262: When Herb and Ben ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 4 continues
When Herb and Ben reached the street, Ben grabbed Herb’s shirt and pulled him toward the cab of the delivery van he was driving, a Studebaker “20.”
“Come here, Herb,” he said. “I’ve got something to show you. Come here.”
There was in Ben’s voice the breathless quality that Herb recognized in the voices of his other Piper relatives when they had a scheme to sell. A cautious reluctance anchored Herb to the spot where he stood.
“Come on, Herb,” said Ben. “I’m not going to get you into anything. You’ve got a lot of your mother’s caution in you, Herb. That’s probably good, but it certainly does make you a difficult person to talk to. Now come here.” He tugged Herb to the door, opened it, and all but shoved Herb into the passenger’s seat. Then he puffed his way to the driver’s door and climbed in. From a pocket of his coat he took a small, round, white object. He held it up and turned it in the light of the streetlamp.
“What is this?” he asked Herb.
“A button,” said Herb.
“Very good,” said Ben. He chuckled. “But not quite correct. It’s a shirt stud. Look at it more closely.” He handed it to Herb.
Puzzled, wary, Herb was reluctant even to take the stud from his uncle Ben. He knew how many Pipers in the past had been undone by being smitten with a scheme at first glance.
“Take it!” said Uncle Ben. “Look at it!”
Herb obeyed. He was surprised by what he saw. The face of the stud was made of a fine grade of ivory. Carved into it, in high relief, was the figure of a woman, a naked woman, reclining against the disk that was the button part of the stud. She was toying with herself in a way that had brought a smile to her face and made Herb’s heart pound and his palms sweat. Ben poked him in the ribs.
“Here,” said Ben. He handed Herb a magnifying glass. “Look at the workmanship.”
The glass revealed details that Herb had only imagined heretofore. Once, he had stood in a semicircle of boys in an alley and watched Elsie Campbell raise her skirt for a nickel an inch. He had contributed his share, but what he’d seen hadn’t told him everything he wanted to know, and since the money he had spent on the elevation of Elsie’s skirt had been money he should have brought home to his mother, the whole affair left him frustrated and ashamed. He left the alley thinking that he’d done a foolish Piper thing with the thirty cents he’d pitched into the pot. Here, on the instructive shirt stud his uncle Ben had handed him, was an education that, figuring at the rate Elsie had been paid, would have cost him more than he earned in a week.
“Gee, Uncle Ben,” said Herb, “where’d you ever get a thing like this?”
“You like it, do you?” asked Ben.
“Well, sure,” said Herb. He blushed. The thought had struck him that he ought to be embarrassed by what he was looking at.
“This is what you’re going to sell,” said Uncle Ben.
“What about the books?” asked Herb.
“The books are your answer,” said Uncle Ben, chuckling again.
“Answer to what?” asked Herb.
“To the question, ‘How’d you make all that money?’ ” said Ben.
“I can’t sell these, Uncle Ben,” Herb said, still examining the shirt stud through the magnifying glass. “What would Mother say if she found out? And who would I sell them to? They must be expensive, more expensive than what anyone I know could afford, and I can’t very well sell them on the street.”
Uncle Ben grasped the nape of Herb’s neck in one large hand. “Tell me, Herb,” he said, “what did your mother eat for dinner tonight? Rat pie? She can’t afford rat pie. The only time she gets to eat that well is when you drop one on the street and have to bring it home.”
“Please, Uncle Ben,” said Herb.
“You listen to me, Herb. Your father is never going to get out of that chair. If you want to do something for your mother, you’ll take this offer.”
“But how can I find men to buy them?” asked Herb.
“Herb!” cried Ben. “Wake up! That’s the other thing the books are for. The books are going to get you into situations where you can sell the jewelry. And you sell the jewelry the same way you sell the books! You get a fellow to buy one piece for nineteen cents and agree to take another piece every month on approval. You let the fellow have the piece for a week, with no charge. By the end of the week, he’s gotten used to having it, he’s won the admiration of his friends when he wears it at his lodge meeting or whatever, and he doesn’t want to give it up. You collect for it. It’s a thing of beauty, Herb.”
“I don’t know, Uncle Ben,” said Herb.
“I know, Herb,” said Ben. “This is your opportunity to do something for your mother — and for yourself, too. You can make something of yourself, Herb. And you can make your mother proud. She’ll be proud of you because you’ve worked hard and you’ve been successful. She won’t know how you did it; she’ll think you did it by selling books. So will everyone else.”
Herb drew a breath. It seemed worth a try. He did want to make his mother’s life easier. If he was careful to keep his head, he ought to be able to get out before anything went wrong. “All right,” said Herb. “I’ll do it.”
[to be continued on Thursday, May 19, 2022]
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In Topical Guide 262, Mark Dorset considers Studebakers: Model 20 Truck or Van or “Delivery Car” from this episode.
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