigh and didn't breathe in again. His head slumped over to one side. Jim caught him before he fell over.
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Two weeks later, Rachel stopped by the Evan's place like she often did on her way back from delivering milk and cream to the store.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard it," Rachel told Erin.

"What's that?"

"Thad's Will! Ever'body was surprised! He'd made a will last month and didn't tell anyone except Jim. Well, the important thing was, Thad had put the farm as a business in an irrevocable Trust, and that somehow meant that there wouldn't be any inheritance taxes, or going to court or anything. He did that a long time ago. But he had control of all of it as long as he lived, so he made a Will and told the Trust what to do with it all when he died."

"I suppose Jim and his family got it all, right?"

"Well, no-o-o. Jim got the most of it, but he left the two boys each 80 acres of their own and said exactly what part they get. The surprise for me was that he left ME 40 acres! And, he left me some money, but it's gold and silver coins. He had quite a lot of them and most of it went to the family, but imagine him leaving that to ME! God Bless him, he treated me better than anybody ever did."

Rachel wiped tears from her cheeks and said, "He was a real Dad to me. Lots better'n MY Dad ever was. I miss him so much!"

"We all loved him," Erin said.

"It made me feel like a real person. I feel so different. Like I don't have to be a nobody."

"You're a property owner now. You could build a house and live in it, or rent the ground to somebody, or whatever you want to do with it."

"It's not just that. My part is right next to Justin's part."

Erin grinned from ear to ear. "Thad was a smart old devil, wasn't he?"

Rachel said, "Yeah, he was smart. Now I feel like I can say yes."

"Justin?"

"Yeah. He's been askin' me to marry him since back in the winter, and I kept puttin' him off. Maybe it's that I just felt like I didn't have anything and marryin' him would make ever'body think I was just after a place to live an' all. I never felt that way, but I didn't want to live there with the whole family seein' it that way. Anyhow I thought they'd think that way."

Erin looked at her and said, "And?"

"I guess I'm over that now, 'cause Justin came to me after the Will readin' was over and said that now he could support me on his own, and I didn't have to worry about that. He said that we could each make it on our own with what we got, but we could do better together, and he's right. He's got a lot more sense than I thought he did. I've always liked him a lot. I just didn't think he was very grown up, but he is now. He's talkin' to his Dad about how they can work the farm together like we always did, but he's got ideas of his own about workin' his part. They were talkin' about it late last night."

"So you're going to say yes?"

Rachel's smile was a little lopsided as she said, "As soon as I get back home. I just had to stop and talk to you to get my courage up, I guess."

Erin gave her a hug and said, "It'll be okay. I've watched Justin since he got here. He's good to people and animals, and that's a sign of good character. You'll be good together. You talk to him. Work out how he sees things and get your heads together. Make sure you're thinking alike."

"I've been doin' that, but I don't know if he understood why I was askin' him things about farmin' and what he wanted to do and all. He wants to do mechanic work, and make money at that, too. I think he can do it."

"Go home and do what you think is right," Erin told her.
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[patience]

Chapter 69

Justin was speechless when Rachel walked downstairs at the old farmhouse in a wedding dress. He had the biggest smile ever on his face, and Kyle was loving every minute of it, seeing his big brother act like a little kid at Christmas. Kyle was impressed, too. Who would have thought that Rachel was so beautiful?

Kimberly and Erin had taken her upstairs and wouldn't let a man anywhere near before the ceremony. Jim stood by Justin's side, with Kyle beside him, waiting in front of the County Judge who would officiate, mostly because of the huge dinner Cindy had waiting on them in the kitchen, Kyle thought. Kyle knew his Mom had been down at Erin's house every spare minute for a week working on his Mom's old wedding dress so it would fit Rachel who was thinner and not quite as tall. Erin stood beside his Mom and both were in pretty dresses he hadn't seen before. Kyle was dressed up, too, in a suit Cindy had found for him and he couldn't wait to get out of it. The Judge did some talking before he got down to business, but not too much. Kyle was glad the ceremony was mercifully short. He was hungry.

When they were pronounced man and wife, Justin kissed Rachel thoroughly. Kyle applauded with the rest and slowly followed them to the big combined kitchen and dining room where the new couple drank a toast of Thad's last batch of wine. Cindy announced that dinner was served, and they all found seats, some at tables borrowed for the day.

Bill Evans and Carol were there, enjoying the day with the rest. Bill had offered the new couple the use of the apartment over his business building for the next week as a wedding gift. It was as near to a honeymoon as anyone could expect in this different world they lived in. Robert had given them a gift certificate to his store and Cindy and Chad had given them a bedroom suite, complete with a stock of sheets and blankets. Chad told him quietly that if he built a new house, to not worry about getting electricity hooked up to it. Frank and Doris Daulton had come for the ceremony and gave them a collection of kitchenwares they had left after moving in with Chad.

Kyle got to change out of his suit about an hour later, much to his relief.
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Jim had enjoyed the wedding as much as anyone, but his mind was on how to manage the farm. His Dad had always made the decisions, but now it was up to him and the family was depending on him to make it work. Justin had some good ideas, but Jim felt the responsibility to guide his choices, too. The boy wanted to build a house for Rachel and himself, and he had the money to do it from Thad's legacy of old gold and silver coins. But it would take some money to get crops in the ground, buy livestock, and assure they had feed for next winter. He'd have to spend more time with Justin to work out how they could make it all work out. Tentatively, they had decided to continue farming the way they had been, with his son getting a fair rent for the 120 acres he and Rachel now owned together.

Thad had owned a full section of land, 640 acres. Kyle now owned 80 acres and Justin and Rachel owned 120, leaving 440 that was Jim's share. Kyle had just turned 17 and would be out of school next year, so he was thinking about what he wanted to do with his share of land, but for this year they would operate with cash rent for the two boys. They would have to wait and see what next year brought before they could make any big changes in the operation. Markets were too iffy to plan very Far ahead.
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Carol knew almost everyone in town it seemed, and she visited with everyone who came in the hardware store. Owen Miller, owner of the trailer park was a regular customer who regularly bought plumbing, wiring, and other repair items. When he came in the store Monday morning she said,
"Hi there Owen! What can I get for you today?"

"I need a kitchen faucet and some PEX fittings. I'm fixing up that trailer that Robert used to rent, before he struck it rich. I can't seem to get it rented, and I ain't rich, so I'm fixing it up to sell."

Robert overheard the conversation as he was tidying up the paint display. "That trailer is pretty well new, isn't it?"

Owen said, "It was when you rented it. It's a 2008, and is still in real good shape, except for what I'm fixing. It was just fine until that last bunch tore up the kitchen getting their stuff moved out. I have to replace the sink faucets, because they hit 'em with something carryin' stuff out an' broke the faucet smooth off! Lucky they just got the spout, or I'd have a real mess. They got the window over the sink, too, so I need some glass. I got measurements here."

While Owen browsed the plumbing shelves, Carol took his notes and cut 2 pieces of glass for him. At the cash register she asked, "You got a buyer for that trailer yet?"

"I wish! Nobody's got any money and that new bank won't loan you anything unless you can prove you don't need to borrow any. Credit is so tight I don't know if I'll ever sell it, but I gotta try. Not as many renters as there used to be, an' what I get I turn down most of 'em because they can't make a damage deposit."

Carol said, "That's a shame. I hope you get somewhere with that. I know things are tough."

Robert asked him, "Have you decided on a price for the trailer?"

Owen made a frown and said, "It's a 14' X 64' with 3 bedrooms, an' I'll take $24,000 for it. That might sound high, but it's cheap, really, 'cause the money ain't worth much."

Carol looked at Robert and said, "We might know somebody that's interested. I'll send 'em your way, if they are."

"I'd sure appreciate it. If I can't rent it, I need to get the money out of it. You tell 'em I can get it moved anywhere in the county for that price, too, okay? There's a guy that owes me a favor."

When Owen had gone out, Carol called Thad's place. She still thought of it as his, even thought Jim and Kimberly owned it now. Kimberly answered and she said, "I just heard about a good deal on a nice mobile home and I thought I'd pass it on in case Justin and Rachel might be interested."

After Carol hung up, Robert called to make an order for the store. He told the women later that he was having trouble getting a lot of things, and the prices were far higher than what he'd expected. They had sold the last of the replica wood cook stoves and he was told they were no longer available. The company had gone out of business last year and there were no more in stock. The Asian supplier had raised prices to a point that the importer had shut down.
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Chapter 70 Juy, 2017


Cindy had tomatoes, bell peppers, green onions, Buttercrunch lettuce, and sweet corn for sale at Bill's Trading Post, and sold most of it. Late Saturday afternoon Taylor brought home the money and some leftover produce to eat. She carried the box in and gave Cindy the cash.

Cindy asked, "How'd it go today?"

"Pretty good. Everybody's getting ready for a big meal for the Fourth tomorrow, so we just about sold out. I saw on the way home that Justin has a trailer moved in down by Thad's place. I guess that's the ground he and Rachel inherited. They got that done fast."

"I think Thad left them some money, too. It'd be hard for a young couple to save anything now, and getting a loan is impossible."

Chad spoke up, saying, "You've got that right. The company told me their line of credit had been reduced so I have to be really careful about what I spend. It's hard to do business without credit. I don't know how the smal businesses can do it."

Cindy said, "I think the ones who had to have credit are gone. That broke a lot of the old downtown businesses."

Taylor said, "That's why I'm taking most of my pay in trade. Whatever I get is as cheap as I can find, and I save any money I get. I'd rather have things that Bill and me fixed up than a lot of new stuff that breaks right away."

"You've sure got your room fixed up nice," Cindy said.

"It didn't cost me much. I got the bedroom set, the sewing machine, the curtains and all the blankets and sheets for next to nothing. I did pay $100 for that old computer, but it's had the memory bumped up and is pretty good. Sure beats paying $1,899 for a new laptop!"

"I think you're doing great," Cindy said. "You started with almost nothing and got all those things paid for this year."

"It helps being able to ride to work with you and Chad. It's hard to buy gas at $14.69 a gallon on what I make."

Chad asked, "Is Bill doing okay with his store?"

"Boy, is he ever! He wants to stay open on Sunday, too. The crowd is getting to be too much to handle in one day. We're worn out by the end of the day, but he's making money all right. He's been paying me a little more and for more hours, so I'm making almost double what I did to start. He said since I'm doing more of the trading it's only fair to give me part of the profit. He's trading for bigger stuff, too. He took in an old Toyota pickup, a cement mixer, and a motorcycle this week. i told him the motorcycle was a steal. It's a Honda Ruckus, and that's a tough old bike. He got it for next to nothing, then Justin was in and said he could get it running smooth again."

Cindy said, "Bill's a born horse trader. Last week he found a guy, Joe something-or-other, to rent the upstairs apartment, too. Seems like a decent guy, but I haven't seen much of him. Bill said he works for that welding shop where they make wood stoves. Said he'd do some fixing for Bill for part of his rent, and those two are planning all sorts of things. He's got a small welder he keeps there, and he patched up a trailer that Bill sold last week. Took a pair of good boots in trade, I think. Now Bill told me to watch for scrap iron to trade for, so I put it on the chalk board we use for notices. Welding rods, too."

Chad chuckled, "That could turn into quite an operation there."

"It will if Bill has his way," Taylor said.

Andy was listening closely and decided he'd like to meet this fellow who did welding. That was something that he'd wanted to do since he went with his Dad to get the pump handle fixed at that shop.
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Owen Miller had no illusions about the poor economy and was working on getting something done to improve his situation. Once he'd sold the trailer, he had a concrete slab 24' X 70' with electricity, water, natural gas, and sewer hookups. He thought it would be a fine place to put a greenhouse, and he knew a man who had one. He thought there was money to be made growing fresh produce, since it was so expensive to ship in from down South, and California was still in an historic drought, making it costly and hard to get in the off season.
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The cardboard and paper recycling plant in Brownstown, Indiana was running overtime. The cardboard box plant in Louisville, however, was running only two days a week. They were using all recycled materials now, when they could get them to save money. Shippers were trying desperately to cut costs and had begun to use reuseable wooden boxes and crates. This gave some business to veneer mills in New Albany that had been almost shut down due to the lack of new construction using their hardwood for high end furniture and panelling. Higher energy costs had made the wood containers more competitive with cardboard and it was far stronger than the low grade recycled cardboard.

The veneer mills were now slicing cheap hardwoods like sweet gum, sycamore, and yellow poplar for making baskets and produce crates. A box factory had once operated in New Albany to make those crates but had been shut down for 50 years. Some enterprising soul had ressurected it and was providing some sweatshop jobs making vegetable baskets and crates with 100 year old machinery. Sawmills in Georgia were churning out low grade pine sawed thin to make fruit boxes for shipping citrus from Florida. The citrus was bringing premium prices in the North, due to the California drought.

A tannery had reopened in New Albany, after EPA restrictions were loosened. They were churning out leather as fast as they could to meet the demand for domestically made shoes and boots. Some leather went to make horse harness as well, after an upsurge in demand from some small farmers due to increased fuel costs.

Those new jobs in New Albany drew a few people from outlying areas of that county who could not afford to commute on their low pay. Instead, they chose to live in newly established boarding houses that once had been the homes of the well-to-do in the area.
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The wood citrus boxes were generally not recycled, but thrown away, or used for kindling by whomever ended up with them. One enterprising soul in Corydon had been buying them for a dime each from the grocer and using the material to make wooden toys that he sold through the same grocery. He had arranged efficient ways to speed up his processes, like bandsawing stacks of parts to make several at once and sanding them the same way. When assembled by his kids, the finished toys were dipped in paint and hung up to drain and dry. Final detail painting was done assembly line fashion by the same kids. Since it was all in the family, they ignored child labor laws entirely.
_____________

Kyle had spent some time with his grandfather as he made wine from the extensive grape harvest. he took up the challenge to try it himself and invested his own farmland rent money to buy the necessary sugar and containers. His first batch was a little sour, but nothing he couldn't fix by adding a little sugar to the finished product. His second picking yielded only half as much, but his wine was far better. He sold it by the gallon "under the table" at Bill's Trading Post and made enough money to try it again next year. He kept notes so he could do it right the first time next year.

Thad had shown him how to start new vines by burying the tips of growing vines and letting them take root. Kyle did a lot of that after he finshed with the wine project. He wanted to establish a lot of grapes on his piece of land. From Bill, he bought some pruning shears, a spade, a mowing scythe, and other tools. He bought 2 empty oak whiskey barrels from the drug store who sold whiskey on a "bring your own bottle" basis, having paid the Federal tax when he bought the full barrels. Kyle wanted to try making some applejack the coming Fall.
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[patience]

Chapter 71 August, 2017


Owen Miller's only competition in the greenhouse business would be from the man a couple miles north of town who had an unheated tube greenhouse setup. What Owen bought was from a bankrupt flower shop, recently built just before the downturn. It was a modern structure, aluminum framed and came apart easily enough. Rebuilding it was more of a challenge than he had expected, but he made some scaffolding and hired one of his trailer tenants to help. He bought a used gas furnace and some sawmill lumber replace some of the interior work. Being a fair hand at plumbing, he simply cut off the sprinkler system at the floor and hooked it back up in the reassembled structure. He didn't plan to start his plants until there was a hard frost predicted. By the time his plants were producing, the man with the tube greenhouse would be finished for the year due to cold weather.
_______________

The Goodwill and Salvation Army stores had closed. There were simply not enough donations to stock them, so they had resorted to buying imported goods, mostly coffee mugs, some glassware, cheap baskets and picture frames. When the currency crunch hit, those things did not sell well. There was demand for used clothing, but the donations had dried up and their stock was very low. Business dropped to the point they lost too much money and closed stores.

That market was being filled by yard and garage sales and flea markets. It was a well known secret that their goods were mostly looted from abandoned homes, known as the "Midnight Warehouse". With the emphasis on survival, people bought up the practical clothing for working. The formal wear made up most of what remained in their stocks.

Rachel was frustrated by what she had been able to find for Justin to wear for working. She bought what she could find in his sizes.

"It seems wrong to wear dress pants on the farm," He told her.

"I know, but the choice was getting them for $8 a pair, or paying $39.99 for cheap jeans at the clothing store. Wranglers are imported, too, but they are $89.99 a pair. Tractor Supply had some nice work clothes, but the prices were outa sight."

"Whatever. I'll wear what we can afford. Those dress pants are pretty tough stuff, synthetic I guess. Doesn't matter if I'm gettin' greasy. I can't find anything around for shop rags. That synthetic crap won't soak up anything like cotton does."

Rachel said, "I know. It won't work for dish rags or towels, either. We have to be careful with what we have, 'cause new stuff just costs too much."
_________________

"They didn't have any bananas," Robert said.

Erin sighed and said, "I guess they didn't have any lemons, either?"

"No. I got some navel oranges they just got in from Florida, but a 4 pound bag cost $12.99."

"That's highway robbery."

"That's when they have anything. I got the pick of the new shipment, but they are pretty green. They'll have to sit in the sun for a few days to ripen or they'll be sour as all get out."

"Maybe I can make orangeade instead of lemonade. They should be sour enough," Erin said.
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Carol went to find Bill for supper and saw him and Joe unloading a heavy wood contraption from his truck. There were several pieces that looked vaguely like a bedframe, but then she recognized the heddles. "You got a LOOM! It's beautiful!"

"Yep! Solid cherry, an' the guy made it fer his wife, but she ain't able to use it now because of arthritis. I dunno if I can sell it, but ever'body's bitchin' about the cost of clothes and stuff. Maybe somebody'll want it. I got it cheap enough."

"You're not gonna SELL that! I want it."

"What would you want it for?"

"To make rugs, silly! Is there any warp with it?"

"I don't think it's warped. Looked pretty straight to me."

"NO! Warp THREAD! The string you wind on the beam there."

"Uh, there's some boxes up in the cab with spools of string they said went with it."

Carol opened the truck door and began to ooh and aah over the boxes of colored string.

Bill yelled at her, "There's some more in the toolbox!"

What she found there was bleached linen thread, tons of it. Carol thought hard about the linen, wondering how to use it on a rug loom until she saw the second set of heddles. Bill and Joe had the frame knocked together by then, the fitted tenons plugged in place and wood wedges tapped in to hold them. It was a masterpiece of hand craftsmanship, and it was a four-shed loom. The extra set of heddles were fine spaced and would make lovely linen cloth. She'd have to learn about that, since all she had used was he grandmother's old rug loom as a kid. This wasn't a crude backwoods model like her grandma had, it was a professional quality weaver's loom.

A smaller cardboard box in the truck caught her eye. It contained several shuttles, warping needles, and two thick books.
__________________

"Can you build a wood cooking range?"

"I suppose I could," the welding shop owner said. "I'd have to have a sample to work from."

Robert said, "I can provide a sample."

"It would cost too much to build, though. There's lot of time involved in drawing up something like that and making drawing of individual parts, then figure out the best way to make each one. There's always a lot of modifications at the last minute to make things work right. Debugging, we call it. You just can't afford to make something like that."

Robert said, "I'm thinking about producing them the way you do heating stoves."

"They're more complicated than a heating stove, the best I remember. It would still cost twice as much."

"That sounds about right, considering the cost of the ones I used to sell."

"Where are we gonna sell that many cook stoves?"

"The same places you sell the heating stoves. Out here in farm country. We would have to market them in every county around us to get enough business. If we do a good job, there should be demand from an even wider area. The wholesaler that I used to buy from told me the importer went out of business because the price went up to over $6,000 and he couldn't sell them. Is there a chance we could make one for, say between $2000 and $3,000?"

"I think so, if the volume is there, and if the design doesn't get too complicated."

"How about I bring you sample to look at and then we can talk again?"

Scott Blevins nodded and said, "Okay. Won't hurt to give it a look."
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Chapter 72



Jim had to remember how to adjust the combine, but some common sense went a long ways toward getting a clean product in the bin. Once that was accomplished, cutting the beans only took a another hour. The weather was very hot and dry, typical for August in southern Indiana, so the beans were very crisp. Jim hoped they didn't shatter out of the hulls too badly and fall to the ground as they were cut. He watched his ground speed to keep all he could flowing onto the grain head. The 16 foot grain head made short work of it and he had a bin full of Great Northern beans. Jim ran the combine for anther few minutes at the end of the field to clean out the dust and dirt, then drove it to the barn lot.

The beans were not perfectly clean, but he had a plan for that. Running them thrugh the combine again would crack too many of the very dry beans, so instead, Jim hung an old furnace squirrel cage fan on the end of the combine auger, offset to the side a little and plugged in the extension cord. When the fan was blowing hard, he started the unload auger slowly over the grain wagon and a thin stream of beans came out into the airstream. Dust and bits of bean hulls flew away and what landed in the hopper wagon was pretty clean. Jim put the combine in the huge machine shed and had Kyle put the hopper wagon inside as well.

Tomorrow, they would take the hopper wagon down the road to a neighbor who had a seed cleaning fan mill and finish the job. It would take a few hours to run over 100 bushels through it, but he wanted the product as clean as he could get it. After all, people were going to eat these beans. Kyle had 22 blue plastic barrels washed clean and dried in the sun ready to receive the beans for storage. Two barrels of the lot would be saved for seed and the rest marketted as best they could through every grocery store in the area. Jim was hoping that his price plan would work out for selling them, because this was an important cash crop for the farm this year.
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Justin and Rachel were "priming" tobacco, picking the lowest leaves that had turned pale yellow and were ready to pick. The leaves were carefully stacked on a flatbed farm wagon and then hauled to the big barn where they could sit in the shade and string the leaves, one by one, onto thin wire to hang for drying and curing. It was a slow, labor intensive process, but it insured that virtually every leaf was picked when it was in perfect condition.

At the end of the day, a wagon load of the bright leaves were hanging in the barn loft, the air perfumed by their pungent aroma. Rachel swept the wagon bed clean of leaf trash, tobacco worms, and other debris as Justin hung the last of the wires like long clotheslines in the loft. Their hands were sticky with tobacco gum, and they were sweating profusely. They walked together to the hand pump outside the kitchen to wash and cool off.
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Taylor came into the kitchen and found Doris sitting with needle and thread in one hand and a sock in the other. It had something round inside it and she was making careful, long stitches over a hole in the heel.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm darning a sock. They are too precious to throw away when they just get a hole in them.

"I have to see this." Taylor sat down next to her and leaned over to watch closely as Doris closed the hole with parallel stitches, then proceeded to weave threads crosswise of the first ones. In a few minutes the repair was finished.

"What's inside the sock--oh--a POTATO?"

"It's what I had handy. I used to use a light bulb, back when they were bulbs instead of corkscrews. The glass worked better, because the needle wouldn't stick in it. I've used boiled eggs, too, but they are really too small unless it's a kid's sock."

"So that's how you do it. I never saw it done before. It takes a while, doesn't it?"

"Sure. But not as long as knitting a sock!"

"I need to mend some things, too. I have to find some buttons for two shirts and my jeans need patched. I spend too much time on my knees in Bill's shop."

"No time like the present. Go get your things and I'll get my button box. There's sure to be something in there that will work."

When Taylor came back downstairs, Doris had an old shoebox that she dumped on the big kitchen table. She asked Taylor, "What color and how big?"

Taylor had never seen so many buttons. "Where did you get all these?"

"My aunt gave me a lot of the oldest ones, but I saved them from everything we threw out for rags. Now I wish I'd saved the rags. I could've made hooked rugs with 'em, or something."

"I don't throw ANYTHING away now! I have to do something with some of it, though. It's getting to be a big pile in the shed out there."

"Well, let's look through your things and see if we can come up with ideas to use them for something."
_________________

[patience]

Chapter 73


"Time to take the trash out," Cindy said. "I'll get it."

Carol handed her the trash can from under the counter and Cindy took the one from near the front door and headed for the truck to dump them into a bag for disposal later. She came hurrying back in a moment later, saying, "I smelled smoke out there! Something is on fire!"

Robert and Carol followed her out the front door where the smell was strong. They looked, searching in all directions, until Carol said, "There! Over the old car dealer's! Something in the next block is burning!"

Robert hurried inside and dialed 911. At least that still worked. The Sheriff's dispatcher answered promptly. He said, "There's a building on fire downtown, between the old car dealer's place and the Courthouse! Get the Fire Department called!"

He hung up and ran outside, carrying two 100 foot rolls of garden hose, ripping off the packaging as he went. "Take these toward the fire! Most of the stores have a washdown faucet along the sidewalk. See if you can find one somewhere close that works!"

Robert ran back inside and got another roll of hose and followed the women. When he rounded the corner of the next block, smoke was rolling out around a broken transome window over the door of an empty store building that once had been a barber shop then something else. A storefront window broke while he watched and flames came out. He could hear the fire siren going then, as he searched frantically for a faucet. The nearest one he saw was across the street and down a couple doors. He ran for it and saw the women at another faucet down the block on the side with the fire. Robert heard the fire truck engine start three blocks away.

Carol got the hose screwed on and turned hard on the stuck faucet, cutting her hand on a burr, but she got it open and water soon ran out of the hose. Robert had his going, but Cindy had yet to find a working faucet. She ran back to the store and grabbed a couple hose nozzles, coming back at a dead run. She threw one to Robert and ran to hand Carol another one. Cindy kinked the hose to shut off the water so Carol could screw on the nozzle.

Robert had his hose squirting water into the storefront through the broken window when Cindy found a third faucet further down the block and began to get her hose hooked up. The faucet handle was broken, but she used the end of the hose as a wrench to get it cracked loose so she could turn it by hand. The fire truck was coming around the corner when Cindy got her hose running. Two men jumped off the side of it as it screeched to a halt near a fire hydrant. The driver set the brake, turned up the hand throttle and dove out of the truck to get hoses unloaded. A man on the other side of the truck got an inch and a half hose unrolled from the back of the truck and ran to the buidling as the driver turned the pump on. The hose bucked and jerked on the ground as high pressure forced its' way through.

The third man was frantically trying to get a rusted hydrant plug out and his hose hooked to it before the truck ran through the 500 gallons of water in the truck's tank. By the time he had the 4" hose deployed, flames were shooting out the roof of the old building, and blobs of burning roofing tar were dripping off the back gutter into the alley behind the building. That set fire to some debris in the alley that had collected after the trash pickup stopped. Unseen, that fire blazed up and carried the fire to the back door of the next building while firefighters were assaulting the front. The driver got a 2" canvas hose unlimbered and hooked to the truck's pump, but he needed a helper to handle it and another man to turn the valve on. He had to wait for more people to arrive for that.

Robert saw his dilemna and shut off his hose nozzle and ran to help, calling for Cindy. They got the bigger hose going as more people arrived to help and men began to suit up to go inside and fight it at the bottom of the fire. A one hundred year old brick wall crumbled as the second floor gave way, and carried the fire to the buidling on the left. The back of the building on the right was ablaze, but nobody could see that yet. The fire raged out of control.

A double brick firewall stopped the fire at the middle of the block in one direction, but it burned all the way to the other end of the block, consuming five stores before jumping across the alley in back into the stores beyond. Another four store buildings burned to the ground before the fire stopped at another firewall for lack of fuel. It was well past midnight when Robert and the women slowly drove home with some assurance that the fire would not spread further.
_______________

Mayor Richard Fleming called the City Council to order and said without any formality, "We damn near lost the town! We have to make sure it doesn't happen again!"

Wendell Stark said, "Do we even know what started it?"

"No," Arlen Hamilton said, "we don't. It could have been anything. It's all such a disaster now that the State guy couldn't say any more than it started in the office area of the old Abstract Company. Probably a mouse chewing on some old matches or something was his guess. Lots of old papers in there, I imagine, and it just went from there."

Fleming said, "We have three problems that I see. One, those burned buildings are a hazard to the public, and need to be torn down before they fall on somebody. We can condemn the buildings, but we don't know who owns them."

"Two, there are a lot more buildings at risk for the same sort of thing. Hell, 2/3 of the downtown section is empty!"

"And, three, we don't have enough fire protection for what businesses are left. There are two pumper trucks in the fire station, but we couldn't muster enough people to man ONE of them!"

Wendell said, "We won't get any more firemen until we can afford to pay them, either. People are working too hard to just stay alive to give a lot of time for volunteer firefighting."

"Arlen said, "That's the truth. I don't know how we can afford to do more than eat. I dread the thought of winter coming and the cost of heating."

"We have to do something, or next time we could lose the entire downtown," Fleming said. "We almost lost Barks' Drugs this time. The city needs that drugstore with Wal Mart gone."

Arlen said, "There was nobody there to catch it in time. Cindy Daulton smelled it, but it was going strong by then. With all those buildings unoccupied, it's a disaster waiting to happen."

Wendell asked, "So how can we get those old buildings cleared out? The owners are long gone, the banks that mortgaged them have been absorbed into bigger banks and nobody knows who owns what."

Mayor Fleming said, "I was thinking we could condemn them all for a start, post the notices, put it in the paper and all that. We have a City Ordinance for Public Safety that says if the property is condemned, the City can do what is necessary to get rid of the hazard to the public and bill the property owner. My thinking is that if we can't get paid for demolishing the buildingsxz and the property taxes are in arrears, the City can legally dispose of the properties by a tax sale. The money from the tax sale then pays for whatever expenses we incurred."

"Better ask the City Attorney about that to be sure," Arlen said.

"The City Attorney will want paid for his opinion, since he isn't being paid a retainer now," Wendell pointed out. "And, need I add that the City is broke?"

Fleming said, "Possibly the Attorney may have an interest in buying some of said properties."

Wendell said, "Next question is who can we get to demolish the buildings?"
______________

"We have to find the property owner of record before we can proceed," Nathan Beech said.

"That's as fine an example of a lawyer covering his butt as I ever heard," Richard Fleming said. "NOBODY knows who owns the properties you bonehead! THAT is the PROBLEM! So proceed from there!"

Nathan did his best to hold his temper. The accusation was true and he had no comeback. Instead he said, "I suppose we could follow your plan, but you realize that the property owner could surface and sue the city for lack of notice."

"Not if we take it for taxes, they can't," Fleming retorted. "Find a reason we CAN do this, for cripes sake!"

"If you stay within the property tax laws, you'll be fine. But that requires a tax statement to be mailed to the property owner. How do you propose to get around that?"

"We mailed tax statements ot the last known address of the mortgage holders, to collect presumably from the buyer's escrow accounts, as usual. The fact that the mortgage banks were closed and those statements were returned as "address unknown" is neither here nor there. We've got that covered."

"I still say it's shaky legal ground," The lawyer said.

"Hell, I knew that when I came in here! Thanks for nothing! Send a bill to the City and we'll see if there's some way to pay you for your time."

"Just notify me of the date of the tax sale, would you?"
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Chapter 74 September, 2017

Arlen Hamilton, ever alert to the possibility of making money without working for it, tentatively had agreed to demolish the buildings for a nominal sum in money and the right to salvage the brick. He needed to find a buyer for the brick, so he approached his wife's brother who dealt in building materials at the stone quarry he owned. Bill Richards had not gotten where he was without some sharp business practices and turned the deal back on the city by negotiating to fill the basements of all the buildings with the demolition debris. He would get an hourly rate for this work, plus the right to whatever salvage he wanted.

The Fall property tax installments were due, so the city found enough revenue to cover that expense, and made the deal after the tax due date to get past the waiting period for the tax leins on some of the buildings and make the process marginally legal. A portion of what the City paid Richards for demolition was given to Arlen Hamilton as the prime contractor on the deal. The process moved along well. Within 3 weeks the buidlings were razed, basements filled, sewer, gas, and water lines stubbed off, and some fill dirt compacted over the half block.

A Sheriff's tax auction sale was held on the Courthouse steps the first day of September. The bidders were few, with only the Mayor, the City Council members, the City Attorney, and Robert Evans and his Dad attending. The half block was to be sold in two equal parcels, divided by the alley in the center of them.

Additionally, the City Council had determined to sell the adjacent store building that had last been Marshall's Department Store. It had gone bankrupt several years ago, and the property held for sale by a bank, now long gone. The alley ended at the firewall that formed the side of this store, so the building extended all the way from Elm Street, facing Evans Hardware, to Brook Street by the Courthouse on the other end with an entrance on both streets. Half rotted plywood covered both entrances and the windows. Only a small side door on Elm Street allowed access for inspection of the property the day before the sale. The rest of that block was occupied by Bark's Drugs, also extending through to both streets.

The auction was slow and deliberate, with only the the City, represented by the Mayor, and the attorney, Nathan Beech making bids on the vacant lots. The City bid the amount owed to it for back taxes plus expenses for clearing, and Nathan Beech offered $100 more. The City did not up their bid and Beech was the new owner. Conveniently, his bid was the same amount as his bill to the City for services rendered.

Mayor Fleming also opened the bidding on Marshall's Department Store, again at the amount owed to the City in back taxes. Bill Evans made a bid $100 over that minimum and after due effort by the auctioneer, the hammer fell and Bill was the new owner for the princely sum of $2,360. Mayor Fleming was delighted to have the building sold so the City had a new taxpayer and one less vacant property to worry about. It would be up to the new owner to assure the building met fire codes and was properly maintained. The auction closed with satisfied parties all around.
_______________

The next day Robert went to the office of Nathan Beech.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Evans?"

"I was wondering if you would like to sell the vacant lot you bought yesterday?"

"I would, but it is subject to recovery by the last owner if they choose to pay the property taxes. That's a standard condition of tax sales, you know," Nathan said.

"And they have a year to do that, if I am not mistaken?"

"That's correct, so the soonest I can sell the property would be a year from the date of the last tax statement, about 9 months from now."

"I understand. If you decide to sell at that time, let me know. I could use more parking space."

Nathan wondered why he would pay for more parking space when the streets were habitually empty now, but he didn't ask. He simply said, "I'll be glad to let you know. I appreciate your interest, Mr. Evans."

Nathan smiled and offered his hand. Robert shook hands in agreement and left, with Nathan still wondering, but glad to have an offer on what had cost him exactly nothing.
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Bill Evans had inspected the old department store well enough to know it didn't have any roof leaks, and the building was basically sound. It smelled musty and there was a certain amount of trash scattered about, but the basement was dry and empty except for an ancient gas furnace and some old crates. He hadn't even seen any mice. The main floor had only some built in cabinetry, the store displays having been sold off, he supposed.

The second floor still had all the old wood counters and shelves from a bygone era, all empty except for a big roll of brown wrapping paper in its' stand. A big spool of twine hung on the same fixture for tying packages. Beside and behind the wide staircase was a U-shaped storage room he had not investigated since the doors were locked.

Today, he took a collection of antique skeleton keys from his collection of junk and went back to the store. He also took a big crowbar in case he couldn't find a key to fit, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The third key he tried fit the simple old lock. The grimy windows let in only enough light to get around, but enough to see the stacks of carboard boxes inside. All but a few were still taped shut with the old brown paper gummed tape. Bill flipped those open and found bolts of fabric. He thought about the big table with the roll of paper and realized it was a fabric cutting table. He dug out his pocketknife and began opening boxes.
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[patience]

Chapter 75 October, 2017


Chad had known all of the electricians in the area for years, but only one remained. He gave his name to Bill Evans who had him make an inspection of the old store building and do what minor repairs were needed before having the electric service restored. The gas furnace was more problematic, requiring new safety valves and an inspection before the gas was turned on. Water service was only run to a single employee rest room and wasn't in serviceable condition. The toilet had frozen and the tank was broken. They replaced the toilet and the faucets and drains on the sink. Taylor used liberal applications of Barkeeper's Friend to make the sink presentable and spent some quality time with Joe Marker cleaning windows and floors.

Bill recruited Joe, his apartment tenant, and Taylor to begin moving things to the downtown store building. Only the best goods got moved, practical household goods, small tools, and the best of his clothing selection. The old store had clothing racks and a wealth of hangers to display them. Robert's small trailer was borrowed and the best furniture was moved. Farm goods and outdoor items were left at the shop building, mostly stored in the old steel shed. The old machine shop was summarily emptied of all but goods needing repairs and other leftovers in one bay. By the end of the week he was ready for business at the new downtown location, a notice having been put in the newspaper the previous week.
_______________

"What are those steel plates in the sidewalk?"

"Uh, well, I dunno, Joe," Bill said. "Oh, they used to have those where there was a lift to get stuff down to the basements of stores."

They looked at each other for a minute and Joe said, "Let's go have a look."

Wooden crates were stacked in front of that end of the basement, so it took some effort to move enough of them to access where the decrepit old lift was located behind a large wooden door. It was an ancient mechanical affair some 4 feet square, and had been controlled from the basement. The wooden parts of it looked rickety, so Bill decided to eliminate it when he had time. That mystery solved, he turned his attention to the crates themselves. The shipping tags were either gone or unreadable, except for the large print on one tag that clearly said, "Maytag".
______________

The tobacco crop was hanging in the barn and Jim Wright had 17 barrels of Great Northern beans cleaned and ready to sell. How to get them to customers was something of a problem, until they figured out to load the barrels in the truck with the tractor's front end loader. By taking along an extra barrel and buckets to dip with, they could empty a loaded barrel from the truck into one inside a grocery store. Marty Shoemaker wanted 2 barrels of them right away. They arranged a profitable deal with him by taking their pay in trade at Marty's store. Jim called several groceries in nearby towns and sold 11 barrels within a twenty mile radius, charging a nominal amount for delivery.

Kyle was researching all he could find on curing tobacco. He had convinced his Dad that they would make many times the money on it if they sold a finished product. He had figured out that there were no taxes or regulations on selling the whole tobacco leaves, cured or not, a loophole he intended to exploit.
______________

Mayor Fleming turned his attention to the next block of deserted stores where only one small business was still operating, a shoe repair shop. That place had been there forever and survived through the hard times, finding his trade in much higher demand. The rest of the block was empty and beginning to show cosmetic deterioration. The shoe repair shop owned the empty shop behind him, once rented for a hair and nail salon, and later a tattoo parlor.

The balance of the block had been a car dealer 50 years ago, and since then had been partioned into 4 separate storefronts, one of which had been a mechanic's garage. It had endured until last year and was now vacant. The taxes had not been paid on any of that portion of the bock in a year and a half. Fleming racked his brain to figure out how either the City or himself, or both, could profit from this.

Ultimately, he decided that since the building was still in decent shape, so he should vote himself a raise to buy it. He bought the store building at a quiet tax auction, under terms that allowed him to amortize the cost of it by allowing the City to keep his pay raise for the next year, when title would transfer from the City to himself. It seemed like a good idea to the City Council members who found other properties they would like in lieu of a pay raise. They worked on the property appraisal valuations to assure that none of them would owe much of anything in taxes.
_______________

Owen Miller had built a compost bin of unmortared concrete blocks he'd bought used and filled it with the leaves and grass clippings from the trailer park mixed with a liberal mount of manure he got from a farmer nearby. The pile was heating nicely and hardly smelled at all after a few days. He watered it a little as needed and assured himself it would be ready when it was time to plant seeds in the greenhouse.

He had bought a cheap outdoor wood furnace from a junk dealer in town, probably stolen from an empty house somewhere. It was installed in the greenhouse and the natural gas heating idea scrapped. Firewood was readily available, with so many people doing anything they could to make a dollar.
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Chapter 76


Sales from Robert's hardware store were up a little the past 2 quarters, although still dismal by comparison to years past. Robert was doing a little better than breaking even, but his profit margin needed some help. Raising prices was out of the question with such a soft market, so that left increasing sales somehow and cutting expenses. He was addressing the issue of increasing sales with the development of a locally made wood cooking range that he intended to distribute. Any other new products he would consider also.

Cost cutting measures he had implemented included less winter heating and converting from a gas furnace to a wood stove. The initial renovation had included a new double entrance to reduce outside air exchange, high R-value sprayed on foam insulation in the addition and a low ceiling there, and converting all the lighting to new efficient flourescents. He had made large quantity inventory buys to get discounts, and shopped intensively for the best priced suppliers. The lack of a mortgage helped, as did not having to borrow money for inventory or payroll. He was using his own capital, but he needed to make a return on his investment.

Labor was the only thing left, and while he could get by with one employee, both women were assets, and he really hated to lay off anyone. They weren't just employees, they were friends and Carol was family. He didn't come to any decisions, but put the issues on his mental back burner.

Maybe she was reading his mind, Robert thought that evening on the way home when Carol said, "You don't need me at the store much now, do you?"

Robert was taken aback, so he said, "What makes you say that?"

"Well, I know you and Cindy can handle the store, so there's no reason for you to keep me when I've got other things to do."

Robert said, "I guess that would be all right. We're not that busy now. I kind of thought that Bill might be needing you, right?"

"Yeah, he wants to keep the new store open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and he needs somebody in the new store with Taylor, and I want to get started doing weaving. I thought I could do both at the same time."

Robert said, "Cindy, would you mind working another hour a day to take up a little slack keeping the shelves stocked?"

Cindy said, "Suits me fine, if it's in the afternoon. I can't leave earlier in the morning on account of getting the kids off to school."

Robert said, "As long as everybody is okay with this. Do we have a deal then?"

Both women said, "Deal."

Robert was relieved. Now all he had to do was find a reasonably priced source for chainsaw parts and supplies. Silver Streak was his old standby, but their prices had tripled since the dollar fell. He'd always bought bulk saw chain because it was so much cheaper and the store came with the tools to cut and rivet it to suit. His cost to make a chain for an 16" saw, the most popular size, had gone from under $10 to $36. If he made any money for his time, it had to sell for close to $50. His only competition was the tractor repair shop where the John Deere dealer used to be. They got $59.99 for a packaged chain that size.

More worrisome that the prices was the fact that he had been unable to get any parts for certain chainsaws for the past few months. Woodcutting season was here so he had to solve that problem. His stock was running low.
______________

Frank Daulton made few trips to town now, so he relished going. It was expensive to drive their older model Buick. He tried to ignore that for the moment. He had a long list of things to do in town to make the trip cover as many bases as possible. The tractor shop was first, for some filters and a hydraulic hose coupling. He was shocked at how much it cost for 2 fuel filters, an oil filter, and one coupling--$88.12.

Next on his route was the mechanic's shop downtown for some spark plugs and wires for his car. That mechanic often had good used parts, and the best prices anywhere on new ones. It was the guy who did the great job on restoring Robert's old truck. His place looked pretty rough, being an old gas station that hadn't seen any fresh paint for ages. The concrete pavement was broken and had some holes patched with gravel, and the office door had the glass replaced with old gray-looking plywood, still not painted. There was a weathered barn behind it where he stored used parts and tires, and a vacant lot next door that stored sundry parts that didn't mind the weather. It had been gravelled in the remote past, but was now growing a good crop of weeds. The chain link fence around it was rusted, but solid, and 8 feet high with barbed wire on top.

He found Buster outside with his feet sticking out from under a fire truck. There were 2 other cars parked beside it, probably waiting to be fixed.

"You got time to sell me some spark plugs and wires?"

"Be out in a minute."

Frank watched him tighten something and roll out on his creeper. Buster wiped his hands on the tattered remains of a grease rag and asked, "What're they for?"

"My Buick over there. It's an '08 model and has the V6."

"I'll look it up. C'mon in."

He looked in his parts books and went looking in the garage bay that he had filled with wooden shelves full of parts. Buster's mongrel dog was laying on his own broken down car seat that leaned against the wall. Frank had met the dog and knew not to mess with him. He would stay there half asleep unless somebody moved too fast, especially in his direction. Then the dog would go absolutely insane. Buster warned everyone about the dog. He had never been robbed.

"Don't have new ones. Couldn't get 'em the last time I ordered. I got some used ones that I sandblasted and regapped for 4 bucks each. Bring back the old ones an' I'll give you a buck each for 'em if they ain't burnt up. The wires I got. They're $90 for the set. They ain't brand new, but I took 'em off a nearly new wreck, is why they're that cheap. I got new ones for $140 a set."

"The used ones sound great to me, and I'll take the cleaned plugs, too."

Frank could see the manual tire changer through the shop door with 2 tires and rims leaning on it to be changed. This garage was like stepping back in time 50 years, right down to the tire shaped ashtray on the counter.

He was amazed how fast his money was going, but he paid the man and thanked him. He'd seen generic spark plug wires that cost over $150 at the 'discount' auto parts place, and you had to cut them to length yourself and put the terminals on them. Those would fit practically anything so they didn't have to stock so many different ones. He'd gotten far better ones today for $60 less.

Frank stopped at the drug store for some generic pain reliever tablets. His arthritis was acting up. The bottle of 100 was $12. He was going to the grocery on the way home and they sold the pills cheaper, but you couldn't depend on them being in stock. With gas at 14-something a gallon, it wasn't worth a trip to go there first to see. He walked across the street to Evan's Hardware and bought some nails from Cindy, then got in the car and drove to the grocery. He had spent about $225 so far and had about $300 left in his pocket. He hoped it would be enough to get all they wanted from the grocery. Coffee was expensive, but he really wanted some. Heck, you only live once he thought. He'd pay the price for it. They could cut it with Chicory and make it go farther. He had found Chicory growing along the roadside and transplanted a row of it along the garden fence. They should have a pretty good crop of it when he dug the roots after the first hard frost. That would cut the caffeine down to where he could drink a cup at breakfast and lunch without getting twitchy.
____________

[patience]

Chapter 77



Chad was going to be working late, so Robert drove Cindy home. They encountered Frank putting away his purchases when they arrived.

"How's it going Frank?"

"Pretty good," He told Robert. Then he reconsidered for moment and said, "No, really it's not going worth crap and we all know it. I spent almost $500 today and I can carry it all in two old grocery sacks. It's pathetic what has happened to our country. How the devil did we get in this shape? This used to be the best country in the world. We worked hard for what we got, but we could save and get ahead. Now Doris and I would be starving if it wasn't for Chad and living here. Come to think of it, I kinow some folks our age that DID starve to death. How the hell did this happen??!!!"

Robert frowned and said, "It's a long story and you're not going to like it."

"What story?"

"I'm not all the way to the bottom of it yet, but I've been studying this for a couple years now. It's about the bankers that rule the world. They caused it all."

"Bankers went bust in all this misery. If they caused the trouble, it serves them right," Frank said. "But the big banks are still okay, like the one that had my mortgage."

"It's the biggest banks that did it. The Central Banks, like the Federal Reserve Bank system. They took over US currency, then they took over the government, and finally they stole everything worth stealing and used compound interest to starve the country."

"The government controls the money! It's all their fault!"

"The government hasn't controlled the money for a very long time. Got a dollar bill in your pocket? What does it say on it? Right at the top."

Frank pulled out a few small bills and read, "Federal Reserve Note. So what? That's the Federal Government, like I said."

"No, Frank. The Federal Reserve BANK issued that 'NOTE', and a note is a DEBT, just like your mortgage was. It's all worthless and has been since we went off the gold standard. What that means is the Federal Reserve NOTE is a DEBT to you. It sounds complicated but it is the simplest, most elegant scam ever created by man. Basically, the money is created out of thin air. In 1913, the US government signed away the right to issue money and gave that right to the big banks. We have been in debt to those big banks ever since then and it keeps getting worse. They print more currency each year, issue more debt to the government, and the hole keeps getting deeper."

Robert could tell that Frank was lost on the subject, so he said, "It takes a while to get your head around how it really works. If you really want to know, watch a series of videos on the internet called The Crash Course, by Chris Martenson. It takes a while to see all 20 videos, but it is worth it. You will never be the same after you see those. And it is going to make you mad as hell."
www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

Frank looked at Robert and assessed the expression on his face. He decided that Robert believed what he was telling him and he had a lot of respect for the man. On that simple basis, Frank said, "I'll do that. Would you write that down for me?"
_____________

The following Sunday Frank went to see Bill Evans about tilling up their garden spot before winter. He found the whole family in the kitchen just finishing Sunday dinner.

Frank said, "I hate to interrupt a meal. Sorry 'bout that."

"Come on in Frank," Erin said. "We're just sittin' here talking. Have a seat. You want some coffee?"

"I'd never turn down a cup of coffee."

Robert asked, "What brings you here today?"

"I need to get our garden tilled up now that the crops are all done. Want to sow a cover crop. I thought maybe I could get Bill to do that for us."

Bill said, "Sure! I think tomorrow is supposed to be nice, so I can come down then if it suits you."

"That'd be just fine. I got cow manure spread on it with the boys help. Those feeder steers are about ready for market and they've left a mess in the that feedlot. If Chad don't buy more cattle, we oughta use that feedlot for a crop next year. There's about 2 acres there."

Bill said, "If you decide to work that up, give me a littl notice and I'll take care of it."

"Oh, it won't be before Spring, 'cause the cattle will be there for another month or so."

Frank turned to Robert and said, "You were right. I watched those videos and it made me so mad I wasn't fit to live with for a couple days. We need to kick those bastards out and do it fast!"

Robert said, "I've got a book I can loan you about the Federal Reserve and how it was formed, if you're interested. It's long and pretty dry reading, but it's the best there is on the subject. Called "The Creature from Jekyll Island". I have another one about how those big bankers, the central banks, all operate to take over small countries. It's called "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man". It explains a lot about the wars we got into over the years. And there is a video you should see on that subject, called 'All Wars are Bankers Wars'." www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4

"That should get your blood pressure up," Bill told Frank. "It made me mad and I'm STILL mad. They've been playing us for patsy's forever."

Frank said, "How come I never heard about this before?"

Bill said, "Why, 'cause they don't want you to know! They want to keep ever'body ignorant and playin' their game! They own all the big newspapers and TV stations and all that. They tell ya what they want you to think and ever'body believes it. They fill your head fulla football games and stupid TV shows and tell you a buncha damn lies about why you're so poor! You probably seen the old movie, The Wizard of Oz, haven't ya?"

"Yeah. The kids always watched it when it was on," Frank said.

"Ya know that scene where the little dog tears down the curtain and there's a little man behind it? He's talkin' through the microphone and says, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I am the GREAT AND POWERFUL WIZARD OF OZ! Well, that 's how it all works. They got their mouthpieces like that to tell you what you're s'posed to believe!"

Frank was beginning to think the whole family was a little strange. It all sounded like some fairy tale.

Robert saw he was uncomfortable and said, "Dad, it isn't fair to overload somebody with this all at once. Give Frank a break and let him read the books."

Bill said, "I get steamed about it. Sorry. He's right. You read what he gives you and you'll begin to see what we're talkin' about. It took me a year to catch up with what Robert told me. But I'll tell you what. After you learn about this stuff, the world will make sense to you for the first time in your life."
________________


Chapter 78 November, 2017



Two young men showed up at the corner store on the highway into town one morning. They told the store clerk they had got off a freight train when it stopped 4 miles to the north at Corydon Junction and hitched a ride to town with the drug store owner who had picked up a shipment. Kevin Albin, who had grown up in the county, was an ex-employee of the Corps of Engineers. His travelling partner was Sean Harper, an ex-Veteran's Admin. worker. They said they were looking for work of any sort.

They began to tell how thousands of govt. workers were terminated. There had been some serious protests by terminated government workers in the Capitol, but those were cut short by a detachment of Marine guards.

The rumor was that the Census Bureau would be shut down until the next census was due. Then it would be done by computer generated lists with minimum workers. The government health care insurance plan was history, along with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and 2/3 of military personnel would be cut and many overseas bases closed. All the govt. law enforcement agencies were to be merged into the FBI and total manpower cut by 3/4. The Department of Homeland Security had been disbanded.

IRS manpower had been cut by 90% and the tax code streamlined to a short form for all individuals. The Post Office would deliver mail once a week with a commensurate cut in personnel. They couldn't remember it all, but it was supposed to be announced by the end of the week.

It all had to do with loans from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF had been running a back door operation loaning money to support US Treasury bonds through a Belgian bank as a proxy buyer, the bond purchase money being issued as direct loans to the desperate US government. Now they were asserting their power as leinholder, to dictate fiscal policy to the US.

The store clerk listened with her mouth open. It was the worst news she'd heard in a long time, and there had been absolutely nothing on the news about it.
_________________

The dollar's value had dropped by a factor of 3 to one back at the first 'voluntary' devaluation. After rumors of the draconian cutbacks reached international markets, the dollar dropped to 1/5 of what it had been pre-crisis, relative to US imports, and that was spreading fast to prices of domestic goods. The central banks had pulled every trick they could think of to stave off the inevitable demise of the unbacked fiat dollar, but China, Russia, and several other countries had dumped their US Treasury bonds, sinking bond prices and causing a tsunami of overseas dollars to come flooding back to the US. Nobody wanted to hold dollars. International trade with the US virtually stopped, overnight. Politicians had voiced warmongering rhetoric, but they were toothless tigers, unable to support the military's needs and everyone knew it.
_________________

Kevin and Sean were directed to the minister of a church who gave a meal and shelter for the night in the church basement with several other people. After a breakfast of oatmeal the next morning, the two left the church carrying their backpacks and duffle bags. An old woman at the church had told them she'd heard the City would hire people to clean out old buildings, so they walked toward the City offices on a side street.

Mayor Fleming said, "The pay is $10 an hour and the work is hard, but you can sleep at the job if you have a bedroll. There's water and a bathroom in the one we're working on today. You'll have company if you decide to stay there tonight, but watch your belongings because I don't want to hear about things getting lost, okay?"

Sean asked, "Where do we go?"

"Down Main Street here East until you pass that old garage with the chain link fence, and in the next block is an old church we're working on. Squatters have been living in it and left a bunch of trash that's a fire hazard. That's why we discourage squatters. We had a bad fire a while back and we don't want any more. The salvage contractor will tell you what to do when you get there. Show him this note. He will pay you at the end of each day."

Kevin accepted the note scribbled on a scrap of paper and the pair walked off in search of their new jobs.
_________________

Sean had grown up in a rough part of Louisville. He kept a close eye on their duffles and packs. One old fellow had been fooling around near the corner where they were stashed, but a hard look from Sean had him shuffling off another direction. Kevin was learning fast and spoke softly to the old guy when he walked past. "If anything happens to our stuff in that corner, I'll be coming to see YOU! Got it?"

The old man blustered a bit and found something to do in the basement of the building. Kevin noticed that a shifty eyed younger man apparently overheard that and gave him a wider berth, too. Sean and Kevin took turns carrying out trash and junk to the big trailer outside, always keeping one of them in sight of their belongings. It was a long day.

Near sundown, the contractor boss appeared by the water bucket on the old truck hitched to the trash trailer and workers gathered around him. He handed the first ones four twenty dollar bills each, but when Kevin and Sean's turn came he handed them $60 each, saying, "We start at 7:00 in the morning. You guys didn't get here till 'bout 9:00."

Kevin said, "By my watch it was 7:45, but call it 8:00. That makes it $10 more."

"Where's this watch you're so proud of, Sonny? I don't see any watch! None uh you bums got watches!"

Kevin slid up his sleeve to show it and said, "I guess you don't recognize me since I let my beard grow, but I recognize you. You're Chet Kirchner, right? Used to work for my Dad on the farm when I was a kid. He always paid you fair, and I expect the same."

Sean moved a step closer and stared into the man's eye's, waiting for his answer.

Chet looked hard at Kevin and said, "You Sam Albin's boy?"

"That's right."

Chet scowled and dug in his pocket to fish out another twenty dollar bill. "Here. You c'n find some way to split that."

He turned abruptly and headed for his truck, saying gruffly over his shoulder, "No fires in the building tonight! The Deputy will be watchin' fer that. You wanna cook somethin' you do it outside."

He slammed the door of the old truck and soon drove away with his load.

Sean said, "He was askin' to get his face rearranged."

"Let's wait to do that until we find a better job," Kevin said.

Sean said, "I seen some eggs in the window of that hardware store a couple blocks back that way."

"Let's see if they're still open," Kevin said.

They caught Cindy coming out with the trash and asked to buy a half dozen eggs.

"Sure, C'mon in! They're $10 a dozen, so that's $5."

Cindy made change and said, "Haven't seen you guys before. You new in town?"

Kevin said, "Not been here for a long time, but I grew up down between Elizabeth and Laconia. Names Kevin Albin and this is my friend Sean Harper. We're workin' for that outlaw cleaning out the church up the street."

Cindy looked closer at him and said, "Yeah! I remember you! You were a year behind me in school. Your Dad had a farm about a mile from ours. I'm Cindy Hoffman, well, Daulton now. I married Chad Daulton."

Kevin grinned and said, "Long time since I've seen you."

Robert walked up and got introduced. He noticed the backpacks and duffle bags and said, "You guys travelling, or stopping here?"

"We're stopped for tonight," Kevin said and pointed over his shoulder. "We worked today cleaning that church, but we're looking for a job that offers room and board."

Robert said, "You guys want to sleep in the store tonight? I could use a night watchman and it's warmer in here, if you want to tend the stove."

Sean grinned and said, "That beats sleeping in that cold church!"

"We'll be in a little before 7:00 in the morning. You can cook on the wood stove if you want to. You have food?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Sean said. "We've got a pretty good kit."

"Okay. The bathroom is back there, so there's water available and a place to wash up. Closing time now, so we'll see you in the morning."

On the way home, Cindy said, "You're a trusting soul to let those guys stay in the store."

Robert said, "I told them I was locking them in, and they could get out the fire door, but it would set off the alarm. They said they had no reason to go out. I'm not risking much. They don't have a car, so they couldn't carry off much if they tried. Besides, you knew the one guy."

"Oh yeah. He was an okay kid. Hunh. I shoulda known you had something figured out."
_______________

[patience]

Chapter 79

The following Friday an announcement on the Louisville Public TV station said the problem was that the IMF loan rules required this terrible austerity and villified the IMF for forcing such conditions on the US. There was nothing the government could do about it, but better times were coming as soon as the President got some of his new programs through Congress. There was a clip of the President talking about how the American people were tough and resourceful and he would have help on the way to get them all through this like they had other trials in the past.

Bill said, "Lyin' damn fools! How stupid do they think we are? They ain't got any damn money so how are they gonna do anything? It's all bull!"

"Not much doubt of that, since the talk's coming from them," Erin said.

Robert said, "Marty Shoemaker down at the grocery says there is no coffee coming from Africa, because of wars there and high transport costs. Colombia still exports coffee, but the price doubled in the US and it's that bitter stuff I despise. Tea is still coming from Asia, but it's as high as coffee, mostly because the Asians hate us for diluting the debts we owed them by printing too much money."

Bill said, "I'm still sellin' a little of the yard goods to a few women, but I had to jack the price up 'cause everything went so high overnight. Business is gonna be slow. It's gettin' harder all the time."
________________

"They got toilet paper in the bathroom," Kevin said.

"That's better than that old church. Maybe we can keep this gig for a few days. That guy that owns the place seems like he's okay," Sean said.

"Yeah. This is way better than I expected to find right away. It seemed like a dumb idea to leave town, but without a place to stay, the city is bad news," Kevin said.

"We gotta find better jobs before winter gets here. When I was a kid I knew some guys who lived on the streets and that's bad."

"We got the mountain tents," Kevin said. "We can make it if we have to."

"That was fun when we were backpacking just for the hell of it, but I don't want to live that way," Sean said.

"Me neither. I'll ask Cindy tomorrow about any job possiblities around here. The people out here gossip a lot and if there's anything, she'll know about it."

"Is that Spam done yet?" Sean was hungry.

"Oughta be. Just needs to get hot. Eggs are ready."

"If we hadn't brought that peanut butter we'd not had any lunch. I seen the rest of those guys didn't have any lunch today, so I didn't want to dig out anything much in front of them."

Kevin was thinking as he ate. "Yeah. That young kid looked nasty to me. Steal your socks if he thought he could get by with it."

"Speaking of socks. I'm going to wash out mine tonight. Want to do yours?"

"Right. Underwear, too, and I'm having a bird bath as soon as I get the dishes done."

"I'm next," Sean said as he popped a vitamin pill.
_______________

Chad said, "Do you think those guys are okay?"

Cindy said, "I knew Kevin in school and he was always a decent kid. I don't know his buddy, but if he's hangin' with Kevin, he's prob'ly okay, too. They seemed pretty tight, like they've known each other for a long time."

"I could sure use a guy in the shop to help the mechanic and I've got one lineman helper out with a broken ankle. I don't know if he'll ever be able to climb again. I need to meet these guys and find out what they can do."

"Did you talk to the butcher about the cattle?"

"I stopped there at noon. He said he'd take two this Saturday, and then he'd have to wait and see how it sells before he takes any more. People aren't buying much."

"Do we have enough hay to keep 'em all winter, you think?"

"Maybe. If we can sell half a dozen now we can probably make it. We need to butcher one soon for us, so that would leave 13 head to feed, but we'd have to find more hay before Spring because we just don't have any pasture to speak of."

"If we close off the driveway, we could let a couple run in the yard," Cindy said. "Can't afford gas just to mow a damn yard now."

"I should have done that all summer. I'll have Dad make a barbed wire gate tomorrow and we'll turn a few out there. I've been thinking I'd sell the steers first. There's 8 of them that are heifers and we could breed the best of them if we end up keeping some."

Cindy nodded agreement. "That's how Dad did it. He'd buy feeders and pick the best heifers to keep for brood cows. He built a good herd that way. But what are we going to do for pasture?"

"I dunno yet. I'll think of something."
_______________

Robert and Cindy came in to a warm office that had been dusted and the floor mopped. Sean and Kevin were sitting on their duffles by the front door as they came in. Sean asked Robert, "Would it be okay to leave our bags here somewhere during the day?"

"Sure. Cindy, find a shelf in the warehouse for them, if you would. No need to carry all that everywhere."

"We sure appreciate this Mr. Evans. That's a bad crew we're working with and they'd steal anything. This might not look like much, but it's all we've got."

Cindy showed them a high shelf with enough room where they tossed their things.

"Great!" Kevin said. "We have to go. It's almost 7:00 o'clock."

"See ya," Cindy said as they went out the door.
________________

Kimberly Wright came into Bill's store and told Carol, "I'd like to look at material and patterns to make work clothes."

"Okay, let's go upstairs and we'll find you something."

Both women had an armload when they came back down. Bill was moving things around on the main floor to make room for rinse tubs beside the wringer washing machine on display. Kimberly walked past it and put her load on the counter, then went back to look closer at the washer.

"What's that thing in there?"

Bill saw she was pointing in side the washer and said, "That is a butter churn! You oughta have one uh those, with all that cream you got."

"How does it work?"

Bill lifted the small tank out of the washing machine and showed her the bottom of it.

"That hole there fits on where the agitator goes. Just pull the agitator out and set this thing on it. The agitator shaft makes the churn go back and forth. That arm with the peg reaches out here to where the drain hose hook is, and fits in that hole. That keeps the outside of the churn settin' still while the inside goes back and forth. It holds a gallon of cream and the papers with it says it'll make butter faster than doin' it with an old crank churn."

www.leemag.50megs.com/photo3.html

"I WANT one of those! How much is it?"

"I gotta have $500 for it. Now, some of that could be paid with milk and cream, y'know. We c'n work something out. I hear you got some dry beans this year, too, if it suits you to trade some of them."

Kimberly knew that money was hard to get now, and the trading sounded good to her.

"Yes," she said firmly. "We can do that. You want to work that out with Jim?"

Bill said, "That'll be fine. You sign a sale bill for me and I'll go see Jim when it comes handy."

As an afterthought, Bill said, "If you're gonna do any butcherin' soon, you oughta look at the meat grinder I got for the washer, too."

"You have a meat grinder?"

"Yeah! You just set the wringer off in the floor and set the meat grinder on. It's got a handle just like the wringer to turn it on and off. I'll get one and show you."

After the demonstration, Kimberly had him add it to her charge ticket. Rachel came in then and said, "You find what you wanted?"

"Oh boy, did I ever! Jim might fuss about what it cost, but he'll love it all. You want to help me carry this out to the car?"

A few days later, Bill had laid up a big supply of dry beans at home and had a barrel left to sell in his store. The Evans family would have a supply of milk, cream, and butter for a long time and Bill pocketed some cash from the big sale.
_______________


Chapter 80


Chad came to the hardware store just before closing time to meet the two men staying there at night. He asked if either of them had any experience as a mechanic?

Kevin told Chad, "I'm not a real mechanic, but I grew up on a farm fixing our stuff and I always did my own work on the car when I had time."

Chad said, "That'll do. When can you go to work?"

"Ah. Any time, I guess, but I'll have to figure out how to get there. Neither of us has a car. They got stolen and then we both got laid off. Fat chance of gettin' 'em back now, and the insurance company has gone bust. We'll have to find a ride somehow."

Chad thought for a minute and said, "Leave that until later. Sean, have you ever done outside work?"

"Not since I was in college. I worked for a building contractor then doing remodelling. Kevin and I spent a lot of winter weekends out backpacking in the Daniel Boone National Forest, if that counts."

"How would you feel about climbing utility poles?"

"Can't be any worse than rock climbing, can it?"

"Would you want to ride shotgun with my lineman? He can teach you what you need to know and we'll get you up to speed."

"Oh yeah! I hated my desk job at the VA. It paid pretty good, but that's history."

Chad said, "Let me call Robert and see if he can do without you as night watchmen. The facilities at the company office are at least as good, and we have a snack room with a fridge and microwave. Would that work for you guys to stay there?"

Sean and Kevin looked at each other and grinned. Kevin said, "Darn right that'll work!"
_______________

"I couldn't find any patterns for jeans," Kimberly said.

Rachel said, "You can do what Grandma did. Take an old pair apart and iron all the pieces flat, then use them for a pattern. It's not as easy to use as a paper pattern, but it doesn't tear up like paper does."

"I never thought of that! There's some of those dress pants I can use."

Rachel said, "That's what I'm gonna do for Justin. He needs jeans bad. I'm glad you found the bolt of denim. I'll pay you for what I use from it."

"He had scads of it. I should have bought more, but I had already spent a lot, so I let it go. I bought a whole bolt of unbleached cotton muslin for making boxer shorts. He didn't have any elastic, so I guess I'll have to put a drawstring at the waist. I haven't found anything to use for that yet."

"I bet Robert has some string that would work. Would you believe he had a belt for my old treadle sewing machine? He had needles, too. It's hard telling what all he's got in that hardware store. It wasn't cheap, though."

"Nothing is cheap now," Kimberly said.
________________

"I can't make much money at weaving," Carol said. "It doesn't seem like it's worth the time it takes to do it."

Bill said, "It makes a lot of people come into the store, though. They love to watch you do it. It's hard telling how many sales that has brought us."

"Yes, I suppose so. I've had women tell me that after they saw how long it takes to weave cloth, they were ready to pay the price for the ready made stuff we have. I did sell some rugs, but even at $40 it's not hardly worth it. It takes me 2 or 3 hours to make one. Besides thart there's the time to warp the loom and cut and sew the rags into strips. I'm not making crap for my time."

Bill thought for a while and said, "You know, none of us are making much for our time now. Not compared to what things cost to buy. I do best trading for things we need, and next best is trading for something to sell. That's where the profit is. You need to start trading your rugs and cloth for things you can't make, and I bet you come out better."

"I do it mostly because I like it. And it fills the time between customers. I didn't mean I was going to quit weaving. I still want to get into that linen thread and see what I can do with it."
_________________

Sean said, "I only have two outfits of jeans and work shirts. I'll have to wash 'em out pretty often. We could only carry so much, and after the building next door burned we were in a hurry to leave."

"We've still got uniforms and coveralls left over I can give you to wear on the job," Chad said. "Let's go see if we can find some that fit. I stopped the uniform laundry service and bought the used uniforms to save the company money. That's why there's a washing machine and dryer in the shop. You'll have to do your own laundry."

"Just like home," Sean said.

Kevin and Sean helped sort through the uniforms piled in the back room and found they were stacked in piles by sizes. They each found enough for 5 outfits. Chad had given them the office meeting room to sleep in and it had a small coat closet where they hung their clothes. There was a huge couch in that room where Sean slept with a blanket from the closet and the conference table made an acceptable bed for Kevin when he piled both their sleeping bags and pads on it.

When Chad left for the evening, Sean and Kevin hitched a ride to the grocery store. They even found a ride most of the way back with another customer saving a mile and a half walk.

"You don't have to refrigerate eggs or the apples. That fridge'll be stuffed with what we have to put in there."

"You're right. I think we overdid it at the grocery," Sean said.

Kevin said, "Yeah, but those fresh vegetables sure look good after a few days of pack food. We'll be broke 'til payday, but we'll eat good."

"We've still got the silver coins."

"Yeah, but try and find somebody to give you what they're worth now."

"That hardware store had a sign said they take silver coins," Sean reminded him.

"That's right! Maybe we ought to do some shopping there. He had ammo and I'd like to have another box. Damn shame I couldn't carry more from the apartment."

"Uh-huh. But I'm glad we had our bugout bags packed and ready to go. I'd hate to have to make all those choices at the last minute."

"Hey!" Kevin said. "What's that in the parking lot. Something just ran under the service truck there."

Sean grabbed a small but powerful flashlight and his pistol from his pack and headed for the door. Kevin was right behind him. They quietly stepped outside and around the corner to look under the truck. A very skinny cat came out and meowed at them.

"What's up fella? Looks like you missed a meal or two."

The cat insisted that was right and looked up at them expectantly, rubbing around Kevin's ankles.

"Okay, come on with us and we'll find you something."

The cat turned out to be a gray striped male, big overall but without much meat on his bones. He followed the men to the door and stopped there.

Kevin said, "Go get him some milk in a can lid or something. I'll stay here and keep him company so he doesn't run off."

After a mayonnaise jar lid of milk, with some crackers crumbled in it, the cat was very sociable. Kevin went inside and looked around for something more substantial to feed the starving animal. They had a little canned chicken left from packing their lunches, so he took that out to the nearby garage where he worked. He squatted inside the open door and called the cat, offering the food near the ground. The cat came at a trot and pounced on the meat. Kevin closed the door and said, "If you wanna stay here tonight, i'll see if I can talk the boss into letting you stay, okay?"

Cat was agreeable. The shop building was warm and it was getting cold outside. Kevin found a pile of grease rags and spread them out on the workbench. Amazingly, the cat did not object to being picked up, so Kevin put him on the pile of rags and put the last bits of his chicken close by. While the cat was finishing his meal, Kevin located a small metal parts bowl and got some water in it. The cat got himself a drink and had just begun turning around and around on the rag pile when Sean walked in.

"Looks like you got a work buddy."

"I hope so. If he lives through being half starved to death."

"I don't think he's in that bad of shape."

"He was awful light when I picked him up," Kevin said. "Well, I did what I could for him. Can't feed him too much at once or he'll throw it up. Say! He's awful friendly. He had to have been somebody's pet. I wonder if he's litter trained?"

Kevin went off to find the bag of oil-dry they used on the floor to soak up spills. It looked exactly like cat litter, which it probably was. A cardboard box was pressed into service for a litter box and placed on the bench with the cat, who went to sniff it and promptly climbed in the box and sat down to do his thing.

"Lookee there! We got us a well mannered cat!"

Sean said, "I wonder what Micky is gonna say about that?"

"Aw, Mickey's easy going. I bet they'll hit it off."
_________________

[patience]

Chapter 81 December, 2017



Sunday afternoon the public TV station had issued a winter weather advisory. Rain would change to freezing rain, then sleet and snow. Chad was worried about the effect of ice on power lines. It all depended on the temperature whether the lines would get iced up. A little ice was no problem, but a lot could mean days of repairing broken lines.

The next morning Cindy said, "School is closed today." The kids heard that with mixed emotions. It meant more school days late in the Spring.

She asked Chad, "How are you going to drive on that ice?"

He grinned and said, "Very carefully. No, I'm taking the truck. I put the tire chains on it last night and I've got some firewood in the back for weight. It will go all right. I just have to be careful steering."
_______________

Taylor and Joe Marker had been working intently Sunday at Bill's shop sorting out items and loading his truck with them to take to the store downtown. They ignored the rainy weather until they heard the sound on the roof change and looked outside. Sleet was coming down hard and had the ground covered. In a matter of minutes it was an inch deep. Taylor looked at her car across the parking lot and said, "I don't want to drive in this."

Joe said, "I don't think you should. There's ice under all that. I'm glad I got some firewood inside so I don't have to walk around in it."

The phone rang and Joe answered it. "Yeah. Makes sense to me. Okay. See you Tuesday."

"That was my boss at the welding shop. Said he's gonna close tomorrow. Doesn't want anybody out in this stuff and we ain't got that much to do."

"I'd better go tell Erin to set a plate for me tonight," Taylor said.

"I can make supper for you upstairs," Joe offered.

Taylor smiled at him and said, "Hmm. Erin's making chicken soup. What are you having?"

"How about a venison steak with mushroom gravy? MY homemade mushroom gravy, with the ones I found last Spring and froze."

Taylor smiled and said, "I guess I'll call Erin and tell her I'm staying here tonight. Have to call home, too, or Cindy will be frantic."

Joe took a deep breath and said, "I better get that steak thawed out."

He trotted upstairs whistling softly, thinking about how long he'd been hoping Taylor would see him as something besides a co-worker. He wasn't a ladies' man and he knew it. Maybe if he could make her a really good meal she would soften towards him some.

Taylor watched him go up the stairs, mostly seeing his broad shoulders and his narrow butt. She had been thinking about him a lot lately. He was a really nice guy, a scarce commodity she thought. She called Erin and learned that Robert and Bll had both decided to close their stores the next day. Next was Cindy, who told her she would be crazy to try to drive on the ice. After that call, Taylor began to think about how nice it would be to sleep in tomorrow--with that gorgeous hunk upstairs.
________________

Mickey Davis came walking into the shop a little early. He glanced at Kevin by the workbench and said, "I'm glad I live close by. It's nasty out there. The wind is picking up."

He began peeling off his parka and noticed the cat sitting on the bench licking his chops and squinching his eyes at him. Cat had just polished off some of Kevin and Sean's breakfast leftovers.

"Where'd he come from?"

"He came wandering by last night and asked for help. He was about starved to death," Kevin said.

"He wouldn't last long out there today," Mickey said. "Better keep him in here where it's warm."

He walked over to the cat and scratched his head. "You got a warm place now. Better stay here, if you know what's good for you. Maybe you can catch those mice that's been eatin' my spare gaskets."

Kevin breathed an unconscious sigh of relief, and said, "He's been somebody's house cat. I got him a litter box and he went right to it. No problem."

"He needs a name. How 'bout Tigger? My kids always liked that cartoon show."

Kevin said, "I bet he'll come to eat no matter what you call him."

MIckey said, "We got some tire chains for the service trucks, but a couple of 'em are busted up. We need to get 'em patched up and on them trucks ASAP. The calls will be comin' in pretty soon, looks like, so we better have the trucks ready."

Inspecting the chains showed some broken links and one missing. Kevin asked, "Is there a welder around here?"

"Yeah. Got a MIG back there behind the lift," Mickey said and hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction.

A few minutes later Kevin had the broken links welded and they carried the heavy tire chains outside as the other two linemen came trudging in to work on foot.

Mickey yelled at them, "Where ya been? We got chains ready for your trucks already and here you come stragglin' in late!"

"We don't live as close as you do," one said.

The other one said, "Yeah, an' you just got the trucks ready anyhow. No point in gettin' here too early."

Chad answered the phone and learned that a line was down already and it was in the south end of the county where the woods were thick and the hills were steep. He looked out the window and saw tree limbs with heavy ice on them bending toward the ground. It was going to be a long day.
______________


Chapter 82


Chad saw that the coffee pot was half full and gratefully poured himself a cup then set it on the table to cool. He grabbed his coat and went out to talk to his men and make assignments. Brad Jenkins, Paul Overton, Billy Spencer and Sean Harper all nodded soberly and got in their trucks that were idling and warming up. He worried about his men, hoping he didn't have to go get either crew out of a jam. When the trucks pulled out, he saw, surprisingly that Mickey and Kevin had the one ton utility truck running and were putting tire chains on it. They had obviously finished the engine repair. It was four wheel drive and could help rescue a boom truck if they got one stuck somewhere. He waved and gave them a thumbs-up sign of approval and went back inside. The phone was ringing again.
______________

Taylor opened her eyes and looked at the man she had been having dreams about since he'd moved into the apartment. Joe was a few years older than her, in his prime really at 30 years old. She put a hand gently on his cheek and lightly kissed him good morning. He woke and looked at her, the look changing from sleepy haze to desire. He put an arm around her and said, "I guess breakfast can wait?"

"Mm, hmm."
_______________

The night before, an old man had found where leaves had collected beside the end of the overpass. He kicked a pile of them in the narrow space and found some of them were still dry enough. He raked the icy ones out of the pile with his hands and pushed the rest into a thick pile as far out of the wind as he could and crawled into the pile. He tried to remember when he ate last, but couldn't bring to mind anything but that woman who chased him away with a shotgun.

He remembered there was a town not too far ahead. Maybe they had a shelter where he could get a meal and get warm. He was cold all the way through. The leaves helped some. At least the wind didn't go through his clothes. He was very tired. As soon as he had his bag stuffed in the crack by the floor of the overpass, he laid his head on it and fell asleep.

Sometime in the night he heard a loud noise, but couldn't wake enough to learn what it was. He felt safe, so he fell into a deeper sleep. The cold seeped into him, but he was in its' grip and didn't notice. As the sun came up in a gray sky, there was no longer any sign of life in the leaf pile. A rabbit came by slowly, looking for something to eat under the overpass where there was no ice on the ground. He smelled a threat, a human, and bounced away into the woods.
____________

Billy Spencer backed the bucket truck onto the overpass as near the downed line as he dared and stopped. The power line was down across the road, they had seen that from a distance and had the power killed on this section.

"It shouldn't be too bad," Billy said. "That tree split and fell on it, so if you'll get the chainsaw going, we oughta be able to get this back up in a couple hours."

"Okay, I'll get on it," Sean said.

As he walked down the steep bank beside the road, he noticed clear tracks in the crunchy frozen sleet. They led to the end of the overpass and there were none coming out. Curious, he followed the tracks and saw the leaf pile with an olive drab thing sticking out of the snow. Another few steps and he saw a glimpse of a hunter orange cap under the concrete.

"Hey, Billy! There's somebody under the bridge here. I gotta get him out before we get started."

"Yeah! Okay. He gives you any trouble, yell and I'll come help." It wasn't the first time Billy had run into bums in such places.

Sean yelled at the head he could barely see. "You gotta go buddy! We've got a downed power line. Can't stay there while we work on it. C'mon out!"

Nothing moved in the leaf pile, so Sean warily poked at him with the tip of the chainsaw bar. Some leaves fell away and he saw the old man's face, gray and still with some unmelted snow on it. Sean touched the face with a gloved hand and it didn't move. He raked leaves away and bumped an arm wrapped around the man's chest. It was stiff. Sean backed out quickly.

"Hey Billy! This guy's dead! Better come see!"

Billy slid down the slope and got a look for himself. "Maybe he's still alive. We can warm him up in the truck. Let's get him out of there."

The two men pulled and dragged the body out, but the stiffness convinced them the man was past helping.

"I better call Chad," Billy said. "Leave him be there. If someody shot him, you ain't s'posed to move anything before the law gets here."
__________________

The Sheriff and coroner arrived in due course and retrieved the body, assuring them the man had frozen to death. When the body bag was loaded in the Sheriff's van Billy and Sean tried to resume their work.

"I don't know about you, but that dead man got me spooked," Billy said. Sean nodded his answer.

"We better take our time and make sure we don't get hurt here, with the ice an' all. We're s'posed to get the service back up fast, but we don't need no accidents while we do it."

Sean said, "Yeah. I never ran into a dead man out like this. Seems a lot different in a funeral home."

To himself Sean thought it could easily have been me and Kevin in there, if we hadn't hit some real luck. It was a sobering thought. He tried hard to keep his mind on cutting up the tree, but he had to remind himself of the dangers of using achainsaw on icy ground. His mind kept drifting to the gray face of that thin old man. It was 3 hours later when they finally the line pulled back up and spliced. The two men sat in their warm truck and ate their lunch without talking, then pulled back on the highway to go to the next call.
________________

Brad Jenkins and Paul Overton had their own problems. An old Maple tree had dropped a huge limb on the power line and taken down a pole with it. That wouldn't be so bad, but the right of way there was steep downhill, too steep to stand and work with the icy footing. Why hadn't that last fool manager gotten crews out here to trim those trees, Paul wondered. He would have to call for help, and Chad wasn't going to like it.
_______________

[patience]

Chapter 83


Breakfast was eggs, leftover venison steak, and milk. Taylor watched Joe skillfully do the cooking after she had washed last night's dishes and set the table. He filled plates and sat down.

Taylor said, "How come you never said you were interested in me?"

Joe said, "I just never was very good at talking to girls."

"It's harder for some people. I never was very good at talking to guys, either. But, there wasn't any good guys around since high school. I never dated much."

Joe stared at her, then said, "That's hard to believe, a girl are pretty as you are."

"You think so? I always thought I looked okay, but I didn't get many dates."

Joe said, "I've heard that really pretty girls don't get asked out much, 'cause the guys are afraid they'll say no. I know I never would. I'm not much to look at and I know that, so there was no use in me askin'.

Taylor's eyes went wide. "Whatever gave you that idea? YOU'RE GORGEOUS!"

Joe sat there looking at her, not knowing what to say.

Taylor said, "And you can cook, too. Besides that you're a really sweet guy. The girls around here must have been blind, deaf, and dumb. Dumb for sure. But I'm not. WIll you marry me?"

Joe said, "I'm not dumb either. You bet I'll marry you!"

Taylor leaned over the little table and kissed him.

Joe said, "Wow. I never expected to have a girl like you. You're smart and you've got through so much on your own. I don't know what you see about me that you could like. I'm nothin' special, just your average Joe."

Taylor grinned at his choice of words and said, "That's what I like. You're nice and you treat people good. I think you're pretty special."

Joe was a little embarrassed by the praise and joked about it. "You keep thinkin' that way and we'll do great!"

He grinned and got up to begin clearing the table. Taylor joined him to help clean up the kitchen. Joe said, "I gotta buy a ring for you."

Taylor said, "I don't need one, but you can buy one If that makes you happy. I know just where to get one we can afford. Talk to Erin. Money is too hard to get to be spending much on that. We need to talk about money and what we have and what we might need."

Joe said, "Practical, too. Now that's my kind of girl." He kissed her again and said, "I still can't believe you'd want me. I don't have much to offer you. All I got is a truck and a job."

Taylor said, "That's about what I have. A car and a job. Oh. I do have a sewing machine and a washer and a whole pile of stuff stored in Chad's shed. But that isn't much."

"Well, if we're talking like that, I've got a welder and a couple boxes of tools. Got a good shotgun, and a .22, and a pistol I always carry now. I'm gettin' by here for dishes and stuff. Wish I had more sheets and blankets. I have to do laundry too often."

Taylor dried the last of the dishes and said, "I've got a lot of that kind of thing. I think we'll be fine."

She kissed him on the tip of his nose and then put the dishes away. Joe watched her and said, "You wanna get dressed now?"

She smiled when she saw his grin and said, "Not particularly."
______________

The Sheriff told the Coroner, "His driver's license said he was Emmet Price and his address was somewhere in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Not much else on him. I couldn't find anyone in E-town named Price that knew him, and the law wasn't looking for him. No way to know how he got under that bridge. Looks like the County will have to bury him. Just another victim of hard times."

Dennis Collins was also the owner of the last operating funeral home in town. He told the Sheriff, "I wish it was rich people dying off instead of these poor ones. I don't make enough off a County burial to hardly pay expenses."

"You're still in business, so you must be makin' something. Looks like nobody will claim his personal belongings, so you can have them."


"Hmmph. Yeah. An old Army duffel and some stinkin' clothes." Dennis walked out shaking his head.
_______________

Erin gave William a couple pork rinds to chew on and help him cut some teeth. She told Carol, "I haven't seen anything of Taylor and Joe this morning."

Carol looked up from the pair of pants she was taking apart to salvage a zipper. "If I was that age and spent the night with a guy like him, I wouldn't be up yet either."

Bill walked in and headed for the coffee pot, asking, "What are you women jawin" about?"

"None of your business," Carol said. "Are you gonna do anything today, or just pester us?"

"I thought I might go see how the truck loadin' is goin', but I don't want to wake up Joe and his girl too early."

Carol said, "No, that wouldn't be polite. You better go tend the animals first."
________________

Marty Shoemaker told his wife, "We didn't get much on the last delivery from Louisville, and our grocery stock's getting low. With this ice on they won't come today, either."

Jennifer said, "They'll probably come tomorrow. The truck was just a day late the last time we had a storm like this."

"I hope so. We're out of too many things."
_______________

Chad and his men didn't come in until noon the next day. It had taken them all until well after midnight to get the line repaired in that hollow down south. That was after almost losing a truck over the hillside when the shoulder gave way. It had taken the winches on both bucket trucks to keep it right side up while they pulled it out with the one ton.

Thankfully, a thaw was expected soon. Chad hoped there were no more downed lines today. His crew was tired and that wasn't safe.
_______________



Chapter 84



"You guys have done the best anyone could do this week," Chad told his crew at the payday meeting. "I wish I could give you all raises, but I can't. The money just isn't there. We have less than half the subscribers we did 5 years ago and the company can't raise rates much or we will lose a lot of subscribers and have even less money. Everything the company buys has gone up like what we buy to live. I'll do whatever I can, though, in the way of fringe benefits. Give me some ideas and I'll see if I can do it."

Mickey Davis spoke up. "How 'bout workin' different hours sometimes? Can you do that?"

"Don't see why not, especially in your case. If you and Kevin keep things in workng order, I see no reason you have to be here exactly when the rest of us are. What'cha got in mind?"

"If I could start at, say 6:00 in the morning instead of 8:00, then I'd have time to cut some firewood in the evenings, or work in the garden longer. If you need me to stay later some days, we could work that out."

"Sounds okay to me. You and Kevin work out how you want to do it and get back to me. Any other ideas?"

Paul Overton said, "I'd like to get some of the used poles we take out."

Chad said, "I'm supposed to sell 'em, but if they are too far gone, I can dispose of 'em any way I want to. Yeah, we can get you some poles. You can use the pole trailer to take 'em home, if you want. We'll pick some out tonight and mark 'em for you."

Sean said, "Me and Kevin already got fringe benefits, staying here."

Kevin seconded that. "Right. We don't need anything else."

Chad said, "There are advantages to the company to have someone on the property at night. We've had a few problems with vandalism, mostly stealing stuff. So, this works both ways."

Billy said, "Don't the company get a cut rate on diesel fuel?"

Chad said, "We contract it ahead, and usually get 5% or so off doing that."

"Could I buy some at the company price?"

Chad said, "Let me talk to my boss on that. I'd say there's a good chance of it, but we'll have to figure out how to work it."

Nobody else spoke for a while, so Chad said, "Think about this and if you come up with something, I'll see what I can do, okay? You guys are great, and I appreciate it. Here's your pay envelopes. The pay stub is in there and I cashed the checks to save you a trip to the bank, and I plan on doing that. The company can pay for me to make one trip instead of you each having to make a trip. Hope that helps a little."

He got a round of thanks from everyone, and he could tell they meant it. On his way out of the office Billy said, "It makes a difference workin' for somebody that tells the truth for a change. An' besides that, you know how it is out there an' you ain't afraid to get your hands dirty helpin'. The guys all liked it when you chipped in gettin' that truck out. You're still the same as when you worked the lines."
_________________

"You better grab that man," Cindy said. "He's a keeper."

"I don't know if we can make it," Taylor said.

"You think you won't get along?"

"No, not that. We get along great. But we don't have anything much and we don't make much money and everything costs so much. I don't now if we can afford to eat."

"He's a good man and he's got a job and a place to live. You can make it. Talk to Bill about putting in a garden behind the shop.

"You really think so?"

Cindy said, "I lived by myself with a lot less. What's more important is, do you love him?"

"Oh yes! I've been crazy about him for a long time. He was just so shy that it took a while to find out he really wanted me."

"Then don't worry about the rest."

"I asked HIM to marry me and I'm going to," Taylor said. "I'm just being nervous is all."

"Have you set a date?"

"Yeah, we're going to the Courthouse tomorrow. Joe doesn't have to work 'cause their business is slow."

"That's short notice. Are we invited?"

"That's what I wanted to ask, is if you and Erin would be our witnesses? It's not a dress up deal or anything."

Cindy walked across the kitchen to gave her a hug and said, "I wouldn't miss it for anything."
______________

Rachel asked, "What are you working on so hard?"

"I'm trying to plan out what we can raise next year and make enough to live on," Justin said. "That money we inherited isn't going to last long at the rate we've been spending it."

"Yeah, but I've lived on less than I make now. If we make anything much on the farm we'll be okay."

"I'm gonna help Kyle with the tobacco project. He found a shredder somewhere and he wants to shred it all and make pipe and cigarette tobacco. But you gotta cut the big stems out of the leaves first, so I'll work on that for a while and get paid when he sells some, I guess."

"I'm goin' huntin' tomorrow. We can use the meat and I know where the deer hang out back by the creek. Meat is all we need, really. There's enough canned stuff to make it until we get a garden going."

"I'm thinking about raising a lot of garden stuff. That guy that has a greenhouse in town is making a killing on his stuff. I'm thinking sweet corn, because the people in town con't have enough room to raise it. They all grow tomatoes and salad things, but I think sweet corn would sell."

"Is that your butt I see through that hole in your pants?"

"That's my shorts."

"Change those pants and I'll patch that hole."

"I got into a barbed wire fence when we were getting the cows in tonight. It's just a tear."

"Those pants are about shot if they tore that easy. I'll make you some more."

"We can't afford to buy cloth now."

"I know, but I've got some left. Don't worry so much. I've been a lot poorer than we are now," Rachel told him. She went to his chair at the table and gave him a kiss on the neck. That led to more kisses and they got their minds off their troubles for the evening.
_________________

Erin and Cindy kissed Joe as they went out of the County Clerk's office.

Cindy said, "Congratulations! You got a great girl, Joe!"

"I think so," Joe said, grinning from ear to ear.

Erin said, "I know you two are both shy, but we're having a wedding shower, like it or not. It may take a day or two. We'll let you know. So make us some room in the shop, okay? We'll need some tables."

Taylor said, "You didn't tell me about that."

"I just did," Erin came back. "So get used to the idea. Now make me a list of what you need and give it to me tonight."
__________________

[patience]

Chapter 85


"It's snowing again," Erin said. "I don't think it'll stick. The ground isn't that cold yet."

She continued to whip the mashed potatoes while a roast simmered on the stove.

"Hmph. Bad for business just the same," Bill said.

"You said business is bad anyway."

"Yeah. Say, where's Robert? He's due home by now."

Erin said, "He went to see that guy about buying the welding shop. He was going to drop Cindy off at the grocery and get her on the way home."

"What's he want with a welding shop?"

"That's where Joe Marker works, the one that's building kitchen stoves for Robert. They don't have any other work right now, and Robert thought he might get it cheap. He's worried about the guy going broke and not having anyone to make the stoves."

"I wonder how he thinks he can come out on that deal?"

"I don't know, but he's done okay so far," Erin said.
______________

Mickey was tightening down the muffler clamp while Kevin held it in place. Both of them spit out some dirt that fell from the bottom of the truck as they rolled out on the creepers where they could sit up.

Mickey wiped his face with a shop rag and said, "I never did like exhaust work."

"Me neither, but it needed done. Billy and Sean will need it tomorrow."

"Yeah. Say, how'd you get hooked up with Sean, anyway?"

"We roomed together in college and we both liked hiking and camping."

"Neither one of you ever got married?"

"He did, but it didn't last long. They split up and he called me about a place to stay when they were getting divorced. We shared an apartment for a few years."

"You had good jobs with the govermint, didn't ya?"

"Yeah, and they made us think it would last forever. We were both into their savings plan and all that. It was great right up till it all went to hell. I had almost enough saved to buy the house I wanted. Now I got a backpack, a bedroll, and a week's worth of uniforms for this job."

Mickey nodded with a sober look. "Yeah. Lots of folks lost all they had. I was lucky. We'd just got the house paid fer and we had a mortgage burning party. I got drunk and woke up with a hangover when the news hit about the banks all goin' bad. I didn't get paid fer over a month, but at least I still got a job."

They said nothing for a minute, then Mickey got up and walked over to the workbench and said, "Hey Tom cat, where'd you get to? Time for supper."

The cat plopped down from the attic parts storage area onto the bench top and looked at his dish. Mickey gave him his supper leftovers and Kevin went searching for what he'd saved for the cat.

Kevin said, "Hey, Tom, you're gaining weight! We might have to put you on a diet."

Mickey chuckled and said, "He catches mice all day. What we give him is dessert."

Tom finished off the scraps and sat down to wash his face. Kevin stroked his back and said, "You landed pretty good for a stray cat." He looked at Mickey and said, "I guess I did too, huh?"
______________

Robert came in the kitchen as they all heard Cindy's car drive away home.

"Hey Dad, you want to sell me that machine shop building?"

"Never planned to sell it. I put it in one of those trust things so your name is already on it. What'cha got in mind?"

Robert said, "I'll still pay you for it. I want to start a business there."

"Go right ahead! You don't owe me nothin'. That's why I bought it was to get the money to you without payin' taxes on it. I don't have much in there now, and I need to take it all to the store downtown. I can get that done in a day or two."

Robert said, "That would work out really well. I bought that welding shop where Joe works and I want to move it out here. He was renting his building, so I get the equipment and him as an employee."

Erin said, "I didn't think we had that much money."

"We don't, in cash. I paid him with the silver from that posthole out back. I gave 6 of my gold Krugerrands for the machine shop down the street. I want them both in the same building and making things together. I think they can do more than twice as well together than they did separately. They will have to do better, because I'll have 3 more people on the payroll, Joe and his boss and the machinist."

Bill stared hard at his son and said, "You never go halfway, do you?"
________________

The next evening, Joe and Taylor had the building cleaned and tables set out when Erin and Cindy began to carry food in. Not long after, the first guests arrived at the wedding shower. Rachel and Justin came with Jim and Kimberly Wright carrying in boxes and bags. Kyle carried in two gallon jugs and sat them on the gift table. Chad followed with his parents, also bringing gifts. Bill and Carol took their time getting there and Bill added an envelope to the stack of gifts.

Food was served and everyone sat down to eat roast duck, ham, and fried chicken. Vegetables of several kinds covered the rest of the long table. Kyle poured the wine he'd brought and hot biscuits and cornbread rounded out the meal. Congratulations came from everyone while they ate and talked with the new couple.

When Joe and Taylor were finished eating, Erin said, "Taylor, you said you needed bedding and food, and Joe wanted tools. It's time for you to open these packages."

Jim had given them 50 pounds of dry beans, another 50 pounds of corn for meal, and 5 pounds of butter, frozen hard. Rachel and Justin gave them a small box with many envelopes of garden seeds inside. Frank and his wife gave them sheets, pillow cases, several blankets and a new quilt. Erin had brought over dozens of jars of canned food, a smoked ham, and a covered bucket of lard. Cindy and Chad had 4 dozen eggs, and dozens of jars of canned beef.

Bill's envelope was opened last and Taylor cried a little as she gave him a hug. She gave it to Joe who read the note inside.

"Take what tools you want from the store and anything else you need. Let me know when you want flour or cornmeal ground. I'll plow up a garden spot behind the shop for you as soon as the weather is fit. Congratulations, and thanks for all your help."

Joe and Taylor hugged each other and said a misty eyed "Thank you" to everyone.
_____________


Chapter 86 March, 2018


Joe looked up from his work and saw Jim Wright come in carrying a gearbox that was dripping oil.

Joe's old boss, Pete Huncil, had been appointed Foreman in the new shop and went to look at the problem. It became obvious when Jim handed him the bolt lug that had broken off the case leaving a hole.

"How'd you manage to do that?"

"Kyle got too close to a barn post with the combine auger. The post suffered some, too. Can you fix this?"

Pete said, "Yeah, we can fix it. I don't know what it'll cost until we get finished. You can save some money if you take it all apart and wash the oil out with gasoline or something. We have to get that cast iron up to about 600 degrees or so before we weld on it or it'll crack when it cools off. So all the bearings and rubber seals have to come out or the heat will damage them."

"I gotta use the combine on oats this summer. We were just going over it to make sure everything was greased and the belts were all good. It's too wet to work ground yet, but we sowed oats with a hand crank seeder yesterday."

Pete said, "Good thing you brought it right in. I expect we'll be getting real busy soon. Got quite a bit to do right now."

"Okay. I'll take it home and clean it up and bring the pieces back," Jim said. "I'm glad you can fix it, because I don't know if I can even find a new part, let alone afford to pay for it."

Erin was right behind Jim with a broken grate from her cooking range. She handed him the broken one and the other unbroken one for a pattern. She asked him, "Can you fix this?"

Pete frowned and said, "I dunno. It depends on how burnt up that metal is from being in the firebox forever. If it's too oxidized to weld, we can make you one out of steel, but that'll cost more."

Eldon Frye, the machinist walked up and said, "If it won't weld, I can drill it and turn a new peg for that end. It won't last forever, because the cast iron will be thinner around the peg, but it will last a few years. I done that on ours. But weldin' is best if the iron is still good."

While they were talking Robert walked in and asked Pete, "Got enough work to do?"

Pete said, "Yeah, we're stayin' busy. We're doing repair jobs like this as they come in and we work on building your kitchen stoves between times."

He turned and called Joe over and said, "See if you can get nickel welding rod to stick to this old cast. It wants a peg on the end like that one."

Joe nodded and walked off with it.

Looking back, Pete said, "Putting the machine shop work in with the welding was a good idea. It means we can do a lot more kinds of things than either of us alone."

"I hoped it would work that way. I knew I'd had to run from one shop to the other to get things done on my truck, and this way it's a one-stop shop."

"It's going to make you money," Pete said.

"I want it to make money for all of us. I think we can make it because now neither shop is paying rent and we only have one building to heat so our overhead is lower."

As Robert and Erin walked to their house he said, "Joe was paying rent to Dad, so I made him the same deal. It just comes off his wages so there's no difference as far as he's concerned. But it cuts down on my payroll. It looks like we'll do okay with this business, thanks to Dad giving us the building."

Erin said, "Well, he doesn't need it now that he has the store downtown, and he practically stole that store building, so he isn't out much and he's got a better location."

Robert said, "Dad thinks ahead."
_____________

The greenhouse had made money all winter for Owen Miller. He was thankful because the trailer park was down to only four rentals now. He had two trailers sitting empty, so he had drained the water from them and shut off the utilities. That had cut his income, but the greenhouse had more than made up for it. The grocer had been glad to have him as a supplier when he'd had trouble getting much of anything from Louisville.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he put his Federal and State tax return forms in the mail. He didn't owe anything, but he wouldn't get any back this year, either. His trailer park actually showed an operating loss for last year, and what income he had from the greenhouse was less than the minimum. He wondered if the County would have any money this year to fix the potholes in his street. He doubted it. He couldn't afford to fix the potholes in the park driveway, either, so he did like the County and got a little crushed stone to fill them up.

Now that Spirng was on the way, Owen had trapped a few rabbits that hung around in this quiet side of town. With only himself to feed, one big rabbit would make 2 or 3 meals with plenty of vegetables and some gravy. Times had pretty tough for a while, but he thought he could make it if things didn't get any worse. He probably wouldn't sell much produce in summer because everyone would be gardening, but he would grow enough to eat and maybe sell a little. Every little bit helped. Owen was thinking about buying a couple chickens, too.
_______________

The IMF official told the Treasury Secretary they would not consider changing the 40 year loan repayment plan. They would not consider giving back the BLM lands in the west, since they were rightfully foreclosed collateral when the early payments had not been forthcoming. The higher lease payments for those BLM lands now went directly to the biggest remaining bank in the country.

Congress was incensed that they could no longer offer campaign promises of money for nothing, since their borrowing had come to an end. Most of their contstituents who had been influenced by those aid programs were dead now anyway.

Three major banks now controlled virtually all the commerce in the US, except for the struggling underground economy. Everyone knew it was there, but enforcing tax laws had become nearly impossible with so few agents. The snitch program, promising a percentage of recovered tax liabilities hadn't yielded much at all. Tiny community markets disappeared when a "carpetbagger" tax agent was in town and stores were closed. Small businesses did not advertise with signs, but only by word of mouth and if you were not a local resident nobody would tell you anything. Local law enforcement was no help at all. Their funding came from local property taxes which would be uncollectable if small business owners were bled dry by the national taxes. It wasn't that people wouldn't pay those taxes, they could not pay them and survive.

Reduced revenue came from major corporations, most of which had their headquarters in other countries and were tax sheltered in various ways. Oil companies had been sold and were hollow shells of their former selves, trying to deal with a contracting market and diminishing supplies. Faced with the onerous IMF loan repayment , the inability to further inflate the currency lest the IMF invoke the inflation clause, the inability to borrow, and dismal tax revenues, the central government got gradually smaller each year as local government became ever more corrupt.

The upside was that the dollar was stable again, and what commerce there was began to stabilize also. No major capital ventures were being started, however, and infrastructure continued to decay. As major bridges became unusable, cross country shipments became more costly and less reliable, slowing to a trickle. Steel was again being made in the old industrial belt of the Midwest, but only in small quantities for use where rail lines reached. On the west coast, it was cheaper to buy Asian steel. West coast industries began to dry up along with the water supply and the dry land of southern California reverted to desert.

Each year the vise tightened holding the US in the economic malaise.
_______________

Parts for vehicles and machinery were always backordered, often for a year or more. Junkyards and repair shops flourished along with crafty mechanics who could make odd replacements work. Robert's machine and welding shop was one of those. Joe became known for his ability to build useful things from whatever was at hand, like shallow well drilling rig from old farm machinery and junk truck parts.

Imported goods became more costly as sales diminished and transporttaion costs soared. Carol weaving began to be competitive with manufactured cloth from abroad. Old clothing, like machinery, was salvaged for any usable parts. Cottage industries began to spring up making buttons, carved wood products, and leather work, all home grown.

The electric grid fell into more disrepair as time went by. Poles that once came from the far west were now cut from locally grown eastern Red Cedar, as they had been when REA first electrified this part of the country. More small farms and homes went off the grid as the cost got too high for their falling incomes. Chad Daulton found himself supervising the recovery of unused power lines to salvage and use for repairs to what remained.

Land line telephones became an anachronism, as overhead lines and fiber optics became too costly to maintain for the few subscribers. Cellphones and satellite internet connections were all that remained for those who could afford them. Service was not always good and and always slow.

A government deperate for revenue increased import tariffs on everything, dragging the lethargic economy even more and giving rise to a lively smuggling trade. "Bootleg" cloth and spices were favorites for the "moonlight importers". Untaxed "bootleg" wines and liquors flourished along with tobacco products, all generally affordable without the taxes and import duties resembling the same trade of the Prohibition Era.
_____________

[patience]

Chapter 87


Frank Daulton told Cindy, "They raised the taxes way too damn high. That's why everybody is ducking them. That's on account of that loan from the IMF that kept the country together, but this isn't much better than if it all fell apart."

"We can get by, but it's not easy," Cindy said.

"Yeah, and we're some of the lucky ones. There's a lot of people who can't afford enough to eat. Ask that fella Brent who owns the grocery. I don't see that changing very soon, either. Not in my lifetime."

"I hope you're wrong, but I wouldn't bet against you," Cindy said.

Doris said, "Some people are doing fine. Robert Evans just started a new business and it's doing great."

Frank said, "Yeah, but he had money before it all went to hell and he figured out how to hang onto it. He put it in that hardware store and made more money with it. And they aren't doing all that good compared to what they would have 10 years ago. Back then, they woulda had a fancy house and nice new cars and all. Now she cooks on a wood stove like the rest of us country folks and their house is nice, but it's no mansion."

Doris said, "Well, nobody can afford much now."

Frank said, "That's my point. We're all a lot poorer and you can see that if you ride through town. Houses and business buildings are empty and the people gone, living with relatives, or starved to death like the ones they find along the road."

Doris didn't like to talk about the bad side of things and said, "I like being here with Chad and Cindy and the kids. We'd be lonely if we were in that big house we had. This is a lot more fun."

"There's a good side to it," Frank admitted. "I like the greenhouse work and if we hadn't had to do that, I'd be sittin' on my butt in that big house or mowing grass. I always thought mowin' grass was a waste of time."
_______________

Chad was told he would not get the new bucket truck he asked for in his proposed budget for the next year. His maintenance budget was held the same, but his maintenance parts costs were up and he had to move money from other areas to cover it. Their buildings needed roof work that was normally contracted out, but this year Kevin and Billy were on the roof putting on patches to cut costs. Chad had held the line on his payroll when the Home Office wanted to cut wages. His track record of response time and low repair costs backed up what he said that he had an efficient crew and he had to pay them well or pay more for line repairs.

______________

When Robert walked into Buster Jones' mechanic shop, he was impressed that it looked a lot cleaner than before.

"You've got the place looking good."

Buster grinned and said, "My new wife done that. She said it don't cost any more to be clean, and she's helping get things better organized."

"When did you get married?"

"About 2 months back. Me and Lynn have known each other since grade school, but we were both married before. She's a good woman. Shoulda married her first and we'd both been better off."

"That's good. Say, do you know where to get parts for my Kubota tractor?"

"Maybe. Whatcha need?"

"Oil filters and fuel filters right now."

"I can get 'em, but it will be next week before the truck comes. You got a filter number?"

"Right here," Robert said as he reached in a shirt pocket.

Buster wrote the numbers down and asked, "You got any concrete cement?"

"Yes, we keep a pallet of it."

"I'll be down and get some to fix those holes in the front drive. Lynn said she'd help me do that, and business picked up a little so we got the money now. She wants the place to look good, and I'd like that too."
_______________

Carol was surprised when the Mayor's wife came in the store and watched her weaving a rug.

"I'm just amazed at how you do that. Do you have any finished?"

"Sure do. Up there behind the front counter are several colors."

The lady bought 4 rugs and said, "My grandmother used to make these and they lasted forever. It's worth more than that cheap stuff they get in from China. OOH! What's that?"

"It's hand woven linen. I sell them for doing embroidery and some women like to make fancy dish towels with them, or place mats."

"You have embroidery thread don't you?"

"Yes we do. It's upstairs with the yard goods. Lots of colors."

When the woman left Carol thought that she may have a better market than she imagined for her weaving.
_____________

"That's a lot of canning jars," Brent said.

"We use a lot for the garden," Kyle Wright told him.

"If you put some of that wine in some of 'em, I'd like to have a gallon."

Kyle loaded the last box on the truck and said, "I'll send some in town when Mom comes to shop, okay?"

Brent nodded and said, "Better make it two gallons."

"Okay. If you give me the jars back, I'll take some off the price."
_______________

"It's flax seed. I got a bag from the feed store. They sell it for horse feed supplement," Justin said.

Rachel was skeptical. "What are you going to do with that?"

"I'm going to plant it and raise it a couple acres."

"Then we sell the seed tothe feed mill?"

Justin nodded. "This year we'll sell seed, but there is linen fiber in the stalks. I talked to an old man that used to run the Museum and he knew all about it. He said we can sell the stalks for fiber, too, but it should be cut earlier to make fiber, before the seeds are ripe. I know we can combine the seeds just like wheat or oats, but I'll have to learn more about how to do the fiber."

"Carol is weaving some high priced cloth out of linen thread. We should talk to her," Rachel said.

"Yeah, but the old guy, Mr. Simpson, he said there's a lot to do to make fiber out of it. I figure we can cut some early to work on and learn how to do the fiber, then sell most of it for seed. The good part is, nobody else is doing it around here so we can get a good price for the seed."

www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/harvest_flax.html

______________


Chapter 88 June, 2018


"Robert, are things going to get any better? I mean business things. The economy," Erin asked.

He sighed and said, "It doesn't look like it. Not for a long time."

"I don't understand how you have kept your cool the past couple years. It just all seemed to slide right off you like water off a duck."

Robert gave her an astonished look. "No! That's not right! I've been scared half out of my mind ever since we got married."

"How come you never said so?"

"I didn't want to worry you. You had enough on your mind and it's my job to make a living, so that's what I did."

"OH! You and that male role thing! You don't have to carry all that! That's what a wife is for, to help you deal with stuff like that. I guess I love you anyway, but it would be nice to think I could help when you need it."

"But you do help. Look at all the things you do! You keep me fed and clothed and the house nice and keep me out of trouble with all the details of things at home, and you're raising William along with it."

"I'm talking about how you FEEL about things," Erin said. "Men never seem to get that."

"I do the best I can."

"Boy do you ever! You've gotten me out a funk time after time, you've made us one of the richest families in the county, and you've made me feel secure enough to have a family. How about you slack off that stuff for a while and enjoy yourself more?"

Robert took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He thought for a while before he answered. Erin looked at him with a little smile. Finally he said, "I do enjoy what I've been doing, you know."

Erin said, "I know, or you'd be doing something else."

"I'll take more time off. I need to spend more time with you and William. He's growing fast. He's past 2 years old now."

They sat without talking for a while, enjoying the shade on the back porch while William pestered the cat.

"A penny for your thoughts," Erin said.

"I was thinking it would be nice to have a playmate for William. What do you think?"

"Hm. That would take a while. We'll have to work on it. What do you have planned for this evening?"
_________________

The End

[millwright]

What an awesome story.

You done good.

[jackorchuck]

Patience, this an outstanding story, thank you.

[biggkidd]

I've read this twice now and it was just as good the second time as the first! Thanks again.

Larry

[mnn2300]

Excellent story.
You can really see we're in the beginning of the economic crises, I'm afraid it will end up a lot like your story.

Thanks!

[wisetioga]

patience,

Sorry but I have a major problem here. I note that on Prepared Society Web Site this very same story is listed as being authored by a person using the name machinist. What's the deal? Please advise. Looks like one of you is taking another's story. Hope that is not true. This needs to be resolved. Thank you.

[willallen]

Wisetioga,

I cannot speak for the author but if you check the dates I think Patience posted it first here (April 1st), then over at Prepared Society (April 20th). I first read the story over on a third prepper site. Some authors like to "spread the love" around to get a larger response size. By the same token, though I like to use the same name on whatever site I happen to be logged on to, sometimes that handle is not available. Again, just a guess.