Chapter 21

As they moved through the snow-covered landscape east of the Appalachians, the beginning of the long train ride to Wisconsin was almost without conversation. Well into the flatter lands of Ohio where the dirty snow stood in splotches and the fields in tan stubble rather than in gleaming white, they exchanged a few words and then Sammy paged through several back issues of the Farm Journal and the current Capt. Billy's' Whiz Bang, which he had picked up at Union Station for a quarter. Polly tried to read Main Street, a novel she had been given at Christmas. She eventually put it aside and stared out at the passing fields and trees. Sammy glanced at her sad face from the corner of his eyes now and then before the porter came to make up their berths.

Everyone in Wisconsin was friendly, helpful and considerate. Polly slept in her own bedroom the first night, and Sammy lay under several blankets in a spare room and prayed she would be able to get through the week. She came to his side about midnight and burrowed into his arms, her feet very cold, her swollen belly feeling odd against his.

In the morning they sat in the sunny kitchen and talked about what was to be done. Polly looked so forlorn that Sammy cooked the eggs and bacon, burned the toast and boiled the coffee until it bubbled out of the spout. They sat across from each other and ate without tasting.

"I don't want to sell this place," Polly said. "I don't suppose you'd like to move to Wisconsin, would you?"

Sammy took a deep breath, looked at his young wife's smooth face and shook his head. He wished he did not feel so useless.

"I didn't think so. I guess we could rent it unless my Uncle Bruce would like to use it. His family's bulging out the walls of their old home. Let's go see the store, all right?"

"Yes, ' Sammy said, "lets. I had no idea your father was ever a storekeeper."

"No, he really wasn't, but his father was, feed and grain mostly, farm equipment. By the way, I think you're a worse cook than I am."

"They thought I was pretty good in the army."

"Poo," she said, "what a story," and she smiled.

She rinsed off the dishes while Sammy called for a cab. The taxi driver knew Polly on sight, and they chatted about school days on their way past the sprawling state college and on out to the capital city's northern fringes. He pulled his big Buick up in front of the low roof of the store, and they asked him to wait.

Tractors, plows, harrows and harvesters of various types were parked on a side lot, most under some snow and ice, some covered with tarpaulins, but the inside the big store was warm and filled with orange light under a steeply-pitched roof. It smelled of grain and seed, odors Sammy recalled from his great uncle's store when he was a child. He felt oddly at home, at ease for the first time in a week.

Polly went into the office with the manager while Sammy wandered around, up and down the long aisles, past the poisons and the fertilizers, the hand tools and the various gadgets, the pots and pans. At the end of one row of canning supplies, he saw his wife waving and went over to the office and sat on a wooden chair beside her after meeting Robert Grimes, the grizzled general manager whose huge hand he shook.

"Daddy owned half this business," she said in introduction, "and Bob here and his brothers own the other half now, for the last few years. They would like to buy us out. What do you think?"

Sammy shook his head. "I think I don't know enough to have an opinion. Is there a hurry?" he asked the man in the plaid shirt and bib overalls.

"No, no, nope, ain' no hurry a'tall," he said, blinking rapidly, "jes' thought she might like to be shet of all this."

"Well," Sammy said with what he hoped was a friendly smile, "all this seems to be doing pretty damn, sorry, darn well. Can we look at your books?"

"Certainly, of course you can; should'a offered." He pulled two large ledgers from a metal shelf behind him and put them on a high desk. "We do double-entry. I'll just go check on the pullets."

When Sammy looked puzzled, Polly said, "There's shed out back. We sell incubators and chicks. Right now, it's young hens."

Together they looked at 1921's final figures and then paged back to 1920 and then back one more year. The business was prospering, growing steadily month-by-month with seasonal fluctuations. It appeared that Polly's father had made about $10,000 the previous year, although the books were not closed yet, and $8,550 the year before that. The Grimes brothers' share had been higher by a third because they were doing the work, and all three of them drew small monthly stipends as well.