The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Mr. Duffy chuckled approvingly. “Good for you, Mrs. Tidwell. I’m glad you understand the importance of this.” His glance at Jed Snow suggested that it was time Snow got on board, too.

  But Jed wasn’t so eager. “Let’s see if I got this right.” He sat forward in his chair, clasping his hands between his knees. “On Monday morning, Hiram Epworth pays me in scrip for the laying pellets he buys to feed Mrs. Epworth’s flock of leghorn chickens. And on Saturday, Mrs. Epworth sells her eggs to Mrs. Hancock and gets a pocketful of scrip in return.”

  “You got it,” Mr. Tombull said with satisfaction. “And then Mrs. Epworth goes over to the Five and Dime and gives Mr. Dunlap some scrip for a spool of thread and a yard of cotton dry goods. It goes around and it comes around. Ain’t that a beautiful thing?” He appealed to Jed. “Ain’t that a beautiful thing, Mayor?”

  “Yeah, but that ain’t all,” Jed said gravely. “Purina Mills won’t take scrip for that sack of laying pellets I sold to Hiram Epworth, and the company that supplies that thread and yard goods to Mr. Dunlap is gonna laugh like crazy when he sends ’em some of your Darling Dollars. And the railroad—you think the good old L&N is gonna take scrip to haul in our freight?” He shook his head from side to side. “Not very damned likely.”

  “That’s a problem,” Mr. Tombull agreed amiably. “But if you’re plannin’ to stay in business, you’ll have to take that risk. I’ve got creditors myself.” Mr. Tombull owned Tombull’s Real Estate and had a fifty-fifty share in Lem Bixler’s gravel pit, as well as several other local ventures. “I’ll be frank with you, Mayor Snow. I don’t like to do this, but I am fixin’ to ask my creditors to hold off awhile, until we see this thing through to better days. Which they’ll do, because they want to stay in business, too. I’ll bet Purina Mills will see it the same way, when you tell ’em what the alternatives are. And anyway, you can use that scrip to pay your property tax, so when you do get your hands on some cash, you can send it to Purina.” He chewed on his cigar. “If we do it this way—and if we all of us hang together on this—we’ll still be in business when this bad patch is over. If we don’t, Snow’s Farm Supply will be history. And we might as well kiss Darlin’ good-bye.”

  Verna thought of the deserted streets around the square. For once, Mr. Tombull was right. Many days without money and Darling would be a ghost town. But there was still a lingering question that had to be answered. She turned to look at Mr. Moseley.

  “Is it legal?” she asked.

  “You think we’d be wastin’ our time if it wasn’t?” Mr. Tombull demanded.

  Ignoring Mr. Tombull, Mr. Moseley took the pipe out of his mouth and answered Verna’s question.

  “Depends,” he said. “I’d have to see the details, which haven’t been worked out yet. But in general, yes, Mrs. Tidwell, scrip is legal. In fact, Senator Bankhead has proposed a bill in the U.S. Senate to issue a stamp scrip emergency currency nationwide.” Verna knew that Bankhead, a longtime Alabama senator, had significant clout in Washington. If he said scrip was legal for the country, it would be legal in Alabama.

  Mr. Moseley went on. “Bankhead’s scheme won’t go anywhere unless Woodin buys in—he’s FDR’s secretary of the Treasury—and that doesn’t seem likely, at least at this point. Still, the bill is a straw in the wind. It’s likely that the Alabama state legislature will put out some sort of authorization.”

  “There,” Mr. Tombull said triumphantly. “You see, Miz Tidwell? Legal as sin.” He chuckled, appreciating his little joke, and said it again. “Yes siree, Bob, legal as sin. Now, all we got to do is hang together—”

  “Or hang separately.” Charlie was glum. “That’s the key, isn’t it? Hanging together. But what makes you think that Lester Lima is going to take anything but legal tender for his drugstore prescriptions, for which he has to pay cash to the pharmaceutical supply? And how about Roger Kilgore, over at the auto dealership? How many wheelbarrows of scrip will he accept for that 1932 Dodge coupe he’s got on the lot?”

  Mr. Tombull picked up his cigar and jammed it back into his mouth. “Well, the county’s on board,” he said defensively. “And if we can get half of the local merchants to sign on, it’ll probably be enough to get us started. The others’ll come around, when they see that it’s working.”

  “If it works,” Charlie muttered, under his breath. “Which I doubt.”

  Jed sighed, seeming to accept the inevitable. “Just how is it gonna work?” he asked dispiritedly. “Everybody lines up with their hands out and Mr. Duffy here doles it out, so many Darlin’ Dollars per person?”

  “Absolutely not,” Mr. Duffy replied firmly. “Delta Charter will authorize an issue against employers’ bank deposits, and it will be paid out in various denominations through their payrolls. Some provision will have to be made for a fractional distribution to bank depositors who are not locally employed—the elderly, say. But I’m sure we can work that out.” He took the cigarette out of his holder and dropped the butt into the ashtray on Charlie’s desk, smiling at Verna. “The bulk of the issue will be distributed through the Cypress County treasury, as the county’s biggest employer.”

  “And your job,” Mr. Tombull said to Verna, “is to sell the idea to the county employees. Make ’em feel good about the way we’re takin’ care of ’em. Make ’em glad they’re working for us.”

  Verna did not roll her eyes. Instead, she said, “Who’s printing the scrip?”

  Mr. Duffy and Mr. Tombull both looked at Charlie Dickens.

  Charlie laughed shortly. “Oh, yeah? You think I’m going to go into business as a counterfeiter?”

  “Oh, pshaw.” Mr. Tombull brushed the word “counterfeiter” away, as if he were brushing a bothersome fly. “Who else we gonna get to do it, Charlie? You’re the only job printer in town. And I’m sure you know to the penny how much the county pays you every month to print our legal notices.” He didn’t look at Charlie when he said this, and he didn’t have to spell out his threat to pull the county’s business from the newspaper. The threat was implicit, and Charlie understood.

  “Yeah,” he said sullenly. “Yeah, well, who’s paying for the paper and ink? Not to mention the time. That job press doesn’t run by itself, you know.”

  “You’ll be paid for the work,” Mr. Duffy said. “There’s an administrative fee for managing the program.”

  “Oh, I see,” Charlie said, with some sarcasm. “This so-called money you’re printing up—it’s not free. It’s going to cost something.”

  “Your expenses and your time will come out of the fee,” Mr. Duffy continued, as if Charlie had not spoken. “If you’ll stop by the bank tomorrow, I’ll show you the design we’ll be using and we can discuss quantities and other matters.” He pocketed his empty cigarette holder and looked around the group. “Anybody have any more questions?”

  Jed raised his hand as if they were all in school and Mr. Duffy was the teacher. “Yeah. When is all this gonna start happening?”

  “Not until I talk to your town council,” Mr. Duffy said. “I want to make sure they hear about this from me.” Verna caught his meaning: he didn’t trust Jed to sell the program—he might sell it downriver. “Better call a meeting right away, don’t you think, Mr. Mayor? Like maybe tomorrow?”

  Jed’s glance darkened. “Guess you figure on me holding the hog while you cut the throat.”

  Verna heard Mr. Moseley chuckle in wry amusement. Charlie gave a loud, rough laugh. “You put your finger on it, Snow. Right on it.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Mr. Tombull looked at Charlie. “I reckon it won’t take you more’n a few hours to print us up some of this here scrip,” he said with a false heartiness.

  “Reckon it won’t.” Charlie came back to the desk, reached for the bottle, and gulped a couple of swallows.

  Jed gave a laugh, an echo of Charlie’s. “Reckon you’d better lock it up in a safe place somewhere
until it gets where it’s s’posed to go.”

  Charlie snorted and put the bottle down. “You think anybody’s going to break in here and steal a whole lot of worthless paper? Hell, it’s not money. Not even close.”

  “I fail to understand,” Mr. Duffy said testily, “what your objections are to this project. It seems to me that we all need to—”

  “Yeah. Hang together,” Jed said, resigned.

  “Our objections,” Charlie replied dourly, “are to this whole damn mess we’re in, that nobody can see their way out of and nobody wants to get sucked down any deeper into. And we don’t think your Darling Dollars are going to pull us out of it. That’s what our objections are.” He looked at Jed. “Did I get that right, Snow?”

  “More or less,” Jed said. “We’re used to every man for himself, I guess. That’s the American way. We don’t want charity.”

  “This ain’t charity,” Mr. Tombull objected, past his cigar. “Hell’s bells, no! This is every man gettin’ what he’s earned, so he can turn around and spend it right here in our little town.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the un-American part,” Jed said energetically. “If I earn a dollar and want to spend it over in Monroeville, by damn it’s my American right to do that. If I want to buy a new pair of boots from Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck, I got a right to do that, too. But this scrip you’re handin’ out means that you’re telling me where I gotta spend it and who I gotta buy from. That’s un-American, Mr. Tombull. That’s socialism. Hell, that’s communism. And there’s gonna be a whole lot of folks in this town that’s gonna stand up on their hind legs and say so.”

  “I say you’re wrong, Jed,” Mr. Tombull said in his bluff, burly way. “Yes, sir, you are wrong. Folks’ll see the wisdom of gettin’ something instead of getting’ nothin’, and they’ll be glad to trade that something for sugar and flour and shoes for the kids, bought right here in Darlin’.” He chuckled. “Even an old hog’s got ’nuff sense of direction to take the shortest way through the thicket.” He leaned forward, raising one pudgy finger. “Compromise, Mr. Mayor, compromise. It’s the first political lesson every one of us has got to learn.”

  Verna could see that the men were going to be at it hammer and tongs the whole night long. So she picked up her pocketbook and stood up.

  “If the meeting is adjourned, gentlemen,” she said, “I have other things to do.” To Mr. Tombull, she added, “I trust that the county commissioners will do what has to be done to formally authorize the use of scrip for the payroll.”

  “Oh, you bet,” Mr. Tombull said with enthusiasm. “We got a meeting tonight, to do just that. You don’t have to come,” he added hastily. “I’ll tell ’em that you’re on board with this.”

  Verna nodded. To Mr. Duffy, she said, “And I assume that someone will deliver sufficient scrip to my office in time for Friday’s payroll.”

  Mr. Duffy had risen, too. “I’ll bring it myself,” he said gallantly, and smiled at Verna. She noticed that his eyes were gray, and that when he smiled, there were dimples in either cheek. He did not look like a stuffed shirt when he smiled.

  Verna’s rising seemed to signal the end of the meeting, and all the men stood up. Charlie took another swig from his bottle, Mr. Tombull and Jed continued their disagreement, and Mr. Moseley began to empty out his pipe. Mr. Duffy put his hand on Verna’s elbow and escorted her to the door.

  “I want to thank you for being so cooperative,” he said, opening the door for her. “You’re showing the others how this can be done. Your example will get the program off to a good start.” His glance and the almost intimate tone of his voice made them colleagues, as if they were somehow united against an opposing force. “A great many people are going to find this hard to accept. Your part in it may actually make the difference between the success and failure of the program.”

  “I’m glad to help,” Verna said, and was absurdly glad that she had thought to put on that red lipstick.

  They were outside now, on the sidewalk, and the courthouse clock was striking six, startling the flock of gray pigeons roosting in the tower. Verna glanced up at the sky. It had clouded over completely, a thick, threatening blue-gray. The breeze from the south was stronger now, and old Hezekiah came hurrying out the courthouse’s basement door to take down the flag.

  “It’s looking like rain,” Mr. Duffy said. “My car is parked in front of the bank. May I drop you somewhere?”

  Verna was unexpectedly tempted. She remembered what Myra May had said about Mr. Duffy being “slick,” whatever that meant, but she had seen nothing during the meeting that gave her any special apprehension. She lived only a few blocks away, down Robert E. Lee, and she always looked forward to walking home from work, passing in front of the familiar houses and yards, enjoying the flowers and the neighborhood children who played in the street. But that dark sky was certainly ominous. And she hadn’t failed to notice that Mr. Duffy’s hand on her elbow felt surprisingly natural and pleasantly protective, although of course there was nobody on Darling’s courthouse square or the surrounding streets that she needed protection from. Still, with Myra May’s caution in mind, she resisted the temptation.

  “It’s not far,” she said. “If I hurry, I can beat the rain.”

  But just at that moment, like a signal from the heavens above, there was a blinding flash of lightning and a sharp crack of thunder, and without thinking, she flinched and turned her head toward Mr. Duffy’s shoulder.

  He tightened his grip on her elbow. “That settles it,” he said authoritatively. “I am driving you home. And if Mr. Tidwell objects, I’ll be glad to explain to him that I refused to allow his wife to get drenched—or struck by lightning. So come along, please. I’m not in the habit of taking no for an answer.”

  Verna opened her mouth to object and found that she had no objection, especially since it really was beginning to rain. Moving swiftly, with long, emphatic strides, Mr. Duffy steered her along the sidewalk in the direction of the bank, and Verna had to run to keep up with him.

  “There is no Mr. Tidwell,” she half gasped as they crossed the street at the corner. She wasn’t certain whether her breathlessness was caused by their fast pace or by . . . something else. Something entirely new and utterly astonishing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “That was thoughtless of me. I should have asked. I didn’t think—” He stopped beside a 1932 four-door Oldsmobile, painted an elegant maroon with shiny black fenders and polished chrome bumpers and trim. “Here we are,” he said, and opened the passenger door.

  Another lightning flash and almost simultaneous thunderclap startled them both and Verna quickly slipped inside. The rain was coming down quite hard now, and he slammed the door and ran around the car to the driver’s side.

  “I am truly sorry,” he said again, sliding under the wheel. He brushed the raindrops out of his hair and put the key in the ignition, giving her a sidelong glance. “You’re widowed?” He hesitated imperceptibly. “Divorced?”

  “I’m a widow,” Verna said, meeting his eyes. “And there’s no need to apologize, really. It was a long time ago. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it.”

  Mr. Duffy looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t understand why.” Sounding half amused, he added, as if to himself, “These local fellows—what’s wrong with them? They haven’t got eyes?”

  Verna felt herself coloring. And for once in her life, she couldn’t think of a single word to say.

  FIVE

  Lizzy’s Life Changes—Forever

  The old-fashioned grandfather clock struck six and Elizabeth Lacy looked up from her Underwood typewriter, startled. She had been concentrating so hard on her typing that she had lost all track of time. It really was not six, though. She always set the clock exactly seven minutes fast so Mr. Moseley (who was inclined to be late for almost every appointment) wouldn’t be late for hearings in the courthouse across th
e street.

  She finished the last page of the brief she was working on and pulled it out of the typewriter. Mr. Moseley would need it for tomorrow morning’s hearing before Judge McHenry, where he was representing Silas Ford. Poor Mr. Ford had lost his right hand in a sawmill accident and was trying to get Ozzie Sherman—the owner of the Pine Mill Creek Sawmill—to pay his medical expenses. Mr. Moseley was arguing that the accident was really Mr. Sherman’s fault, since he had known for weeks that the saw’s cutoff switch was faulty and hadn’t bothered to get it fixed.

  Mr. Sherman, on the other hand (represented by that old windbag George Lukens), was arguing that Silas Ford hadn’t paid attention to the CAUTION sign posted over the switch, which announced in big red letters that there was a problem with it and anybody who used it should be careful. The best thing, of course, would have been workmen’s compensation, but Mr. Ford (according to Mr. Sherman) was a self-employed contractor. That was true for most of the men who worked at the sawmill, which Mr. Moseley said was cheating—a dishonest way for Ozzie Sherman to use a loophole in the law to avoid paying money into the workmen’s compensation system. Mr. Moseley said it was wrong of Ozzie Sherman to get around the law that way. “Trying to figure some folks out is like guessing at the direction of a rat hole underground,” he said, and shook his head in disgust.

  Lizzy fervently hoped Mr. Moseley would win the case, so Silas Ford wouldn’t lose his house as well as his hand, which was probably what would happen if Mr. Sherman wasn’t forced to pay the medical bills and chip in something for the missing hand. Mr. Ford didn’t have a job now, since nobody wanted a one-handed ex–sawmill operator and there wasn’t much else he knew how to do.

  Lizzy stacked the pages of the brief, clipped them into the usual green folder, and carried the folder into Mr. Moseley’s office to put it on his desk. For the past hour, he’d been downstairs in the Dispatch office, meeting with Mr. Tombull and Mr. Duffy and Mayor Jed Snow about the scrip Mr. Duffy wanted to substitute for money: Darling Dollars, it would be called. Jed was opposed to the plan, which was supposed to be temporary—at least, that’s what people would be told. But Lizzy had overheard Mr. Duffy telling Mr. Moseley that once the scrip got into circulation, it was likely to be around for quite some time.