Chapter 13

Sammy swept the store for the third time that morning at his mother's insistence and then made a note to buy a new push broom. He shoved lingering doubts from his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. Caroline was in her oldest apron, a thin towel wrapped about her white head, washing the windows with vinegar water. The squeaks she made filled the old store, and she occasionally smiled at her son. They had gotten the cobwebs out of the corners and off the tin ceiling tiles and light fixtures, thrown away and burned a large pile of rubbish pulled from the storeroom, and contracted to have the outhouse relocated and the odoriferous hole that had been used for a generation filled after they dumped in a few bags of quick lime.

Over the last several nights, Sammy had consolidated all his great-uncle's accounts-receivable and written short letters to his Uncle Luke's debtors, asking for payment of overdue bills and explaining that he was the new owner and that their credit would be extended if and when they were current with their accounts at a maximum of sixty days. So far, no one had rushed in to pay. He had also sent letters to those his uncle owed or had made long-term contracts with distributors of canned goods, flour and tobacco products.

Much of the stock had been rearranged so that the higher profit items were front and center, and he had manhandled the old cracker barrels to the back of the store and stacked Nabisco products right on the counter including his new favorite, Oreo cookies, along with the same company's Uneeda biscuits. Sammy had put the penny candy and the cigars and chewing tobacco in separate, glass-fronted cases after this mother washed them out, exiling the corncob pipes, pipe tobacco, rolling papers and cigarettes to the back counter.

He had whitewashed the pebbledash stucco finish of the old store when no customers were around, and his mother had made a small sign with his name on it to put over the front door. It had gilt letters on a dark green background. His mother had stood, hands on hips, looking at the sign after he nailed it in place and then shook her head, wiped a tear away and smiled, remembering another sign.

With a bar of soap, he had written "under new management" in large letters on the inside of the front widow. He had resurrected several old chairs from his parents' barn, wiped them off and put them on the front porch of his store next to the square tank of kerosene, which some customers still called coal oil.

He and his mother had gone over the books he inherited with the store and estimated that, without further effort, the store would make enough to pay the mortgage but not much more than that. It was a good thing, they agreed, that Sammy was living at home and that his living expenses were small. From time to time, the young man wondered what he would be making working for his brother-in-law at the printing plant in D.C. He did not want to ask.

Sammy had decided to close the store on Sunday and use that day to balance his books, make repairs and plan improvements. The first Sunday that he sat on his store's front porch, after a long and discouraging week that seldom taxed the till's capacity, a car pulled up and the driver hopped out, yelled, "Fill her up," and hurried off toward the new, two-hole privy with its blue and white walls and shingled roof. When he returned, all buttoned up, Sammy told him he did not have any gas, just kerosene.

"Well, gimme a gallon a'that. She probably won't like it but it'll get me to Bethesda."

"We're closed," Sammy said. "I'm sorry."

"Come on," the young man said, "I came in here on fumes. You heard her wheezing, didn't you?"

Sammy set aside his ledger, unlocked the pump and cranked out a gallon, poured it in the Ford's gas tank and pocketed the dime he got for it. The driver set his spark, pulled up on the crank, hurdled the driver's side and Model T chugged away, belching smoke, the engine clanking now and then. Sammy sat back down, shook out a cigarette and thought, the wide book open on his lap.

Why not, he decided. As far as he knew, there was not a gasoline pump between Bethesda and Rockville, a distance of five miles or so. There surely were a lot more cars now on the Pike and, Sammy assumed, there would be more every year. He had heard rumors that the State Roads folks were planning to improve the old macadamed highway with concrete shoulders and that should help too. A couple of gas pumps and a Ford truck so he could go back to making deliveries, a practice his uncle had given up several years before when his dray horse died, those, he decided, were top priorities for the next week, at least things to look into. He had no idea how he would pay for such improvements if and when the time came.

He wondered if he could rent a truck rather than buying one or if somebody with a truck would do his deliveries for a fee. He wished the old chair rocked as he tilted it back and leaned against the wall by the front door. He flipped the cigarette away, wishing he had not developed that habit in the Army.

Different kinds of bread, he thought, and maybe other baked goods. He wrote it down. Newspapers, perhaps they could come out of town on the trolley cars, not much profit he was sure, but they might bring folks to the store. He wished he could sell beer legally for he knew that would draw a good crowd and make a good profit too. He thought about selling pints of moonshine under the counter and decided he would not, not unless things got really bad. He knew a couple of bootleggers from the National Guard and the temptation was real.