So Brian tried and the result was dull as ditch water.
Nelson said, ‘Brian old man, you are my revered senior partner... Do you mind if I take a swing at this?'
‘Help yourself. I didn't want to do it, anyhow.'
‘I have the advantage of not knowing anything about mining. You supply the facts - you have; I have them in my hand - and I will slide in some mustard.'
Nelson rewrote Brian's sober factual articles about what a mining consultant's survey could accomplish in a highly irreverent style... and I drew little pictures, cartoons, styled after Bill Nye, to illustrate them. Me an artist? No. But I had taken Professor Huxley's advice (A Liberal Education) seriously and had learned to draw. I was not an artist but I was a competent draughtsman, and I stole details and tricks from Mr Nye and other professionals without a qualm without realising that I was stealing.
Nelson's first attempt retitled Brian's rewritten article as ‘How to Save Money by Skimping' and featured all sorts of grisly mining accidents - which I illustrated.
The Mining Journal not only accepted it; they actually paid for it, five dollars, which none of us had expected.
Nelson eventually worked it into a deal in which Brian's by-line (ghosted by Nelson) appeared in every issue, and a quarter-page display for Brian Smith Associates appeared in a good spot.
At a later time a twin of that article appeared in the Country Gentleman (the Saturday Evening Post's country cousin) telling how to break your neck, lose a leg, or kill your worthless son-in-law on a farm. But the Curtis Publishing Company refused to dicker. They paid for the article; Brian Smith Associates paid for their display cards.
In January 1910 a great comet appeared and soon it dominated the evening sky in the west. Many people mistook it for Halley's Comet, due that year. But it was not; Halley's Comet came later.
In March 1910 Betty Lou and Nelson set up their own household - two adults, two babies - and Random Numbers had a bad time trying to decide where he lived, at The Only House, or with his slave, Betty Lou. For a while he shuttled between the two households, riding any automobile going his way.
In April 1910 the real Halley's Comet began to be prominent in the night sky. In another month it dominated the sky, its head as bright as Venus and its tail half again as long as the Great Dipper. Then it got too close to the Sun to be seen. When it reappeared in the morning sky in May it was still more magnificent. On is May Nelson drove us out to Meyer Boulevard before dawn so that we could see the eastern horizon. The comet's great tail filled the sky, slanting up from the east to the south, pointing down at the Sun below the horizon, an incredible sight.
But. I got no joy from it. Mr Clemens had told me that he had come in with Halley's Comet and he would go out with, it... and he did, on 21 April.
When I heard - it was published in the Star- I shut myself in our room, and cried.
Chapter 11 - A Dude in a Derby
They took me out of my cell today and led me, cuffed and hoodwinked, into what was probably a courtroom. There they removed the hoodwink and the cuffs... which left me the only one out of step; my guards were hooded and so were the three who (I think) were judges. Bishops, maybe, they were wearing fancy robes with that sacerdotal look.
Other flunkies here and there were also hooded - put me in mind of a Ku-Klux-Klan meeting, so I tried to check their shoes-Father had pointed out to me during the recrudescence of the Man in the twenties that those hooded ‘knights' showed under their sheets the cracked, scuffed, cheap, and worn-out shoes of the social bottom layer who could manage to feel superior to somebody only by joining a racist secret society.
I could not use that test on these jokers. The three ‘judges' were behind a high bench. The court clerk (?) had his recording equipment on a desk, his feet under it. My guards were behind me.
They kept me there about two hours, I think. All I gave them was ‘name, rank, and serial number' -‘I am Maureen Johnson Long, of Boondock, Tellus Tertius. I am a distressed traveller, here by misadventure. To all those silly charges: not guilty! I demand to see a lawyer.'
From time to time, I repeated ‘Not guilty' or stood mote.
After about two hours, judged by hunger and bladder pressure, we had an interruption: Pixel.
I didn't see him come in. Apparently he had come to my cell as usual, failed to find me, and went looking - found me.
I heard behind me this ‘Cheerlup!' with which he usually announces his arrival; I turned and he jumped into my arms, started head bumping and purring, while demanding to know why I wasn't where I was supposed to be.
I petted him and assured him that he was a fine cat, a good boy, da kine!
The middle ghost behind the bench ordered: ‘Remove that animaclass="underline"
One of the guards attempted to comply by grabbing Pixel.
Pixel has absolutely no patience with people who do not observe correct protocol. He bit the guard in the fleshy pare of his left thumb, and got him here and there with his claws. The guard tried to drop him; Pixel did not let go.
The other guard tried to help - now two wounded. But not Pixel.
That middle judge used some quite colourful language, got down and carne around, saying: ‘Don't you know how to grab a cat?' - and proved at once that he did not. Now three wounded. Pixel hit the deck, running.
I then saw something that had been known to me only through inference, something that none of my friends and family claimed to have seen. (Correction: Athene has seen it, but Athene has eyes everywhere. I mean meat-and-bone people.)
Pixel headed straight for a blank wall at emergency full speed - and just as he seemed to be about to crash headlong into it, a round cat door opened in front of him, he streaked through it, and it dosed instantly behind him.
After a bit, I was returned to my cell.
In 1912: Brian bought an automobile, a car - somewhere during that decade ‘automobile carriage' changed to- ‘automobile', and then to ‘auto', and then to ‘motor car, or ‘car' - the ultimate name for the horseless carriage, as it could not get any shorter.
Brian bought a Reo. Nelson's little Reo runabout had proved most durable and satisfactory; after five years of hard wear it was still a good vehicle. The firm used it for many things, including dusty drives to Galena and Joplin and other towns in the white metals area, and records were kept and Nelson was paid mileage and wear-and-tear.
So when Brian decided to buy a car for his family he bought another Reo, but a family car, a five-passenger touring car - a beauty and one that I could see was safe for children, as it had doors and a top - the runabout had neither. Mr R.E. Olds called the 1912 Reo his ‘Farewell Car', claiming that it was the best car that he could design with his twenty-five years of experience, and the best that could be built, in materials and workmanship.
I believed him, and (far more important) Brian believed him. It may Nave been the ‘farewell' Reo but, when I left Earth in 1982, Mr Olds' name was still famous in autos, in ‘Oldsmobile'.
Our luxury car was quite expensive - more than $1200. Brian did not tell me what he had paid, but the Reo was widely advertised and I can read. But we got a lot for our money; it was not only a handsome, roomy touring car but also it had a powerful engine (35 horsepower) and a top speed of 45 miles per hour. It was never driven at that speed, I think - the speed limit in the city was 17 miles per hour, and the rutted dirt roads outside the city were quite unsuited to such high speed. Oh, Brian and Nelson may have tried it - opened the throttle wide on some freshly graded, level road out in Kansas somewhere; neither of them believed in bothering ladies with things that might worry them. (Betty Lou and I did not believe in worrying our husbands unnecessarily, either; it evens out.)