To Sail Beyond The Sunset

Hard sauce should be made with confectioners' sugar - but Aunt Carole had taught me how to crush and crush and keep on crushing granulated sugar, using a big spoon and a bowl, to achieve a fair imitation of powdered sugar. I had enough butter on hand and vanilla extract, and I used one teaspoon of cooking brandy - also on hand; Aunt Carole had given it to me on my wedding day. (It was now half gone. I tasted it once - horrible! But a smidgen of it at the right time and place certainly enhanced the flavour of food.)

Brian made no comment on fried mush, but complimented me on the dumplings.

On the first of the month following he said, ‘Mo, the papers say that food prices are up even though the farmers are squawking. And I'm certain that this bigger house is costing you more to run, if only in electricity, gas and Sapolio. How much more each month do you need?'

‘Sir, I'm not asking for more money. We'll get by.'

I'm sure we will but the hot weather will be with us next month. I don't want you paying the iceman the way some housewives do. Let's raise your allowance by five dollars.'

‘Oh, I don't need that much!'

‘My lady, let's do raise it that much, and see how it works out. If you have money left over at the end of the month, tuck it away. At the end of the year you can buy me a yacht.'

‘Yes, sir. What colour?'

‘Surprise me.'

I managed to add pennies and nickels and dimes to that ‘egg money' over the months by never using a charge account, even with my grocer-which was just as well, as Brian was in business for himself sooner than he had anticipated.

His employer, Mr Fones, had made him a junior associate after two years, then assistant manager in 1904. Six months after we moved into our wonderful new house Mr Fones decided to retire and offered Brian a chance to buy him out.

It was one of the few times I have seen my husband in a quandary. He usually made decisions quickly with the icy calm of a riverboat gambler; this time he seemed bemused sugaring his coffee twice, then forgetting to drink it.

At last he said, ‘Maureen, I'm going to have to consult you on a business matter.'

‘But, Brian, I don't know anything about business.'

‘Listen to me, my love. Ordinarily I will not bother you about business. Deo volente, I will not need to do so again. But this affects you and our three children and the one that has caused you to get out your fat clothes again.' He told me in detail what Mr Fones had offered.

I thought hard about it, then said, ‘Brian, under this agreement you are to pay this - drawing acount you called it - to Mr Fones each month?'

‘Yes. If the business makes more profit than the average of the last few years, his share increases.'

‘Suppose it makes less. His share goes down?'

‘Not below that drawing account figure.'

‘Even if the business loses money?'

‘Even if it loses money. Yes, that's part of the proposal.'

‘Briney, just what is it he is selling you? You are contracting - will be contracting if you accept - to support him indefinitely -‘

‘No, just twelve years. His life expectancy.'

‘If he dies, it ends? Hmm! Does he know about my great aunt Borgia?'

‘No, it doesn't end if he dies, so get that gleam out of your eye. If he dies, it goes to his estate.'

‘Ali right, twelve years. You support him for twelve years. What do you get out of it?'

‘Well... I receive a going business. Its files, its records, and, principally, its goodwill. I'll have the right to use the name "Fones and Smith, Mining Consultants".' He stopped.

‘What else?' I asked.

‘The office furniture and the lease. You've seen the office.'

Yes, I had. Down in the west bottoms, across from International Harvester. In the spring flood of 1903 when the Missouri River again failed to turn that comer and tried to run up the Kaw almost to Lawrence, Briney had to go to work in a row boat. I had wondered then why a mining company would be down there - no mining in the west bottoms, just black mud clear down to China. And the heavy stink of the stockyards.

‘Brian, why are the offices there?'

‘Cheap rent. It would cost us four times as much to get the same space on Walnut or Main, even clear out at 15 th. I take over the lease, of course.'

I thought about it hard for several minutes. ‘Sir, how much of the firm's travelling has Mr Fones been doing?'

‘Originally? Or recently? When I first went to work for him, both he and Mr Davis made field trips; I stayed in the office. Then he broke me in on what he expected from a survey - that was bafore Mr Davis retired. Then -‘

‘Excuse me, sir. I mean, how much travelling has Mr Fones done this past year?'

‘Eh? Mr Fones has not made a field survey for more than two years. He's made a couple of money trips. Two to St Louis, one to Chicago.'

‘While you made all the muddy-boots trips?'

‘You could call it that.'

‘That's what you call it, Briney. Dear, you do want to go into business for yourself, don't you?'

‘You know that I do. This is just sooner than I had thought I could manage it.'

‘Are you seriously asking me to say what I think you should do? Or are you just using me as a sounding board to get your thoughts straight?'

He gave me his endearing grin. ‘Maybe some of both. I'll make the decision. But I do want you to tell me what to do, just as if it were entirely up to you.'

‘Very well, sir. But I need more information. I have never known the amount of your salary - and I don't want to know now; it's not fitting for a wife to ask - but tell me this. Is that drawing account figure more or less than your salary?'

‘Eh? More. Quite a bit more. Even with the bonuses I have received on some deals.'

‘I see. All right, Briney; I'll express my advice in the imperative. Refuse his offer. Go down tomorrow morning and tell him so. At the same time hit him for a raise. Ask him - no, tell him - that you expect a salary equal to that drawing account he was proposing to siphon out of the business.'

Briney looked startled, then laughed. ‘He'll have a stroke.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. But he is certain to be angry. Count on that and be braced for it. Don't let him get you even the least bit angry. Just tell him calmly that fair is fair. For the last two years you have been doing all the hard and dirty work. If the business can afford to pay Mr Fones that big a drawing account for not working at all, it can certainly pay you the same amount for working very hard indeed. True?'

‘Well... yes. Mr Fones won't like it.'

‘I don't expect him to like it. He's trying to hornswoggle you; he's certain not to like it when the same swindle is offered to him. Briney, that's a touchstone for a fair deal that my father taught me: does it feel like a fair deal if it's turned the other way round, mirror image? Point this out to him.'

‘All right. When he comes down off the ceiling. Mo, he won't pay me that much. Wouldn't it be better for me to resign?'

‘Truly, Briney, I don't think so. If you simply quit, he will make loud squawks about your disloyalty - how he took you on as a youngster with no experience and taught you the trade -‘

‘There's some truth in that. Before he hired me, I had had practical experience underground in lead and zinc and in coal through working summers while I was going to school. But no experience with precious metals, just book learning. So I've learned quite a lot while working for him.'

‘Which is why you must not resign instead you are simply asking to be paid what you are worth. What the proposition he offered you shouts aloud that you are worth. Fair is fair. He can go ahead and retire, and pay you that amount to run the business, while he enjoys the net profit himself.'