Chapter 25

"Mr. Huntly?"

"Hi Ernie."

"Got a minute?"

"Sure Ernie."

"Can we go some place private?" Ernie looked both relieved and worried, he looked out over the few customers, well ... pool shooters who were drinking out of coke bottles. "Them guys don't need to hear this and Nick A says you're a straight shooter."

"Sure ... where?"

"I hate to ask ... but the boat?"

"That's a lot more than a minute, Ernie." Ernie looked disappointed. "That bad?"

"Maybe."

"Let me call Mrs. Huntly."

"Which one?" He had this look ... Non confrontational but he knew.

"Persephone. I'll get her up here to help Frank." Ed said, "Besides, even though she's pretty much a single hander, I like to have a crew. Missy is good crew."

Ed was fairly amazed at how fast Ernie said yes to Missy going along.

Ed borrowed the crank and hiss, cranked up Milly the operator and asked her to connect him to the wife. When he cranked the crank, the generator inside sent an electric pulse that turned on a red light on Millie's board. She flicked a switch and said, "Operator." The switch Milly flicked turned off the red light and turned the green light on.

Pentwater is a small town ... oh, it's not Hubbardston small or Pewamo sized but it's pretty little for a town that has a National Highway for a Main street. US 31 connected the western shore to the rest of the State and Podunk towns nobody in Detroit ever heard of became places on a road map.

In 1926, the roads were to go somewhere, not huge and wide like they would become ... impersonal truck routes that cars could use too ... no, roads were for insuring the Smiths could visit the Browns could visit the Eckerts could get their milk to the market, and the market could send the excess to the big city.

Cars were getting faster and the limiting factor was the crappy trails that folks called roads. So the state, at the DEMAND of the Legislature, sent out feelers to see who needed a road bad enough to pay a little extra.

Bribing Congress through campaign donations didn't start with PACs. No sir, it started with Mayors getting the ear of a politician and getting a little something extra for his town. US 31 didn't miss all the little towns ... it went through some of them. The towns that couldn't afford the bribe or didn't think a State highway would make a difference were bypassed. The ones that paid a little up front? ... they became places to visit ... to shop and go see the machinist who was rapidly replacing the blacksmith who had replaced the wagon builder.

Besides, roads helped cutdown on inbreeding.

Milly the operator, knew every voice in town. She had a switch board that had black cables with silver tipped ends that she used to connect the green light that was the Antler, a business, to the Huntly home, a residence.

A telephone was a luxury ... not everyone had one. Out of the four hundred of so Pentwater homes maybe two hundred had phones ... Ed had two ... with two numbers ... Persephone Huntly had one telephone in the kitchen ... with an extension in the 'parlor' ... and Missy Huntly had a PRIVATE LINE in the loft. The expense boggles the mind.

Milly, plugging the connecting cable from the green light at the Antler terminal to the hole at the Huntly terminal, listened for just a second ... static ... she pushed the switch that caused the bell box to ring and waited until the red light at Ed's house switched to a green light ... now there were two green lights ... one at the Antler ... one at the home.

"Persephone? Your husband is calling from the Antler."

"Thank you, Milly."

Telephoning used to be so personal. Milly might listen in. Who knows ... it might be something as important as a fire. Milly was very well trained ... by her mother, the town gossip, and the phone company, who objected to gossip.

So ... we, the gossips of the town, get to listen to BOTH sides of the conversation ... as relayed by Millie's mom.

"'Hello Ed, ' Miz Seph said," said Mom while contemplating her cards. She picked the Ace of Diamonds and led it. "And Ed ... lovely man, that Ed ... saved the town, you know."

Mom was the worst kind of gossip ... the kind who recalls her original conversation six or ten conversations later. But her card club knew how to keep her on track.

"And?" said Mrs. Jefferson, making spinning motions with her hand while trumping Margaret's ace with the nine of trumps. Margaret is Milly's mom ... the mom with the gossip.

"Milly said they said lots of lovie dovie things before they got down to brass-tacks."

"And?" said Mrs. Carver ... Mrs. Mayor. She was so used to following her husbands' speeches ... listening to Margarets' gossip was a snap. She tossed the ten of trumps on Mrs. Jefferson's nine of trumps.

Mrs. Jefferson looked indignant.

Mom smiled, "Way to go partner."

Pollythenia, Mrs. Jefferson's partner dithered. As she did every morning, she woke up in a new world, but they were used to it.

"You must follow suit, Polly, you can trump it if you have the king of trumps and have no suit."

Margaret and Mrs. Jefferson both said, "Annabelle. No coaching."

Pollythenia had suit and threw out the nine. Margaret booked the cards and added them to the row.

"Your lead Annabelle." Margaret said.

"Not til you finish your story. What did Ed want?"

"Ed? Oh ... Ed. He wanted to talk to Ernest, him what cooks at the Antler. Disgraceful."

"What? Ernie?"

"No! That basement."

And they all knew what she meant by that ... The Speakeasy.

Four heads were nodding ... three in righteous indignation and Polly who nodded in another world.

The line of conversation switched from Ernie and Ed to Prohibition and speakeasies and the disgrace of Chicago.

Twenty or so minutes later, Polly came back to earth and in a rare moment of cognitive thought asked, "So what did Ed want with Seph?"

Three startled card players looked aghast at Polly.

Polly looked at Margaret, "Well?"

The trio looked at the gossip..."Well?"

"Well..." Mom hedged ... got her ducks in a row, so to speak, and finished the gossip she'd started at least an hour before. "He wanted her to come cook so Ernie and he could go out on the boat."