Just Folks

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JERRY ENGLER
Hard Sell Harry contentedly inhaled a deep draft of tobacco smoke down his lungs from the cigarette he held as his white station wagon kicked up a dense cloud of gravel dust on the road.

A third of the brushes he had to sell in the backend of the car was already gone.

Harry, the man. Hard Sell, Hard Shell, Hard Hearted Harry, his peers called him all these things.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at the harsh, triangular face with butch haircut, clenching the cigarette, and smiled. Yes, he really was his own beautiful Hard Sell Harry.

He’d kept his last customer, a harried poor housewife with squalling children, an entire two hours until she squandered an appalling portion of her monthly budget on his brushes. It had been beautiful.

Now he followed his usual practice of beating the party telephone warning calls that there was a salesman in the neighborhood to skip two or three farmsteads while he grabbed a smoke. He’d get back to them.

His next selection was down a long lane with a red barn to one side and a white-fenced yard with a green-roofed, green-shuttered house to the other.

A curly gray-haired woman, wearing a white apron over a flowered yellow dress followed by a big collie dog, was stooping to pick up a wicker bushel basket in the yard.

She was frowning, looking over the rims of bifocal glasses at him as he walked to the gate. The dog had barked, but she’d told him to be quiet. Kittens of all sizes and colors were darting around at play or running around the yard.

Harry rejoiced inside. He knew this type. He might just sell half the remaining brushes.

He paused as he introduced himself and his wares because the basket she had been tugging at was covered with a lid, and he could detect movement inside.

“I’m Hattie, Harry,” she said. “And, I just don’t have time to talk to you until we get these kittens all caught. This is sorting day. I can’t feed all of them. I have to buy cat food. Don’t keep a cow anymore, so they don’t get milk. You can help me catch them, and then I’ll listen to you while I sort.”

So, for the next half-hour, Harry helped Hattie catch kittens, black ones, white ones, gray ones, calicos and other two-tones. Some were easy to catch while others ran under white board lawn chairs or the porch, went up trees, or into rose and lilac bushes. Harry thought he had never seen so many kittens in one place. He and Hattie kept gathering them until they had stuffed kittens into three bushel baskets.

“Well, Harry that was warm work,” Hattie said. “I’ll get us some cold drinks and cookies, and we’ll sit out here in the lawn chairs while I begin to sort kittens. I make my cookies with lard, but you won’t mind that, will you, Harry? You ever had hard times, Harry? Once we had hard times, and we sure were glad when we got some lard to eat. Lard’s good for you when you’ve had hard times.”

Harry occasionally had to stuff a kitten crawling past the lid back into a basket as he waited. His salesman instincts were rising. He would go for blood. A half-hour of kitten catching was nothing. He’s done worse to make a sale.

Hattie settled into a lawn chair, took a big sip of tea, and motioned the collie to sit upright at her side.

“Okay, Mr. Harry, you can begin,” she said, actually smiling at him, “I can sort while I eat cookies.”

Harry was already pointing out the number of bristles at each juncture on each brush as she pulled the first kitten from a basket.

“Oh, my goodness, a calico,” said Hattie. “Look at this, Shep,” she said to the dog. “I never let go of a calico this pretty. Now, you get going little girl,” she said as she lowered the kitten to release it on the ground.

“Mam, I was just saying about this laundry brush,” Harry said.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Harry. You go right on ahead. Oh my, a gray kitten, a solid gray kitten.”

Hattie put down a cookie to raise the gray kitten above her face looking thoughtfully at him over her bifocals. “Gray cats are good mousers, but I have enough old gray ones.”

“Shep, do it,” she said, handing the kitten to the dog who took it in his jaws, gave a great crunch, and dropped it lifeless to the ground.

“My God, he killed it! He killed that kitten,” Harry cried.

“Why, yes, he killed it, Harry. That’s what he knew I wanted him to do,” Hattie said. “He’s a good dog, didn’t take any pleasure in it, just did what he was told. It’s hard times, Harry. I got too many kittens, and everybody’s got enough cats, they don’t want anymore. With this many kittens around they’d just get the St. Vidas dance or some other disease, and I’d lose them anyway.”

“He killed that kitten. You killed that kitten,” Harry said.

“Why, yes I did,” said Hattie as she munched a cookie. “That’s the way life is, Harry.”

Hard Sell Harry drove his car down the gravel road at a subdued speed that didn’t kick up much dust at all holding a cigarette in his mouth that he scarcely puffed on. A kitten crawled over the foot he held on the accelerator while more kittens played on the seat beside him, and even more were crawling out of the baskets in the car.

Hard Sell, Hard Shell, Hard Hearted Harry had been outsold by Hard Times Hattie.

Jerry’s column appears in every other issue of the Hillsboro Free Press Extra. This piece appeared in last week’s issue. The Extra is available for subscription at a charter rate of $12 per year.

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