by Ralph Moody
He reached for the fork without much enthusiasm, and told me, “a bit of pork helps canner-cow hamburger, but I’m thinking that cow beef would ruin pork sausage.”
As he said it, he cut off a scrap from a patty, put it into his mouth, and looked up at me with a surprised expression. “Not bad! Not bad at all, at all,” he said. “What’s in it besides beef and pork?” Then he reached for a larger bite.
Instead of answering, I told him I was the cattle trader at Cedar Bluffs, that one of the McCook butchers had told me he wasn’t going to bid on the contract, and why. “Matt Quinlan tells me you already have a bid of nineteen cents,” I said. “If the man who made it has a butcher shop near enough that washout to handle the fresh meat business, the chances are ten to one that he buys livestock from me. At that price I’ll make you a bet that he aims to supply you meat from the cheapest old canner cows and worn-out brood sows I can find for him—meat so tough and strong you’d be ashamed to give it to your dog.”
Then I explained why I thought the job could be done far more economically by using good-grade stock. “To get the contract, I’ll shade the nineteen-cent price considerably,” I said, “and guarantee to supply tender meat from young hogs and grass-fat heifers, but the contract will have to call for pork cutlets instead of chops, and for sausage per sample submitted. I’m gambling that the men will like this kind of sausage well enough to eat it at other meals than breakfast. If a quarter of the meat for the job was sausage, and I supplied lard compound like this sample, I could use most of my fatback and beef trimmings, and wouldn’t have much left over to get rid of at give-away prices.”
Mr. Donovan had sampled a third bite of sausage, reached for another as I was finishing, and told me, “This stuff is kind of like peanuts. It’s easy to keep nibbling on, and I don’t doubt the men would eat a spate of it. But, lad, I can’t give you that contract, much as I’d like to. It’s not that the wording couldn’t be changed easy enough, and the good Lord knows I’d like to see the men get first-class meat instead of the junk the other bidders will deliver. But there’s too many strikes against you. It’s a fine kettle of fish I’d be in with the home office if ptomaine poisoning was to break out on a job where I’d let the meat contract to a lad with no experience, slaughterhouse, shop, or sanitary facilities of any kind. And what could you do with the contract if you got it? By your own word you’re dead broke, and to handle a deal as big as that Beaver Valley contract a man will need at least five thousand in ready cash along with a well-equipped shop.
“Don’t forget that railroads pay only once a month, and on the tenth of the following month at that. If the job takes five hundred pounds of meat a day—and I figure it will—a man could easy enough have four thousand dollars due him before he was paid a cent, and he’d need at least another thousand to keep plenty of butchering stock on hand. Sorry, lad, but even if you underbid the lowest established butcher by two or three cents a pound I couldn’t give you the contract.”
I grinned and said, “Now that you’ve told me why you can’t risk giving me the contract, can I have five minutes to show you why you can’t afford not to?”
He grinned back and said, “Six, if you want, but it’ll be a waste of time. I can’t let my heart get in the way of my head on railroad business.”
“That’s why I think I’ll get the contract,” I told him. “My credit’s fairly good out Beaver Valley way, so I can raise whatever cash is needed to handle the deal. But before making any bid I’d like to remind you of something you may have overlooked. Being a livestock dealer, I know every butcher within forty miles of that washout, and exactly what he has in the way of slaughterhouse, shop, refrigeration, and delivery equipment. Barring John Bivans at Oberlin, who isn’t going to bid, the nearest established butcher will be twenty miles or more from the job. August and September are hot months out our way, the roads are in bad condition since the flood, and no butcher has a covered truck. Has the Q ever collected damages from a meat contractor due to a case of ptomaine poisoning?”
Mr. Donovan had reached for another bite of sausage, but stopped with it in mid-air and exclaimed, “Louks! Don’t even mention ptomaine. Feed a batch of bad meat to a big crew and you’d like as not get fifty cases, and before it was done with—doctors’ bills, lost time, and all—it could run up as high as a thousand dollars.”
I grinned again and said, “That’s all I want to know. Now I’ll make my proposition. The place I lease adjoins the railroad’s right-of-way at Cedar Bluffs, about as near the center of that construction job as a man could get. There’s a good set of buildings on the place, including a vacant five-room house that has just been renovated. If I’m awarded the contract today, these are the preparations I’ll make by August first:
“I’ll screen the house, put in running water, whatever equipment is needed to handle the business, hire a professional packing-house butcher, and install an icebox as big and cold as any in western Kansas. In addition, I’ll deposit a thousand dollars to be forfeited for failure to have adequate and sanitary facilities ready for operation by August first, failure to complete the contract, and for supplying as little as one pound of meat that is contaminated at the time of delivery. To avoid any possibility of ptomaine, I’ll provide a covered vehicle, and make two deliveries daily when requested.
“The price a man can reasonably bid on this contract, and the quality of meat he can afford to deliver depend entirely on the amount of business he can be sure of every day and how near he can come to using entire carcasses of both pork and beef. If the contract is written to call for beefsteak, pork cutlets, and sausage as per sample, I’ll bid seventeen and a half cents a pound, straight across the board. But if lard compound is included and I’m guaranteed four months’ business at a minimum of eighty-five dollars a day, with payment in full at the end of every week, I’ll cut my across-the-board price to fifteen cents a pound.”
Mr. Donovan put a bite of sausage in his mouth, and asked around it, “Want to give me a bank reference?”
“Yes, sir,” I told him. “I’ll pay the toll charges if you’ll phone C. L. Frickey, president of the Farmers National Bank at Oberlin. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him which deal you’re going to take. It will make considerable difference in the amount I’ll have to borrow, and he’ll want to know.”
“Who said I’d be taking either of ’em?” he asked, then chuckled and told me, “Don’t rush me, lad. I’ve never run into a deal the likes of this before, and I’ll have to take the whole thing up with headquarters. If they’ll go for the deal there’ll have to be a special contract written up by the legal department. But there’s no sense going into all that till I’ve talked to your banker. Write his name down on this pad for me, then get out of here and let me see what I can do for you.”
After I’d written the name he reached across the desk, shook hands, and told me, “I’ll do the best I can. Come back at noonday, and I’ll have the answer for you.”
“I’ll be here,” I told him, “and I’m grateful to you.” Then I picked up the sample plate and got out of there.
19
Both Pockets Full of Fish
I STOPPED at the restaurant only long enough to leave the plate and tell Spiro I wouldn’t know about the contract till afternoon. It was barely nine-thirty when I reached the stockyards, but my hogs had already been sold, and Matt called out, “We sure guessed right in holding ’em back to the last auction. They were the only prime bacon hogs to come in, and every buyer in town was red hot for ’em. Both cars brought eight eighty-five. How’d you make out with Emmet?”
I’d hoped to get as much as $7.85 a hundredweight for my hogs, but $8.85 was almost unbelievable. For a moment I was so amazed that I didn’t comprehend what he meant by asking how I’d made out with Emmet. Then I remembered seeing the name, Emmet F. Donovan, on the office door. “I won’t know till noon,” I said, “but I have a hunch that I’m going to get that contract if there’s any way he can push it through.”
“You couldn’t have a better man pushing for you,” he said. “Come on inside and let’s settle up on those hogs.”
The figuring didn’t take long, and left no doubt about the value of keeping hogs wet during shipment in hot weather. My shrinkage had been very slight, and the net proceeds were nearly four thousand dollars—five hundred more than I’d even hoped for. I stood bemused by my good fortune until Matt asked, “Want a check now, or shall I mail it to the Farmers National at Oberlin?”
With the tide of luck running my way as strongly as it had for the past few days, I felt so confident of getting the meat contract that I told him, “Mail a check for two thousand to the bank for my account, and give me one made out to the CB&Q for a thousand, and I’d like the balance in cash.”
Ordinarily, if I’d had no hard work to do and was obliged to wait two or three hours for a decision as important to me as that meat contract, my nerves would have been tighter than fiddle strings, but that forenoon I was completely relaxed. Until eleven-thirty I loafed around the stockyards, visiting with other stockmen, then timed myself to reach Mr. Donovan’s office a few minutes before twelve o’clock.
The moment I opened his door I knew the contract was mine. There was a twinkle in the big Irishman’s eyes and a broad contagious smile on his face. “Well, lad,” he told me, “it’s here, but I had to burn up half the wires to Chicago, and it was like pullin’ crocodile teeth to get it. They hollered like knaves at the daily minimum and paying every week, but I left them no doubt it was the only way I could come close to a fifteen-cent price, and they finally gave in. By the way, that banker out at Oberlin is a pretty good friend of yours. He even phoned one of the big bosses at Chicago, trying to save you posting the deposit, but the legal department wouldn’t stand for it.”
I’d thought I might have a lawyer examine the contract, but there was no need of it. The wording was clear and the terms exactly those I proposed. Within half an hour I’d turned the thousand-dollar guarantee check over to Mr. Donovan, and we’d signed two copies of the contract. As I left, Mr. Donovan told me he’d be out to inspect my facilities at the end of July.
The first thing I did was to send George Miner an unsigned telegram saying, “Have corralled the horse of a different color.” Then I mailed the contract to Mr. Frickey, so there’d be no chance of losing it, and went to the German machinist’s shop.
He’d worked all night on the meat carriage problem, solved it, and made a wooden model that worked perfectly. The platform of the carriage, mounted to slide past the saw blade on parallel rails, was made up of eight rollers studded with rows of sharp brads for holding a large piece of meat firmly in place. A lever-and-ratchet device turned the rollers in unison, moving the meat forward for a uniform cut of any desired thickness. Although I lacked the ingenuity to invent the contraption I knew instantly that it would do exactly what I wanted.
The old machinist had also made new drawings that showed the workbench lengthened to ten feet, with the band saw and sliding carriage at the end farthest from the window. The saw, powered by an extension of the drive shaft, was positioned so that the cutting blade passed through the bench top eighteen inches from the end and midway between front and back. This would permit a cut half the width of the bench and allow space for piling up the slices. The carriage was to be made entirely of metal, and the bench top of three-inch maple. With no haggling we agreed on a price of $385, to include a reconditioned Ford motor and an extra saw blade. In exchange for my paying in advance, he promised to have the setup completed and shipped within fifteen days.
A couple of small packing plants as well as several meat markets had gone out of business in Omaha since the war, and most of the equipment from them was still in secondhand fixture stores. My German friend not only knew where every piece of it was, but what the various dealers had paid, and which ones were the most anxious to sell. He wouldn’t go with me or let me use his name, but told me where to go for everything I needed, and what I should pay for it.
By closing time I’d bought enough fixtures, equipment, utensils, hand tools, and plumbing supplies to set up a well-equipped butcher’s shop and slaughterhouse, and had spent less than three hundred dollars. Among other things I’d been so fortunate as to get all the fittings from a huge icebox—including two four-by-seven-foot insulated doors with their casings, and forty feet of overhead rail with rolling hooks for handling heavy carcasses—a chain hoist with which one man could easily lift a ton, and a fifty-gallon copper rendering vat.
It was late when I got back to Spiro’s for supper, and he came running from the kitchen, demanding to know if I’d got the meat contract. When I told him I had he shouted a few words in Greek over his shoulder, then yammered excitedly at me in English, reminding me that I’d promised to hire his brother Nick. In the midst of it Nick, obviously dressed in his Sunday best, came out of the kitchen. He was no more than five-feet-six tall, but outweighed me by at least eighty pounds—brunet as I was blond, red cheeked as compared to my leathery tan, and almost stolid in his movements, while I was inclined to move quickly. Besides, he was as calm and bashful as Spiro was excitable and bold. He had no sooner appeared than Spiro began telling me that he was the finest butcher in Omaha.
My first inkling that Nick understood English came when Spiro assured me that before being laid off his brother had cut all the meat for the best hotel trade in town. The boy’s face became fire red, and he blurted in heavily accented English, “No! Skinner. Killing floor.”
Up to that moment I’d been hunting some excuse that would let me out of my thoughtless promise, but after Nick spoke I didn’t want any excuse. I not only liked his straightforwardness, but knew I’d be able to trust him under any circumstances, and it suddenly occurred to me that I might be lucky he wasn’t an expert butcher. Slaughtering had always been revolting to me, but it would be no problem to a man used to working on the killing floor of a packing house. Furthermore, skinning would be a big part of my butchering operation, for there was no reason to scald and scrape hogs when none of the pork would be cured. Then too, with the band saw I’d have no need for an expert meat cutter.
I asked Nick only if he was willing to work as many hours a day as I did, and at any job that needed to be done. He simply nodded, so I shook his hand and told him, “It’s a deal. Five dollars a day, starting tomorrow morning. You meet me here at seven o’clock.”
Self-conscious because of his poor English, Nick spoke only when necessary. Together with his stolidness, it made him appear a bit stupid, but he was far from it. I soon discovered that he was an excellent and ingenious mechanic, skillful with any hand tool, and although deliberate in his movements he made every one of them count.
As soon as I met him our first morning we set off for the pawnshops, and within a couple of hours had bought full sets of carpenters’, plumbers’, and masons’ tools, together with an old whaleback trunk for shipping them.
We hired a team and wagon from a livery stable, and while Nick collected and packed the tools, Spiro took me to his wholesale grocer and baker. My reason for dealing with an Omaha grocery firm and bakery was not only to get wholesale prices, but to keep local butchers from finding out the ingredients in my sausage. I arranged with the baker to ship me, beginning on July twenty-fifth, a hundred pounds of bone-dry stale white bread each week, instructing him that it was to be packed in flour barrels and expressed to Nickolas Gusko at McCook. From the grocery firm I bought a barrel of rough-rubbed sage, a hundred pounds of ground black pepper, twenty-five of powdered ginger, and fifteen of cayenne, also having the shipment made in Nick’s name.
To collect all the materials I’d bought, crate, and deliver them to the express dock, kept Nick and me going at a trot right up till train time that evening. During the whole day I doubt that he’d said more than a dozen words except, “Okay, boss,” and I hadn’t tried to force him. But it’s embarrassing to sit in silence beside a man for any great length of time, and we’d be sitting together ab
out fifteen hours before reaching Oberlin. I’d had plenty of proof all through the day that he could understand almost anything said to him in English if I spoke slowly and was careful to use simple words. Besides, I’d noticed that people who were inclined to be self-conscious became more so if questioned, but usually forgot all about it if intently interested in a project or story.
I waited until our train was well out of Omaha, then told Nick about the flood, that I thought there should be a good profit in the meat contract if we could avoid wastage, how I intended to handle it, and of my plans for rebuilding the kitchen and bunkhouse into a little butchering plant.
Haltingly, and often pausing to hunt through his memory for English words, he told me of his apprenticeship in Greece, of Spiro’s insistence that he come to America, and of his being unable to find work except as a skinner in the packing plants. To relieve him from the strain of talking, I told a story or two of my boyhood on Colorado cattle ranches, and he told a bit about his boyhood in Larissa, his home in Greece. By the time the conductor came through to turn down the lights for the night, Nick and I were good friends, and he was never again self-conscious unless there were strangers with us. We never talked much, but there isn’t much need for talking when two men understand and like each other.
I didn’t sleep well on the train, but did considerable thinking about the hog market cycle and the buried corn on my place. Stocker pigs and heavyweight sows were still a drug on the market, but the price my bacon hogs had brought made me almost certain that George was right. It was, of course, too early to be at all sure, but I believed the upward cycle had already begun. When we reached Oberlin I set Nick to loading our baggage into the Maxwell while I went to see Mr. Frickey. He rose and held out his hand to shake, saying, “Congratulations, boy! I didn’t think you had a chance of getting that contract. With the railroad paying weekly, how much financing will you need?”
