'WIDE MEADOWS': BLUE-CHECKED LINOLEUM (A CONTINUING SERIES)

Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960.

Sometimes we went into a regular orgy of "fixin' up the place," small areas at a time. Grandpa traded a neighbor out of a glass doorknob and put it on the inside kitchen door where none had been for a long time. It looked so pretty Grandma said she just believed she'd knit a new rag rug. Mama made some new flour-sack curtains. Lillian began keeping a scrapbook of pictures of pretty kitchens so that when she got to teaching school some of the ideas could be adapted. Daddy made a flower box for the cabinet "window." Lou and I wanted to contribute something, too.

"Embroidered dishtowels?" I suggested and crumpled beneath her withering look. Some people are born with a broader scope than others.

"A linoleum!" she announced.

"Hah!" I replied, "The Gettysburg Address money is all gone."

Linoleum, linoleum, linoleum! We did a regular thesis on linoleums. We studied those of our neighbors, those at Wallingford's Mercantile, and those in the catalog. I could close my eyes and see every linoleum offered and quote the prices, too. The cheapest was twelve dollars and ninety-eight cents. And this was just a nine by twelve, too. Our kitchen would take two of this size. The only good that came of all our research, as I saw it, was that I won the spelling match one Friday at school, turning the side down on "linoleum."

We discussed the matter hopefully with Lillian, for all her scrapbook pictures had linoleums, and she did say that if and when she got the school she would see about it. She wanted to teach the district school as badly as we wanted the linoleums. But this was a vague, long-term, inadequate proposition, we felt.

And then, just like turning to the back of the book and finding the answer, there was an ad on the back of our next month's magazine: "Linoleum - 9-by-12 - only $1.98." In big type it proclaimed the glad tidings and showed the linoleum in color. Big blue-and cream-colored blocks, the very shade of the Blue Willow bean jar. The utter simplicity of it astounded us. Just hand the mailman a dollar ninety-eight, plus a few cents shipping charges, and the thing was ours -- for keeps. No more Saturday morning scrubbing and scouring of the plank floor. Why, at that price we could get two and cover the whole room. One in my name and one in Lou's. That would take four dollars, approximately. I had a quarter. Lou had a dime. That left only three dollars and sixty-five cents. Patched feed sacks we could sell at the Farm Bureau for a nickel each. That would take -- ummm-ummm [[ we calculated rapidly, Lou drumming on her forehead and I counting on my fingers -- 73 bags!

Off to the feed room we sailed. Two, four, nine -- 25 holey bags we had. One dollar and twenty-five cents. Not enough.

"Wonder what Staceys do with theirs?" Lou pondered.

"And Ritters?" I added. Our voices were ragged with anticipatory delight.

"We can't just come plain out and ask for them," I said on the way.

"Of course not, silly. We'll patch on shares."

"One for two?"

"One for one," Lou said firmly in her hard-bargain voice, her jaw set in stern lines.

Staceys had only 30 sacks, which netted us 15. Ritters had 47 and we allowed them the extra one, claiming 23 for ourselves. That left us 10 bags short. We went all the way down to McFarlands only to find they didn't have any. But a mile on down the river at Crawfords, we contracted for the additional 20 sacks needed.

We garnered these sacks secretly, caching them in the corncrib and later smuggling them up to the attic where, with darning needles and twine string, we embarked on our financial coup, which was far better than selling Ease-All, we told each other.

"Say, what are we going to patch with?" I asked, scissors poised. We had always cut up an old sack before for patches, but we were operating on too small a margin for that. Why, it would take at least 10 sacks for patches!

We searched the barn, chicken house, blacksmith shop, smokehouse and attic for suitable patching material but found none. We didn't dare use up the quilt scraps. So we were delayed three weeks longer until we and our neighbors had collected a few more sacks and the mice had done their part about the holes.

We were often questioned by members of the family as to the amount of time we were spending in the attic these days and came to intersperse our patching with suitable sounds of playing which drifted down to the kitchen through the hole in the ceiling.

After many needle jabs, yards and yards of twine string, a thousand knots, and countless patches, we were finished. Patched sacks were delivered to the neighbors and we rode atop our own bundle in the bed of the big wagon to the Farm Bureau store. In our pockets were the precious orders for the linoleums, and as soon as we had received our money we rushed to the post office and mailed them.

What agony to be so proud of oneself and not be able to tell about it for the two whole weeks it took the linoleums to come.

We rode to town with Grandpa again in the big wagon and collected our wonderful cargo at the depot. Grandpa looked at the labels unbelievingly and was reluctant to put the linoleums in the wagon, but we assured him they were all paid for and were just a little surprise we had planned for Mama, tossing our heads lightly as if we were in the habit of doing such elegant things.

If Grandpa was reluctant to bring them home, Mama was even more reluctant to put them down. Her struggle between disbelief, surprise, and hoping that it was true, was comical. She'd back off and look at up skeptically, waiting for us to tell her how we got them, but all we could say was that we had patched feed sacks and sold them.

"But we wouldn't have that many sacks in 10 years," she protested.

"We patched on shares," Lou confessed.

"Shares?" Mom asked.

"One for one," I explained, trying to undershoot my jaw like Lou.

When she told Dad about it that night he said, "Why, there's not that many sacks in the whole valley."

"Well, maybe the others don't keep theirs sold up like we do," Mama tried to reason, still clucking her tongue and taking in the beautiful sight that was our transformed kitchen.

When Old Tabby came rushing in for her saucer of milk that evening she slid halfway across the kitchen before she could get her footing. Then she lifted her feet gingerly and set them down softly with proper respect for our accomplishments.

Next week: Paying more for the blue-checked linoleum.