Homer Price (11 page)

And that’s exactly what Mr. Murphy did. He let them go. He pulled a lever and every last mouse came tumbling out of the bottom of the musical mouse trap. And
such
a
sight
it was, well worth walking to the city limits to see. The mice came out in a torrent. The reedy organ on the musical mouse trap stopped playing, and the squeaking of mice and the cheering of children filled the air.

The torrent of mice paused, as if sensing direction, and then each Centerburg mouse started off in a straight, straight line to his own Centerburg mouse-hole. Mr. Murphy didn’t pause. He stepped on the gas, and the musical mouse trap swayed down the road. The mayor, the children’s librarian, the sheriff, Uncle
Ulysses, and the children watched as it grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared.

Then Uncle Ulysses remembered the children. He turned around and noticed them grinning at each other and holding their thumbs in the air. They paid no attention whatever when they were called!

“That music has pixied these children!” he moaned.

“No, it hasn’t, Uncle Ulysses,” said Homer who had just come up. “There’s not a thing the matter with them that Doc Pelly can’t cure in two shakes! Just to be on the safe side, Freddy and I asked Doc Pelly to come down to the school-yard this morning and put cotton in all the children’s ears. You know, just like Ulysses, not you, Uncle Ulysses, but the ancient one—the one that Homer wrote about. Not me but the ancient one.”

“You mean to say Doc Pelly is mixed up in this?” asked the mayor.

“Yes, he thought it was awfully funny, our being so cautious.”

Uncle Ulysses laughed and said, “Round ’em up and we’ll all go down to the lunch room for doughnuts and milk.”

“Sheriff,” said the mayor, “with election time coming next month
we
gotta put our heads together and cook up a good excuse for spending sixty dollars of the taxpayers’ money.”

“
I
CAN’T go fishing today, Freddy,” said Homer, “because I’m helping Uncle Ulysses down at the lunch room. Seems as though the fish ought to be biting on a day like this.”

“Do you think your Uncle Ulysses could use an extra helper today, Homer? Because it isn’t imperative that I hafta go fishing. I just thought, if you weren’t busy—”

“Gosh, Freddy! Uncle Ulysses would like it. He always says the more help the merrier, but Aunt Aggie is a ‘Too many cooks spoil the soup’ sort of person and she says she’s sick and tired of seeing more people behind the counter than in front of it.”

“O.K., Homer,” said Freddy with a sigh. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Bring me a couple of doughnuts if you can.”

When Homer entered the lunch room, there was Uncle Ulysses puttering with one of his labor saving devices.

“Hello, Homer!” he said, “you’re just in time to help me adjust the timing mechanism in this electric toaster. When you want the toast to come out
light
brown it comes out
nut
brown, and vicey versey.”

Homer and Uncle Ulysses tinkered with the toaster and then tried several pieces of toast. Then they tinkered with the mechanism some more.

“How is the doughnut machine working these days, Uncle Ulysses?” asked Homer.

“Just fine,” said Uncle Ulysses. “We’re selling more doughnuts than ever, with that new recipe. I suppose you’ve heard about the lady who gave us the old family recipe—the lady who lost her bracelet in the batter? She lives in Centerburg now. She’s Naomi Enders, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Ezekiel Enders, the first settler of Centerburg. She inherited all of the Enders property when old Luke Enders died. She owns the Mill and the Patent Medicine Company now, and is living in the big Enders homestead at the edge of town. She stops by for doughnuts almost every day; one of my best customers, she is.”

“Yep,” said Homer, “the Judge mentioned that she had come to live in Centerburg. He said that she was a Public Spirited Person, and would be An Addition To The Town.”

“She appreciates good food,” said Uncle Ulysses, tasting a piece of nut brown toast, “and what’s more she has a receptive mind—receptive to the new devices, and up and coming ideas.”

A car stopped out front and Uncle Ulysses peered out and said, “Here she comes now, Homer, better start packing two dozen doughnuts to take out.”

“Good afternoon,” said Miss Enders. “Hello, Homer. I haven’t seen you since the night my bracelet disappeared!”

“Hello, Miss Enders,” said Homer. “How do you like living in Centerburg?”

“I think it’s a marvelous town, simply marvelous!” replied
Miss Enders. “I’ve been thinking of what I could do to show my appreciation for the way the people of Centerburg have received me. Everyone has been so kind, simply marvelous! I’ve just been talking to the Judge, and he has informed me that there is a growing housing shortage, and that people are having difficulty finding places to live. I’ve decided that a nice way of showing my appreciation would be to build a few homes on the family property. They could be replicas of the Enders homestead—a sort of monument—and I could rent them reasonably to deserving families.”

“Uhm-m-m!” said Uncle Ulysses, stroking his chin. “Good idea, Miss Enders, good idea.”

Homer agreed, and while he counted out two dozen doughnuts, he thought of the fun there would be, walking rafters and joists in the new houses.

Uncle Ulysses stopped stroking his chin and said, “I’ll tell you, Miss Enders, it wouldn’t do any harm to have more
modern
houses than the Homestead.”

“Of course,” said Miss Enders, “modern plumbing.”

Uncle Ulysses went back to stroking his chin and saying, “Uhm-m-m.”

“And modern kitchen equipment,” said Miss Enders as though she knew
that
would bring instant approval from Uncle Ulysses.

“Uhm-m-m,” said Uncle Ulysses, and stroked his chin from left to right.

Finally he cleared his throat and said, “These are changing times, Miss Enders, and we’re living in an age of ideas and production genius. Now take the way they
used
to make doughnuts for instance—each one cooked by hand, and all that time and bother. Now we have this wonderful machine—makes doughnuts just like that!” said Uncle Ulysses, snapping his fingers. Snap! Snap! Snap!

“It’s marvelous,” said Miss Enders, “simply marvelous!”

“Uhm-m-m,” continued Uncle Ulysses. “Now take the matter of houses. The way they
used
to build houses—saw up each board, hammer in nails one at a time, every little shingle and door knob fastened on by hand. But
now,”
said Uncle Ulysses, “with up and coming ideas, and modern production genius houses can be built just like this here machine makes doughnuts—” and he made a broad sweep with his right arm.

“That’s the principle!” pronounced Uncle Ulysses, while Miss Enders and Homer gazed in wide eyed wonder.

“That’s the principle that Henry Ford applied to making autos. Yep! Autos are mass produced, like doughnuts; ships are built like doughnuts; airplanes and refrigerators, and now
houses.
Yessiree, the
modern
house ought to be mass produced—just like cars or ships or planes. Yessiree! Mass produced, just like that there machine makes doughnuts!” and here Uncle Ulysses snapped his fingers, snap, snap, snap, snap, and said, “Houses, just like that! . . .” Snap!

He then stopped waving his arms and talking and appeared
startled that he had talked so much and with such wisdom. He started stroking his chin again, while Miss Enders, quite visibly impressed, was murmuring “Marvelous! Simply marvelous!”

Homer counted the two dozen doughnuts again.

“Of course,” said Uncle Ulysses, “it wouldn’t be
quite
as fast or as easy as making doughnuts, but with assembly lines and sub-assembly lines, and power presses and a touch of ingenuity—that’s your recipe. You can bake a house in twenty-four hours flat! . . .” Snap!

“Build,” corrected Homer.

“Simply marvelous!” said the receptive Miss Enders.
“Simply marvelous!”

*    *    *

Homer had heard Uncle Ulysses’ pet theories before, and the sheriff and the boys over at the barber shop all had heard Uncle Ulysses carry on about the up and coming ideas. In fact arguing about Uncle Ulysses’ pet theories had broken up as many pinochle and checker games as arguing about the World Series and Woman Suffrage put together. That was all that ever happened, though,
arguing.
But that afternoon in the lunch room was different.

Miss Enders was
receptive
to Uncle Ulysses up and comingness, and, what’s more, she had the money to be receptive and up and coming
with.
Almost before the week was up, Miss Enders and the Judge (who was her lawyer) and Uncle Ulysses were having conferences. They wrote letters to Detroit, where they have assembly lines and sub-assembly lines and huge presses that can stamp out the whole side of a house just as easily as stamping out the body of a car or a section of a ship. They hired up and coming designers and landscape architects too. Almost before she knew it, Miss Enders had made arrangements for
one hundred houses
—a whole
suburb!
—to be built on the estate around the Enders Homestead. As Uncle Ulysses so wisely put it: “It don’t pay to go to all the trouble of mixing batter and getting the machine hot for two or three doughnuts. Might just as well make a
hundred
while you’re at it!”

The plans were finally finished and the arrangements all made. The workmen arrived at the Enders estate and then things really began to happen. The trees were chopped down and hauled away; the land was leveled by huge tractors, and streets were laid out around the old Homestead in a day or two. Then power diggers arrived right on schedule and dug one foundation right after another.