WIDE MEADOWS: THE TREASURED WEALTH OF THE WORLD (A CONTINUING SERIES)

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

"Naturally," Mama replied, picking up another book and thumbing through it.

"Myrtle!" Aunt Grace demanded. "Do you know how much they cost?"

"Humm?" Mama asked, looking up.

"They're fifty dollars!" Aunt Grace warned with flashing eyes.

"Well worth it," Mama said, closing the book and running her hand appraisingly over the grainy cover.

The salesman's head was busy flying back and forth from Aunt Grace to Mom while he listened to Mom sell his books. He smiled smugly and got out his order blank. The mustache hair quivered vigorously.

"How did you wish to pay for them, Mrs. Bell?

"What?" Mama looked at him quickly.

"Well, you can save some by paying cash," he said, his face a little flushed and his fingers nervous with his sale.

"Oh, but I couldn't buy them," Mama said, looking up, alarmed.

"But I thought you said ..."

"Oh, no. No, I didn't say anything like that," Mama replied, wide-eyed, laying the book down hastily.

The salesman buttoned up his vest, adjusted his bifocals again, wiped his forehead, tweaked his mustache, losing the hair, and started in all over again.

"Young lady," he said, turning to me. "Tell me, do you know what a duck-billed platypus is?" His eyes bored into mine, accusingly. I stepped back, embarrassed, and acknowledged, shame-faced, that I didn't.

"And you," he went on, looking at Lou, "do you know where the House of Seven Gables is?"

"Salem, Massachusetts," Lou replied, calmly. "Andy the Old Manse is at Concord," she added for good measure.

Mama smiled indulgently at Lou. "They know Hawthorne," she explained, trying to hide her pride.

"Mrs. Bell," the salesman said, changing his tactics in midstream, "allow me to say you have two very precocious youngsters here." He was being generous with me.

I didn't know what "precocious" meant, but it sounded good and I was glad to be included, in spite of the "padded puss" or whatever it was.

"Sometimes in our rush of living, we overlook the most important things," he went on sadly. "Think what a set of these books would mean to these wonderful little girls." His voice turned low and confidential. "You know, I have a couple of youngsters, too, and we lived on practically bread and water til I got a set of these books in the hands of my children." He wiped his eyes and sighed. I felt my own eyes stinging.

"How much did you say they were?" Mom asked, hesitantly, after a moment of silence while we sat thinking about the bread and water.

The salesman whipped out his order pad again.

"Only fifty dollars, Mrs. Bell," he pleaded. "Think of it! The world at your fingertips. You can pay just five dollars down and the rest in monthly installments."

"But we don't want none, Mister," Aunt Grace put in, severely. "And if you don't mind, I've some things to do."

The salesman looked at Mama and Mama looked at Lou and me a long time. She brushed the bangs back again, straightened Lou's belt. Finally, she said, "I'll take them," in a clear, determined voice. We bit our lower lips incredulously.

The salesman looked at Aunt Grace haughtily, pocketed his handkerchief, and sat down. In less than five minutes he was gone with Mama's five-dollar bill that she was going to get coffee and sugar and flour and corn meal with.

"Well, Myrtle, what will the rest of them say?" Aunt Grace demanded.

Lou and I turned questioning eyes to Mama, too. Yeah, what would they say?

"Well, I don't care what they say." Mama's voice was only a little shrill as she kept snapping and unsnapping the pocketbook, peering down into the little dark recess where the five-dollar bill had been. But forty-five minutes later, when we'd passed the old Bonahan place, coffeeless and flourless, it was a whole lot shriller and quivery on top of that. And by the time we'd gotten to the Big Field, we were all quietly crying, thought we hadn't talked about the books at all.

"I'll stop here at Britts," Mama said, pulling in old Maude and the buggy to the hitching post, "and phone back to Aunt Grace to stop that salesman."

We were glad there was a way out, though we were sorry to see the lovely books go so quickly. Where did an aardvark live, anyway?