Albert Weener Begins
:
Greener Than You Think
1. I always knew I should write a book. Something to help tired minds
lay aside the cares of the day. But I always say you never can tell
what's around the corner till you turn it, and everyone has become so
accustomed to fantastic occurrences in the last twenty one years that
the inspiring and relaxing novel I used to dream about would be today as
unreal as Atlantis. Instead, I find I must write of the things which
ha
e happened to me in that time.
It all began with the word itself.
"Grass. Gramina. The family Gramineae. Grasses."
"Oh," I responded doubtfully. The picture in my mind was only of a vague
area in parks edged with benches for the idle.
Anyway, I was far too resentful to pay strict attention. I had set out
in good faith, not for the first time in my career as a salesman, to
answer an ad offering "$50 or more daily to top producers," naturally
expecting the searching onceover of an alert salesmanager, back to the
light, behind a shinytopped desk. When youve handled as many products as
I had an ad like that has the right sound. But the world is full of
crackpots and some of the most pernicious are those who hoodwink
unsuspecting canvassers into anticipating a sizzling deal where there is
actually only a warm hope. No genuinely highclass proposition ever came
from a layout without aggressiveness enough to put on some kind of
front; working out of an office, for instance, not an outdated, rundown
apartment in the wrong part of Hollywood.
"It's only a temporary drawback, Weener, which restricts the
Metamorphizer's efficacy to grasses."
The wheeling syllables, coming in a deep voice from the middleaged
woman, emphasized the absurdity of the whole business. The snuffy
apartment, the unhomelike livingroom--dust and books its only
furniture--the unbelievable kitchen, looking like a pictured warning to
housewives, were only guffaws before the final buffoonery of discovering
the J S Francis who'd inserted that promising ad to be Josephine Spencer
Francis. Wrong location, wrong atmosphere, wrong gender.
Now I'm not the sort of man who would restrict women to a place in the
nursery. No indeed, I believe they are in some ways just as capable as I
am. If Miss Francis had been one of those wellgroomed, efficient ladies
who have earned their place in the business world without at the same
time sacrificing femininity, I'm sure I would not have suffered such a
pang for my lost time and carfare.
But wellgroomed and feminine were alike inapplicable adjectives.
Towering above me--she was at least five foot ten while I am of average
height--she strode up and down the kitchen which apparently was office
and laboratory also, waving her arms, speaking too exuberantly, the
antithesis of moderation and restraint. She was an aggregate of
cylinders, big and small. Her shapeless legs were columns with large
flatheeled shoes for their bases, supporting the inverted pediment of
great hips. Her too short, greasespotted skirt was a mighty barrel and
on it was placed the tremendous drum of her torso.
"A little more work," she rumbled, "a few interesting problems solved,
and the Metamorphizer will change the basic structure of any plant
inoculated with it."
Large as she was, her face and head were disproportionately big. Her
eyes I can only speak of as enormous. I dare say there are some who
would have called them beautiful. In moments of intensity they bored
into mine and held them till I felt quite uncomfortable.
"Think of what this discovery means," she urged me. "Think of it,
Weener. Plants will be capable of making use of anything within reach.
Understand, Weener, anything. Rocks, quartz, decomposed
granite--anything."
She took a gold victorian toothpick from the pocket of her mannish
jacket and used it energetically. I shuddered. "Unfortunately," she went
on, a little indistinctly, "unfortunately, I lack resources for further
experiment right now--"
This too, I thought despairingly. A slight cash investment--just enough
to get production started--how many wishful times Ive heard it. I was a
salesman, not a sucker, and anyway I was for the moment without liquid
capital.
"It will change the face of the world, Weener. No more usedup areas, no
more frantic scrabbling for the few bits of naturally rich ground, no
more struggle to get artificial fertilizers to wornout soil in the face
of ignorance and poverty."
She thrust out a hand--surprisingly finely and economically molded,
barely missing a piledup heap of dishes crowned by a flowerpot trailing
droopy tendrils. Excitedly she paced the floor largely taken up by jars
and flats of vegetation, some green and flourishing, others gray and
sickly, all constricting her movements as did the stove supporting a
glass tank, robbed of the goldfish which should rightfully have gaped
against its sides and containing instead some slimy growth topped by a
bubbling brown scum. I simply couldnt understand how any woman could so
far oppose what must have been her natural instinct as to live and work
in such a slatternly place. It wasnt just her kitchen which was
disordered and dirty; her person too was slovenly and possibly unclean.
The lank gray hair swishing about her ears was dark, perhaps from vigor,
but more likely from frugality with soap and water. Her massive,
heavychinned face was untouched by makeup and suggested an equal
innocence of other attentions.
"Fertilizers! Poo! Expedients, Weener--miserable, makeshift expedients!"
Her unavoidable eyes bit into mine. "What is a fertilizer? A tidbit, a
pap, a lollypop. Indians use fish; Chinese, nightsoil; agricultural
chemists concoct tasty tonics of nitrogen and potash--where's your
progress? Putting a mechanical whip on a buggy instead of inventing an
internal combustion engine. Ive gone directly to the heart of the
matter. Like Watt. Like Maxwell. Like Almroth Wright. No use being held
back because youve only poor materials to work with--leap ahead with
imagination. Change the plant itself, Weener, change the plant itself!"
It was no longer politeness which held me. If I could have freed myself
from her eyes I would have escaped thankfully.
"Nourish'm on anything," she shouted, rubbing the round end of the
toothpick vigorously into her ear. "Sow a barren waste, a worthless
slagheap with lifegiving corn or wheat, inoculate the plants with the
Metamorphizer--and you have a crop fatter than Iowa's or the Ukraine's
best. The whole world will teem with abundance."
Perhaps--but what was the sales angle? Where did I come in? I didnt know
a dandelion from a toadstool and was quite content to keep my distance
from nature. Had she inserted the ad merely to lure a listener? Her
whole procedure was irregular: not a word about territories and
commissions. If I could bring her to the point of mentioning the
necessary investment, maybe I could get away gracefully. "You said you
were stuck," I prompted, resolved to get the painful interview over
with.
"Stuck? Stuck? Oh--money to perfect the Metamorphizer. Luckily it will
do it itself."
"I don't catch."
"Look about you--what do you see?"
I glanced around and started to say, a measuring glass on a dirty plate
next to half a cold fried egg, but she stopped me with a sweep of her
arm which came dangerously close to the flasks and retorts--all holding
dirtycolored liquids--which cluttered the sink. "No, no. I mean
outside."
I couldnt see outside, because instead of a window I was facing a sickly
leaf unaccountably preserved in a jar of alcohol. I said nothing.
"Metaphorically, of course. Wheatfields. Acres and acres of wheat.
Bread, wheat, a grass. And cornfields. Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois--not a
state in the Union without corn. Milo, oats, sorghum, rye--all grasses.
And the Metamorphizer will work on all of them."
I'm always a man with an open mind. She might--it was just possible--she
might have something afterall. But could I work with her? Go out in the
sticks and talk to farmers; learn to sit on fence rails and whittle,
asking after crops as if they were of interest to me? No, no ... it was
fantastic, out of the question.
A different, more practical setup now.... At least there would have been
no lack of prospects, if you wanted to go miles from civilization to
find them; no answers like We never read magazines, thank you. Of course
it was hardly believable a woman without interest in keeping herself
presentable could invent any such fabulous product, but there was a bare
chance of making a few sales just on the idea.
The idea. It suddenly struck me she had the whole thing backwards.
Grasses, she said, and went on about wheat and corn and going out to the
rubes. Southern California was dotted with lawns, wasnt it? Why rush
around to the hinterland when there was a big territory next door? And
undoubtedly a better one?
"Revive your old tired lawn," I improvised. "No manures, fuss, cuss, or
muss. One shot of the Meta--one shot of Francis' Amazing Discovery and
your lawn springs to new life."
"Lawns? Nonsense!" she snorted, rudely, I thought. "Do you think Ive
spent years in order to satisfy suburban vanity? Lawns indeed!"
"Lawns indeed, Miss Francis," I retorted with some spirit. "I'm a
salesman and I know something about marketing a product. Yours should be
sold to householders for their lawns."
"Should it? Well, I say it shouldnt. Listen to me: there are two ways of
making a discovery. One is to cut off a cat's hindleg. The discovery is
then made that a cat with one leg cut off has three legs. Hah!
"The other way is to find out your need and then search for a method of
filling it. My work is with plants. I don't take a daisy and see if I
can make it produce a red and black petaled monstrosity. If I did I'd be
a fashionable horticulturist, delighted to encourage imbeciles to grow
grass in a desert.
"My method is the second one. I want no more backward countries; no more
famines in India or China; no more dustbowls; no more wars, depressions,
hungry children. For this I produced the Metamorphizer--to make not two
blades of grass grow where one sprouted before, but whole fields
flourish where only rocks and sandpiles lay.
"No, Weener, it won't do--I can't trade in my vision as a downpayment on
a means to encourage a waste of ground, seed and water. You may think I
lost such rights when I thought up the name Metamorphizer to appeal on
the popular level, but there's a difference."
That was a clincher. Anyone who believed Metamorphizer had salesappeal
just wasnt all there. But why should I disillusion her and wound her
pride? Down underneath her rough exterior I supposed she could be as
sensitive as I; and I hope I am not without chivalry.
I said nothing, but of course her interdiction of the only possibility
killed any weakening inclination. And yet ... yet.... Afterall, I had to
have something....
"All right, Weener. This pump--" she produced miraculously from the
jumble an unwieldy engine dragging a long and tangling tail of hose
behind it, the end lost among mementos of unfinished meals "--this pump
is full of the Metamorphizer, enough to inoculate a hundred and fifty
acres when added in proper proportion to the irrigating water. I have a
table worked out to show you about that. The tank holds five gallons;
get $50 a gallon--a dollar and a half an acre and keep ten percent for
yourself. Be sure to return the pump every night."
I had to say for her that when she got down to business she didnt waste
any words. Perhaps this contrasting directness so startled me I was
roped in before I could refuse. On the other hand, of course, I would be
helping out someone who needed my assistance badly, since she couldnt,
with all the obvious factors against her, be having a very easy time.
Sometimes it is advisable to temper business judgment with kindness.
Her first offer was ridiculous in its assumption that a salesman's
talent, skill and effort were worth only a miserable ten percent, as
though I were a literary agent with something a cinch to sell. I began
to feel more at home as we ironed out the details and I brought the
knowledge acquired with much hard work and painful experience into the
bargaining. Fifty percent I wanted and fifty percent I finally got by
demanding seventyfive. She became as interested in the contest as she
had been before in benefits to humanity and I perceived a keen mind
under all her eccentricity.
I can't truthfully say I got to like her, but I reconciled myself and
eventually was on my way with the pump--a trifling weight to Miss
Francis, judging by the way she handled it, but uncomfortably heavy to
me--strapped to my back and ten feet of recalcitrant hose coiled round
my shoulder. She turned her imperious eyes on me again and repeated for
the fourth or fifth time the instructions for applying, as though I were
less intelligent than she. I went out through the barren livingroom and
took a backward glance at the scaling stucco walls of the
apartmenthouse, shaking my head. It was a queer place for Albert Weener,
the crackerjack salesman who had once led his team in a national contest
to put over a threepiece aluminum deal, to be working out of. And for a
woman. And for such a woman....
2. Everything is for the best, is my philosophy and Make your cross
your crutch is a good thought to hold; so I reminded myself that it
takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown and no one sees the bright
side of things if he wears dark glasses. Since it takes all kinds to
make a world and Josephine Spencer Francis was one of those kinds, wasnt
it only reasonable to suppose there were other kinds who would buy the
stuff she'd invented? The only way to sell something is first to sell
yourself and I piously went over the virtues of the Metamorphizer in my
mind. What if by its very nature there could be no repeat business? I
wasnt tying myself to it for life.
All that remained was to find myself a customer. I tried to recall the
location of the nearest rural territory. San Fernando valley,
probably--a long, tiresome trip. And expensive, unless I wished to
demean myself by thumbing rides--a difficult thing to do, burdened as I
was by the pump. If she hadnt balked unreasonably about putting the
stuff on lawns, I'd have prospects right at hand.
I was suddenly lawnconscious. There was probably not a Los Angeles
street I hadnt covered at some time--magazines, vacuums, old gold,
nearnylons--and I must have been aware of green spaces before
most of the houses, but now for the first time I saw lawns. Neat,
sharply confined, smoothshaven lawns. Sagging, slipping,
eager-to-keep-up-appearances but fighting-a-losing-game lawns. Ragged,
weedy, dissolute lawns. Halfbare, repulsively crippled, hummocky lawns.
Bright lawns, insistent on former respectability and trimness; yellow
and gray lawns, touched with the craziness of age, quite beyond all
interest in looks, content to doze easily in the sun. If Miss Francis'
mixture was on the upandup and she hadnt introduced a perfectly
unreasonable condition--why, I couldnt miss.
On the other hand, I thought suddenly, I'm the salesman, not she. It was
up to me as a practical man to determine where and how I could sell to
the best advantage. With sudden resolution I walked over a twinkling
greensward and rang the bell.
"Good afternoon, madam. I can see from your garden youre a lady who's
interested in keeping it lovely."
"Not my garden and Mrs Smith's not home." The door shut. Not gently.
The next house had no lawn at all, but was fronted with a rank growth of
ivy. I felt no one had a right to plant ivy when I was selling something
effective only on the family Gramineae. I tramped over the ivy hard and
rang the doorbell on the other side.
"Good afternoon, madam. I can see from the appearance of your lawn youre
a lady who really cares for her garden. I'm introducing to a restricted
group--just one or two in each neighborhood--a new preparation, an
astounding discovery by a renowned scientist which will make your grass
twice as green and many times as vigorous upon one application, without
the aid of anything else, natural or artificial."
"My gardener takes care of all that."
"But, madam--"
"There is a city ordinance against unlicensed solicitors. Have you a
license, young man?"
After the fifth refusal I began to think less unkindly of Miss Francis'
idea of selling the stuff to farmers and to wonder what was wrong with
my technique. After some understandable hesitation--for I don't make a
practice of being odd or conspicuous--I sat down on the curb to think.
Besides, the pump was getting wearisomely heavy. I couldnt decide
exactly what was unsatisfactory in my routine. The stuff had neither
been used nor advertised, so there could be no prejudice against it; no
one had yet allowed me to get so far as quoting price, so it wasnt too
expensive.
The process of elimination brought me to the absurd conclusion that the
fault must lie in me. Not in my appearance, I reasoned, for I was a
personable young man, a little over thirty at the time, with no obvious
defects a few visits to the dentist wouldnt have removed. Of course I do
have an unfortunate skin condition, but such a thing's an act of God, as
the lawyers say, and people must take me as I am.
No, it wasnt my appearance ... or was it? That monstrously outsized
pump! Who wanted to listen to a salestalk from a man apparently prepared
for an immediate gasattack? There is little use in pressing your
trousers between two boards under the mattress if you discount such
neatness with the accouterment of an invading Martian. I uncoiled the
hose from my shoulder and eased the incubus from my back. Leaving them
visible from the corner of my eye, I crossed the most miserable lawn yet
encountered.
It was composed of what I since learned is Bermuda, a plant most
Southern Californians call--with many profane prefixes--devilgrass. It
was yellow, the dirty, grayish yellow of moldy straw; and bald, scuffed
spots immodestly exposed the cracked, parched earth beneath. Over the
walk, interwoven stolons had been felted down into a ragged mat,
repellent alike to foot and eye. Perversely, onto what had once been
flowerbeds, the runners crept erect, bristling spines showing faintly
green on top--the only live color in the miserable expanse. Where the
grass had gone to seed there were patches of muddy purple, patches which
enhanced rather than relieved the diseased color of the whole and
emphasized the dying air of the yard. It was a neglected, unvalued
thing; an odious appendage, a mistake never rectified.
"Madam," I began, "your lawn is deplorable." There was no use giving her
the line about I-can-see-you-are-a-lady-who-cares-for-lovely-things.
Anyway, now the pump was off my back I felt reckless. I threw the whole
book of salesmanship away. "It's the most neglected lawn in the
neighborhood. It is, madam, I'm sorry to say, no less than a disgrace."
She was a woman beyond the age of childbearing, her dress revealing the
outlines of her corset, and she looked at me coldly through rimless
glassing biting the bridge of her inadequate nose. "So what?" she asked.
"Madam," I said, "for ten dollars I can make this the finest lawn in the
block, the pride of your family and the envy of your neighbors."
"I can do better things with ten dollars than spend it on a bunch of
dead grass."
Gratefully I knew I had her then and was glad I hadnt weakly given in to
an impulse to carry out the crackpot's original instructions. When they
start to argue, my motto is, theyre sold. I took a good breath and wound
up for the clincher.
I won't say she was an easy sale, but afterall I'm a psychologist; I
found all her weak points and touched them expertly. Even so, she made
me cut my price in half, leaving me only twofifty according to my
agreement with Miss Francis, but it was an icebreaker.
I got the pump and hose, collecting at the same time an audience of
brats who assisted me by shouting, "What ya goin a do, mister?" "What's
at thing for, mister?" "You goin a water Mrs Dinkman's frontyard,
mister?" "Do your teeth awwis look so funny, mister? My grampa takes his
teeth out at night and puts'm in a glass of water. Do you take out your
teeth at night, mister?" "You goin a put that stuff on our garden too,
mister?" "Hay, Shirley--come on over and see the funnylooking man who's
fixing up Dinkman's yard."
They were untiring, shrilling their questions, exclamations and
comments, completely driving from my mind the details of the actual
application of the Metamorphizer. Anyway, Miss Francis had been
concerned with putting it in the irrigation water--which didnt apply in
this case. I thought a moment. A gallon was enough for thirty acres;
half a pint should suffice for this--more than suffice. Irrigation
water, nonsense--I'd squirt it on and tell the woman to hose it down
afterward--that'd be the same as putting it in the water, wouldnt it?
To come to this practical conclusion under the brunt of the children's
assault was a remarkable feat. As I dribbled the stuff over the sorry
devilgrass they kicked the pump--and my shins--mimicking my actions,
tripping me as they skipped under my legs, getting wet with the
Metamorphizer--I hoped with mutually deleterious effect--and generally
making me more than ever thankful for my bachelor condition.
Twofifty, I thought, angrily squirting a fine mist at a particularly
dreary spot--and it isnt even selling. Manual labor. Working with my
hands. I might as well be a gardener. College training. Wide experience.
Alert and aggressive. In order to dribble stuff smelling sickeningly of
carnations on a wasted yard. I coiled up my hose disgustedly and
collected a reluctant five dollars.
"It don't look any different," commented Mrs Dinkman dubiously.
"Madam, Professor Francis' remarkable discovery works miracles, but not
in the twinkling of an eye. In a week youll see for yourself, provided
of course you wet it down properly."
"In a week youll be far gone with my five dollars," diagnosed Mrs
Dinkman.
While this might be superficially true, it was an unfair and unkind
thing to say, and it wounded me. I reached into my pocket and drew out
an old card--one printed before I'd had an irreconcilable difference
with the firm employing me at the time.
"I can always be reached at this address, Mrs Dinkman," I said, "should
you have any cause for dissatisfaction--which I'm sure is quite
impossible. Besides, I shall be daily in this district demonstrating the
value of Dr Francis' Lawn Tonic."
That was certainly true; unless I made a better connection. Degrading
manual labor or not, I intended to sell as many local people as possible
on the strength of having found a weak spot in the wall of
salesresistance before the effects of the Metamorphizer became apparent.
For, in strict confidence, and despite its being an undesirable negative
attitude, I was a little dubious that those effects--or lack of
them--would stimulate further sales.
3. My alarmclock, as it did every morning, Sundays included, rang at
sixthirty, for I am a man of habit. I turned it off, remembering
instantly I had given Miss Francis neither her pump nor her share of the
sale. Of course it was more convenient and timesaving to bring them both
together and I was sure she didnt expect me to follow instructions to
the letter, like an officeboy, any more in these matters than she had in
her restriction to agricultural use.
Still, it was remiss of me. The fact is, I had spent her money as well
as my own--not on dissipation, I hasten to say, but on dinner and an
installment of my roomrent. This was embarrassing, but I looked upon it
merely as an advance--quite as if I'd had the customary
drawingaccount--to be charged against my next commissions. My acceptance
of the advance merely indicated my faith in the future of the
Metamorphizer.
I dissolved a yeastcake in a glass of water; it's very healthy and I'd
heard it alleviated dermal irritations. Lathering my face, I glanced
over the list culled from the dictionary and stuck in the mirror the
night before, for I have never been too tired to improve my mind. By
this easy method of increasing my vocabulary I had progressed, at the
time, down to the letter K.
While drinking my coffee--never more than two cups--it was my custom to
read and digest stock and bond quotations, for though I had no
investments--the only time I had been able to take a flurry there was an
unforeseen recession in the market--I thought a man who didnt keep up
with trends and conditions unfitted for a place in the businessworld.
Besides, I didnt expect to be straitened indefinitely and I believed in
being ready to take proper advantage of opportunity when it came.
As a man may devote the graver part of his mind to a subject and then
turn for relaxation to a lighter aspect, so I had for years been
interested in a stock called Consolidated Pemmican and Allied
Concentrates. It wasnt a highpriced issue, nor were its fluctuations
startling. For six months of the year, year in and year out, it would be
quoted at 1/16 of a cent a share; for the other six months it stood at
1/8. I didnt know what pemmican was and I didnt particularly care, but
if a man could invest at 1/16 he could double his money overnight when
it rose to 1/8. Then he could reverse the process by selling before it
went down and so snowball into fortune. It was a daydream, but a
harmless one.
Satisfying myself Consolidated Pemmican was bumbling along at its low
level, I reluctantly prepared to resume Miss Francis' pump. It seemed
less heavy as I wound the hose over my shoulder and I felt this wasnt
due to the negligible quantity I'd expended on Mrs Dinkman's grass. I
just knew I was going to have a successful day. I had to.
In moments of fancy I often think a salesman is more truly a creative
artist than many of those who arrogate the title to themselves. He uses
words, on one hand, and the receptivity of prospects on the other, to
mold a cohesive and satisfying whole, a work of Art, signed and dated on
the dotted line. Like any such work, the creation implies thoughtful and
careful preparation. So it was that I got off the bus, polishing a new
salestalk to fit the changed situation. "One of your neighbors ..." "I
have just applied ..." I sneered my way past those houses refusing my
services the day before; they couldnt have the Metamorphizer at any
price now. Then it hit my eyes.
Mrs Dinkman's lawn, I mean.
The one so neglected, ailing and yellow only yesterday.
It wasnt sad and sickly now. The most enthusiastic homeowner wouldnt
have disdained it. There wasnt a single bare spot visible in the whole
lush, healthy expanse. And it was green. Green. Not just here and there,
but over every inch of soft, undulating surface; a pale applegreen where
the blades waved to expose its underparts and a rich, dazzling emerald
on top. Even the runners, sinuously encroaching upon the sidewalk, were
deeply virescent.
The Metamorphizer worked.
The Metamorphizer not only worked, but it worked with unbelievable
rapidity. Overnight. I knew nothing about the speed at which ordinary
fertilizers, plant stimulants or hormones took hold, but commonsense
told me nothing like this had ever happened so quickly. I had been
indulging in a little legitimate puffery in saying the inoculant worked
miracles, but if anything that had been an understatement. It just went
to show how impossible it is for a real salesman to be too enthusiastic.
Nerves in knees and fingers quivering, I walked over to join the group
curiously inspecting the translated lawn. I, I had done this; out of
the most miserable I'd made the loveliest--and for a paltry five
dollars. I tried to recapture the memory of what it had looked like in
order to relish the contrast more, but it was impossible; the vivid
present blotted out the decayed past completely.
"Overnight," someone said. "Yessir, just overnight. Wouldnt of believed
it if I hadnt noticed just yesterday how much worse an the city dump it
looked."
"Bet at stuff's ten inches high."
"Brother, you can say that again. Foot'd be closer."
"Anyhow it's uh fattestlookin grass I seen sence I lef Texas."
"An the greenest. Guess I never did see such a green before."
While they exclaimed about the beauty and vigor of the growth, my mind
was racing in high along practical lines. Achievement isnt worth much
unless you can harness it, and in today's triumph I saw tomorrow's
benefit. No more canvassing with a pump undignifiedly on my back, no
more manual labor; no, bold as the thought was, not even any more direct
selling for me. This was big, too big to be approached in any cockroach,
build-up-slowly-from-the-bottom way. It was a real top deal, in a class
with nylon or jukeboxes or bubblegum. You could smell the money in it.
First of all I'd have to tie Josephine Francis down with an ironclad
contract. Agents; dealerships; distributors and a general salesmanager,
Albert Weener, at the top. Incorporate. Get it all down in black and
white and signed by Miss Francis right away. For her own good. An
idealistic scientist, a frail woman, protect her from the vultures who'd
try to rob her as soon as they saw what the Metamorphizer would do. Such
a woman wouldnt have any business sense. I'd see she got a comfortable
living out of it and free her from responsibility. Then she could potter
around all she liked.
Incorporate. Interest big money. Put it on a nationwide basis. A cut for
the general salesmanager on every sale. Besides stock. Take the patent
in the company's name. In six months I'd be on my way to being a
millionaire. I had certainly been right up on my toes in picking the
Metamorphizer as a winner in spite of Miss Francis' kitchen and her lack
of aggressiveness. Instinct, the unerring instinct of a wideawake
salesman for the right product--and for the right market. I mustnt
forget that. Had I been content with her original limitation I'd still
be bumbling around trying to interest Farmer Hicks in some Metamorphizer
for his hay.
"Ja notice how thick it was?"
"Well, that's Bermuda for you. Tell me they actually plant it on purpose
in Florida."
"No kiddin?"
"Yessir. Know one thing--even if it looks pretty right now, I wouldnt
want that stuff on my place. Have to cut it every day."
"Bet ya. Toughlookin too. I rather take my exercise in bed."
That's an angle, I thought--have to get old lady Francis to modify her
formula or something. Else we'll never get rich. Slow down the rate of
growth, dilute it--ought to be more profitable too.... Have to find out
how cheaply the inoculant can be produced--no more inefficient hand
methods.... Of course the fastness of growth wouldnt affect the sale to
farmers--help it in fact. No doubt she'd had more than I originally
thought in that aspect, I conceded generously. We could let them apply
it themselves ... mailorder advertising ... cut costs that way.... Think
of clover and alfalfa--or werent they grasses? Anyway, imagine hay or
wheat as tall as Iowa corn and corn higher than a smalltown cityhall!
Fortune--there'd be a dozen fortunes in it.
I began perspiring. The deal was getting bigger and bigger. It wasnt
just a simple matter of cutting in on a good thing. All the angles,
which were multiplying at a tremendous rate, had to be covered before I
saw Miss Francis again; I darent miss any bets. I needed a staff of
agricultural experts--anyway someone who could cover the scientific
side. Whatever happened to my freshman chemistry? And a mob of lawyers;
you'd have to plug every loophole--tight. But here I was without a
financial resource--couldnt hire a ditchdigger, much less the highpriced
talent I needed--and someone else might get a brainstorm when he saw the
lawn and beat me to it. I visioned myself cheated of my million....
Yes ... a really fast worker--some unethical promoter willing to stoop
to devious methods--might pass at any moment and grasp the
possibilities, have Miss Francis signed up before I'd even got the deal
straight in my mind. How could he miss, seeing this lawn? Splendid,
magnificent, beautiful. No one would ever call this stuff
devilgrass--angelgrass would be more appropriate to the implications of
such a heavenly green. Millions in it--simply millions....
"Say--arent you the fellow put this stuff on?"
Halfadozen vacant faces gaped at me, the burdening pump, the caudal
hose. Curiosity, interest, imbecile amusement argued in their expression
with the respect due the worker of the transformation; it was the sort
of look connected with salesresistance of the most obstinate kind. They
distracted me from thinking things through.
"Miz Dinkman's sure looking for you. Says she's going to sue you."
Here was an unfortunate development, an angle to end all angles.
Unfavorable publicity, the abortifacient of new enterprises, would mean
you could hardly give the stuff away. My imagination raced through
columns of newsprint in which the Metamorphizer was made the butt of
reporters' humor. Mrs Dinkman's ire would have to be placated, bought
off. Perhaps I'd better discuss developments with Miss Francis right
away, afterall.
Whatever I decided, it was advisable for me to leave this vicinity. I
was in no financial position to soothe Mrs Dinkman and it was dubious,
in view of her attitude, whether it would be possible to sell any more
in the immediate neighborhood. Probably a new territory was the answer
to my problem; a few sales would give me both cash in hand and time to
think.
While I hesitated, Mrs Dinkman, belligerency dancing like a sparkling
aura about her, came out of her garage with a rusty, rattling lawnmower.
I'm no authority on gardentools, but this creaking, rickety machine was
clearly no match for the lusty growth. The audience felt so too, and
there was a stir of sporting interest as they settled down to watch the
contest.
Determination was implicit in the sharply unnatural lines of her corset
and the firm set of her glasses as she charged into the gently swaying
runners. The wheels turned rebelliously, the mower bit, its rusty blades
grated against the knife, something clanked forcibly and the machine
stopped. Mrs. Dinkman pushed, her back arched with effort--the mower
didnt budge. She pulled it back. It whirred gratefully; the clanking
stopped and she tried again. This time it chewed a handful of grass from
the edge, found it distasteful and quit once more.
"Anybody know how to make this damn thing work?" Mrs Dinkman asked
exasperatedly.
"Needs oil" was helpfully volunteered.
She retired into the garage and returned with a lopsided oilcan. "Oil
it," she commanded regally. The helpful one reluctantly pressed his
thumb against the wry bottom of the can, aiming the twisted spout at odd
parts of the mower. "I dunno," he commented.
"I don't either," said Mrs Dinkman. "You--Greener, Weener--whatever your
name is!"
There was no possibility of evasion. "Yes, mam?"
"You made this stuff grow; now you can cut it down."
Uncouth guffaws from the watching idiots.
"Mrs Dinkman, I--"
"Get behind that lawnmower, young man, if you don't want to be involved
in a lawsuit."
I wasnt afraid of such a consequence in itself, having at the moment
nothing to attach, but I thought of Miss Francis and future sales and
that impalpable thing known as "goodwill." "Yes, mam," I repeated.
I discarded pump and hose to move reluctantly toward the mower. Under my
feet I felt the springiness of the grass; was it pure fancy--or did it
truly differ in quality from the lawns I'd trod so indifferently the day
before?
I took the handle. If oiling had improved the machine, its previous
efficiency must have been slight. It went shakily over the first inch of
grass and then, as it had for Mrs Dinkman, it stopped for me.
By now the spectators had increased to a small crowd and their dull
humor had taken the form of cheerfully offering much gratuitous advice.
"Tie into it, Slim--build up the old muscle." "Back her up and take a
good run." "Go home an do some settinup exercises--come back next year."
"Got to put the old back behind it, Bud--give her the gas." "Need a
decent mower--no use trying to cut stuff like that with an antique."
"Yeah--get a good mower--one made since the Civil War." "No one around
here got an honestogod lawnmower?"
The last query evidently nettled local pride, for soon a blithe,
beamshouldered little man trundled up a shiny, rubbertired machine.
"Thisll do the business," he announced confidently as I relinquished the
spotlight to him with understandable readiness. "It's a regular
jimdandy."
It certainly was. The devilgrass came irreverently above the wheels and
flowed with graceful inquisitiveness over the blades, but the brisk
little man pushed heartily and the mechanism revolved with a barely
audible clicking. It did not balk, complain or hesitate. Cleanly severed
ends of grass whirled into the air and floated down on the neat smooth
swath left behind. Everyone smiled relievedly at the jimdandy's triumph
and my sigh was loudest and most heartfelt. I edged away as
unobtrusively as I could.
4. I have no sympathy with weaklings who complain of the cards being
stacked, but it did seem as though fate were dealing unkindly with me.
Here was a good proposition, coming just at the time I needed it most
and it was turning bad rapidly. Walking the short distance to Miss
Francis' I was unable to settle my mind, to strike a mental
balancesheet. There was money; there had to be money--lots and lots of
it--in the Metamorphizer, but it was possible there was trouble--lots
and lots of it--also. The thing was, well, dangerous. What was the use
of expending ability in selling something which could have kickbacks
acting as deterrents to future sales? Of course a man had to take
risks....
The door, after a properly prudent hesitation, clicked brokenly. Miss
Francis looked as though she'd added insomnia to her other abstentions,
otherwise she had not changed, even to her skirt and the smudge on her
left nostril. "If youve come about the icebox youre a week late. I fixed
it myself," she greeted me gruffly.
"Weener," I reminded her, "Albert Weener--remember? I'm selling--that
is, I'm going to sell the product you invented to make plants eat
anything."
"Oh. Weener--yes." She produced the toothpick and scratched her chin
with it. "About the Metamorphizer." She paused and rubbed her elbow. "A
mistake, I'm afraid. An error."
Aha, I thought, a new deal. Someone's offered to back her. Steal her
brainchild, negate all my efforts to make her independent and cheat me
of the reward of my spadework. You wouldnt think of her as a frail
credulous woman, easily taken in by the first smooth talker, but a woman
is a woman afterall.
"Look, Miss Francis," I argued, "youve got a big thing here, a great
thing. The possibilities are practically unlimited. Of course youll have
to have a manager to put it across--an executive, a man with business
experience--someone who can tap the great reservoir of buying power by
the conviction of a new need. Organize a sales campaign; rationalize
production. Put the whole thing on a commercial basis. For all this you
need a man who has contacted the public on every level--preferably
doortodoor and with a varied background."
She strode past the stove, which had gathered new accreta during the
night and looked in the cloudy mirror as though searching for a
misplaced thought. "No doubt, Weener, no doubt. But before all these
romantically streamlined things eventuate there must be a hiatus. In my
haste I overlooked a detail yesterday, trivial maybe--perhaps vital. I
should never have let you start out so soon."
This was bad; I was struggling now for my job and for the future of the
Metamorphizer. "Miss Francis, I don't know what you mean by mistakes or
trivial details or how I could have started out too soon, but whatever
the trouble is I'm sure it can be smoothed out easily. Sometimes, you
know, obstacles which appear tremendous prove to be nothing at all in
experienced hands. I myself have had occasion to put things right for a
number of different concerns. Really, Miss Francis, you mustnt let
opportunity slip through your fingers. Believe me, I know what a big
thing your discovery is--Ive seen what it does."
She turned those too sharp eyes on me discomfortingly. "Ah," she said,
"so soon?"
"Well," I began, "it certainly acted quickly ..."
I stopped when I saw she wasnt hearing me. She sat down in the only
empty chair and drummed her fingers against big white teeth. "Even under
a microscope," she muttered, "no perceptible reaction for fortyeight
hours. Laboratory conditions? Or my own idiocy? But I approximated ..."
Her voice trailed off and for a full minute the absolute silence of the
kitchen was broken only by the melodramatic dripping of a tap.
She made an effort to pull herself together and addressed me in her old
abrupt way. "Corn or wheat?"
"Ay?"
"You said youve seen what it does. I asked you if you had applied it to
corn or wheat--or what?"
She was looking at me so fixedly I had a slight difficulty in putting my
words in good order. "It was neither, mam. I applied some of the stuff
to a lawn--"
"A lawn, Weener?"
"Y-yes, mam."
"But I said--"
"General instructions, Miss Francis. I'm sure you didnt mean to tie my
hands."
Another long silence.
"No, Weener--I didnt mean to tie your hands."
"Well, as I was saying, I applied some of the stuff to a lawn. Exactly
according to your instructions--"
"In the irrigation water?"
"Well, not precisely. But just as good, I assure you."
"Go on."
"A terrible lawn. All shot. Last night. This morning--"
"Stop. What kind of grass? Or don't you know?"
"Of course I know," I answered indignantly. Did she think I was an
idiot? "It was devilgrass."
"Ah." She rubbed the back of her hand against her singularly smooth
cheek. "Bermuda. Cynodon dactylon. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could
I have been so blind? Did I think only the corn would be affected and
not the weeds in the furrows? Or that something like this might not
happen?"
I didnt feel like wasting any more time listening to her soliloquy.
"This morning," I continued, "it was as green--"
"All right, Weener, spare me your poetry. Show it to me."
"Well now, Miss Francis ..." I wanted, understandably enough, to discuss
future arrangements before she saw Dinkman's lawn.
"Immediately, Weener."
When dealing with childish persons you have to cater to their whims. I
rid myself of the pump--I'd never dreamed I'd be reluctant to part with
the monster--while she made perfunctory and unconvincing motions to fit
herself for the street. Of course she neither washed nor madeup, but she
peered in the glass argumentatively, pulled her jacket down decisively,
threw her shoulders back to raise it askew again and gave the swirl of
hair a halfhearted pat.
"I'd like to go over the matter of organizing--"
"Not now."
I was naturally reluctant to be seen on the street with so conspicuous a
figure, but I could hardly escape. I tried to match her swinging stride,
but as she was at least six inches taller I had to give a sort of skip
between steps, which was less than dignified. Searching my mind to find
a tactful approach again to the subject of proper distribution of the
Metamorphizer, I felt my opportunity slipping away every moment. She, on
her part, was silent and so abstracted that I often had to put out a
guiding hand to avert collision with other pedestrians or stationary
objects.
I doubt if I'd been gone from Mrs Dinkman's threequarters of an hour. I
had left a small group excited at the free show consequent upon the too
successful beautification of a local eyesore; I returned to a sizable
crowd viewing an impressive phenomenon. The homely levity had vanished;
no one shouted jovial advice. Opinions and comments passed in whispers
accompanied by furtive glances toward the lawn, as though it were
sentient and might be offended by rude speculation. As we pushed through
the bystanders I was suddenly aware of their cautious avoidance of
contact with the grass itself. The nearest onlookers stood a respectful
yard back and when unbalanced by the push of those behind went through
such antics to avoid treading on it, while at the same time preserving
the convention of innocence of any taboo that they frequently pivoted
and pirouetted on one foot in an awkward ballet. The very hiding of
their inhibition emphasized the new awesomeness of the grass; it was no
longer to be lightly approached or frivolously treated.
Now I am not what is generally called a man of religious sensibilities,
having long ago discarded belief in the supernatural; and I am not
overcome at odd moments by mystical feelings. Furthermore I had been
intimate with this particular patch of vegetation for some eighteen
hours. I had viewed its decaying state; I had injected life into it; I
had seen it in the first flush of resurrection. In spite of all this, I
too fell under the spell of the grass and knew something compounded of
wonder and apprehension.
The neatly cut swaths of the little man with the jimdandy mower came to
a dramatic end in the middle of the yard. Beyond this shorn portion the
grass rose in a threatening crest, taller than a man's knees; green,
aloof and derisive. But it was not this forbidding sight which gave me
such a queer turn. It was the mown part; for I recalled how the brisk
man's machine had cut close and left behind short, crisp stems. Now this
piece was almost as high as when I'd first seen it--grown faster in an
hour than ordinary grass in a month.
5. I stole a look at Miss Francis to see how she was taking the sight,
but there was no emotion visible on her face. The toothpick was once
more in play and the luminous eyes fixed straight ahead. Her legs were
spread apart and she seemed firmly in position for hours to come, as
though she would wait for the grass to exhaust its phenomenal growth.
"Why did they quit cutting?" I asked the man standing beside me.
"Mower give out--dulled the blades so they wouldnt cut no more."
"Going to give up and let it grow?"
"Hell, no. Sent for a gardener with a powermower. Big one. Cut anything.
Ought to be here now."
He was, too, honking the crowd from the driveway. Mrs Dinkman was with
him, looking at once indignant, persecuted, uncomfortable and
selfrighteous. It was evident they had failed to reach any agreement.
The gardener slammed the door of the senescent truck with vehement lack
of affection. "I cut lots a devilgrass, lady, but I won't tie into this
overgrown stuff at that price. You got no right to expect it. I know
what's fair and it's not reasonable to count on me cutting this like it
was an ordinary lawn. You know yourself it isnt fair."
"I'll give you ten dollars and that's my last word."
"Listen, lady, when I get through this job I'll have to take my mower
apart and have it resharpened. You think I can afford to do that for a
tendollar job?"
"Ten dollars," repeated Mrs Dinkman firmly.
The gardener appealed to the gallery. "Listen, folks: now I ask you--is
this fair? I'm willing to be reasonable. I understand this lady's in
trouble and I'm willing to help, but I can't do a twentyfivedollar job
for ten bucks, can I?"
It was doubtful if the observers were particularly concerned with
justice; what they desired was action, swift and drastic. A general
resentment at being balked of their amusement was manifest in murmurs of
"Go ahead, do it." "What's the matter with you?" "Don't be dumb--do it
for nothing--youll get plenty business out of it." They appealed to his
nobler and baser natures, but he remained adamant.
Not to be balked by his churlishness, they passed a hat and collected
$8.67, which I thought a remarkably generous admission price. When this
was added to Mrs Dinkman's ten dollars the gardener, still protesting,
reluctantly agreed to perform.
Mrs Dinkman prudently holding the total, he unloaded the powermower with
many flourishes, making quite an undertaking of oiling and adjusting the
roller, setting the blades; bending down to assure himself of the
gasoline in the small tank, finally wheeling the contraption into place
with great spirit. The motor started with a disgruntled put! changing
into a series of resigned explosions as he guided it over the lawn
crosswise to the lines of his predecessor. Miss Francis followed every
motion with rapt attention.
"Did you expect this?" I asked.
"Ay? The abnormally stimulated growth, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Yes and no. Work in the laboratory didnt indicate it. My own fault; I
didnt realize at once making available so much free nitrogen would have
such instant results. But last night--"
"Yes?"
"Not now. Later."
The powermower went nicely, I might almost say smoothly, over the stuff
cut before, muttering and chickling happily to itself as it dragged the
panting gardener, inescapably harnessed, in its wake. But the mown area
was narrow and the machine quickly jerked through it and made the last
easy journey along the wall of untouched devilgrass beyond.
The gardener, without hesitation, aimed his machine at the thicket of
grass. It growled, slowed, coughed, spat, struggled and thrashed on and
finally conked out.
"Ah," said Miss Francis.
"Oh," said the spectators.
"Sonofabitch," said the gardener.
He yanked the grumbling mower back angrily, inspecting its mechanism in
the manner of a mother with a wayward son and began again. There was
desperate determination in his shoulders as he added his forward thrust
to the protesting rhythm. The machine went at the grass like a bulldog
attacking a borzoi: it bit, chewed, held on. It cut a new six inches
readily, another foot slowly--and then with jolts and misfires and loud
imprecations from the gardener, it gave up again.
"You," judged Mrs Dinkman, "don't know how to cut grass."
The gardener wiped his sweaty forehead with the inside of his wrist.
"You--you should have a law against you," he answered bitterly and
inadequately.
But the crowd evidently agreed with Mrs Dinkman's verdict, for there
were mutterings of "It's a farmer's job." "Get somebody with a scythe."
"That's right--get a scythe." "Got to have a scythe to cut hay like
that." These remarks, uttered loudly enough for him to hear, so
discouraged the gardener that after three more futile tries he reloaded
his equipment and left amidst jeers and expressions of disfavor without
attempting to collect any of the money.
For some reason the failure of the powermower lightened the atmosphere.
Everyone, including Mrs Dinkman, seemed convinced that scything was the
solution. Tension relaxed and the bystanders began talking in something
above a whisper.
6. "This will just about ruin our sales," I said.
Miss Francis suspended the toothpick before her chin and looked at me as
though I'd said dirty words in the presence of ladies.
"Well it will," I argued. "You can't expect people to have their lawns
inoculated if they find out it's going to make grass act this way."
Her eyes might have been microscopes and I something smeared on a slide.
"Weener, youre the sort of man who peddles Life Begins at Forty to the
inmates of an old peoples' home."
I couldnt see what had upset her. The last idea had sound salesappeal,
but it was a low income market.... Oh well--her queer notions and
obscure reactions undoubtedly went with her scientific gift. You have
to lead individuals of this type for their own good, otherwise they
spend their lives wandering around in a dreamy fog, accomplishing
nothing.
"I still believe youve got something," I pointed out. "You yourself said
it wasnt perfected, but perhaps you havent realized how far from
marketable it actually is yet. Now then," I went on reasonably, "youre
just going to have to dilute it or change it or do something to it, so
while it will make grass nice and green, it won't let it grow wild like
this."
The fixed look could be annoying. It was nearly impossible to turn your
eyes away without rudeness once she caught them. "Weener, the
Metamorphizer is neither fertilizer nor plant food. It is a chemical
compound producing a controlled mutation in any treated member of the
family Gramineae. Dilution might make it not work--the mutation might
not take place--but it couldnt make it half work. I could change your
nature by forcibly injecting an ounce of lead into your cerebellum. The
change would not only be irrevocable, but it wouldnt make the slightest
difference if the lead were adulterated with ironpyrites or not."
"But, Miss Francis," I expostulated, "you'll have to do something."
She threw her hands into the air, a theatrical gesture even more than
ordinarily unbecoming. "Why?"
"Why? To make your discovery marketable, of course."
"Now? In the face of this?"
"Miss Francis," I said with dignity, "you are a lady and my selfrespect
makes me treat you with the courtesy due your sex. You advertised for a
salesman. Instead of sneering at my honest efforts to put your
merchandise across to the public, I think youd be better advised to
worry about such lowbrow things as keeping faith."
"Am I to keep faith in a vacuum? You came to me as a salesman and I must
give you something to sell. This is simple morality; but if such a grant
entails concomitant evils, surely I am absolved of my original
contract."
"I don't know what youre talking about," I told her frankly. "Your
stuff made the grass grow too fast, that's all. You should change the
formula or find a new one or else ..."
"Or else youll have been left with nothing to sell. I despair of making
the point about changing the formula; your trust in my powers is too
reverent. Again, I'm not an arrogant woman and I'll admit to some
responsibility. Make the world fit for Alfred Weener to make a living
in."
"It's Albert, not Alfred," I corrected her. I'm not touchy, goodness
knows, but afterall a name's a piece of property.
"Your pardon, Albert." She looked down at me with such a placatory and
genuinely feminine smile I decided I'd been foolish to be offended.
She's a nut of course, I thought indulgently, someone whose life is
bounded by theories and testtubes, a woman with no conception of
practical reality. Instead of being affronted it would be better to show
her patiently how essential my help was to her.
"Of all people," she went on, searching my face with those discomfiting
eyes, "of all people Ive the least cause for moral snobbery. Anxious to
get a few dollars to carry on my work--and what was such anxiety but
selfindulgence?--I threw the Metamorphizer to you and the world before I
realized that it was not only imperfect, but faulty. Hell is paved with
good intentions and the first result of my desire to benefit mankind has
been to injure the Dinkmans. Meditation in place of infatuation would
have shown me both the immediate and ultimate wrongs. I doubt if youd
been gone an hour yesterday when I knew I'd made a blunder in permitting
you to go out with danger in both hands."
"I don't know what youre getting at," I said stiffly, for it sounded as
though she were regarding me as a child.
"Why, as I was sitting, composing my thoughts toward extending the
effectiveness of the Metamorphizer beyond gramina, it suddenly became
clear to me I'd erred about not knowing how long the effect of the
inoculations would last."
"You mean you found out?" If she brought the thing under control and the
effect lasted a specified time there might be repeat business afterall.
"I found out a great deal by using speculation and logic for a change
instead of my hands and memory. I sat and thought, and though this is an
unorthodox way for a scientist to proceed, I profited by it. I reasoned:
if you change the genetic structure of a plant you change it
permanently; not for a day or an hour, but for its existence. I'm not
speaking of chance mutations, you understand, Weener, coming about over
a course of generations, generations which include sports, degenerates,
atavars andsoforth; but of controlled changes, brought about through
human intervention. Inoculation by the Metamorphizer might be compared
to cutting off a man's leg or transplanting part of his brain.
Albert--what happens when you cut off a man's leg?"
I was tired of being talked to like a grammarschool class. Still, I
humored her. "Why, then he has only one leg," I answered agreeably if
idiotically.
"True. More than that, he has a onelegged disposition. His whole ego,
his entire spirit is changed. No longer a twolegged creature, reduced,
he is another--warped, if you like--being. To come to the immediate
point of the grass: if you engender an omnivorous capacity you implant
an insatiable appetite."
"I don't catch."
"If you give a man a big belly you make him a hog."
A chevvy coupe, gently breathing steam from its radiator cap,
interrupted. From its turtle hung the blade of a scythe and on the
nervously hinged door had been hopefully lettered Arcangelo Barelli,
Plowing & Grading.
While the coupe was trembling for some seconds before quieting down, I
sighed a double relief, at Miss Francis' forgetfulness of the money due
her and the soothing of my fears for the lawn's eating its way downward
to China or India. The remark about gluttonous abdomens was disturbing.
"And of course there will be no further sale of the Metamorphizer," she
concluded, her eyes now totally concerned with the farmer who was
opening the turtle with the air of a man expecting to be unpleasantly
astonished.
Mr Barelli came as to a deathbed, a consoling but hopeless smile
widening his narrow face only inconsiderably. At the scythe cradled in
his arms someone shouted, "Here's old Father Time himself." Mr Barelli
wasnt amused. Brushing his forehead thoughtfully with tender fingers he
surveyed with saddened eye the three graduated steps of grass. The last
step, unessayed by his predecessors, rose nearly four feet, as alien to
the concept of lawn as a field of wheat.
"Think you can cut it?" one of the audience asked.
Mr Barelli smiled cheerlessly and didnt answer. Instead, he uprooted
from his hip pocket a slender stone and began phlegmatically to caress
the blade of the scythe with it.
"Hay, that stuff's not goin to stop growin while you fool around."
"Got to do things right," explained Mr Barelli gently.
The rhythmic friction of stone against steel prolonged suspense
unbearably. All kinds of speculation crowded my mind while the leisurely
performance went on. The grass was growing rapidly; faster than
vegetation had ever grown before. Could it grow so quickly the farmer's
scythe couldnt keep up with it? Suppose it had been wheat or corn?
Planted today, it would be ready to harvest next week, fully ripe. The
original dream of Miss Francis would pale compared with the reality.
There was still--somewhere, somehow--a fortune in the Metamorphizer....
Ready at last, Mr Barelli walked delicately across the stubble as if it
were a substance too precious to be trampled brutally. Again he measured
the rippling, ascending mass with his eye. It was the look of a
bridegroom.
"What you waitin for?"
Unheeding, he scraped bootwelt semicircularly on the sward as though to
mark a stance. Once more he appraised the grass, crooked his knee,
rested his hands lightly on the two short, upraised handholds. Satisfied
at length with his preparations, he finally drew the scythe back with a
sweeping motion of both arms and curved it forward close to the ground.
It embraced a sudden island lovingly and a sheaf of grass swooned into a
heap. I was reminded of old woodcuts in a history of the French
Revolution.
The bystanders sighed in harmony. "Nothing to it ... should a had him in
the first place ... can't beat the old elbowgrease. No, sir,
musclepower'll do it every time ... guess it's licked now all right, all
right...." Mr Barelli duplicated his sweep and another sheaf fell.
Another. And another....
"One of the oldest human rituals," remarked Miss Francis, swaying her
body in time with the farmer's. "An act of devotion to Ceres. But all
this husbandman reaps is Cynodon dactylon. A commentary."
"Progress," I pointed out. "Now they have machines to harvest grain. All
uptodate farmers use them; only the backward ones stick to primitive
tools and have to make a living by taking on odd jobs."
"Progress," she repeated, looking from the scythewielder to me and back
again. "Progress, Weener. A remarkable conception of the nineteenth
century...."
The less intense spectators began to move off; not, to be sure, without
backward glances, but the metronomic swing of Mr Barelli's blade
indicated it was all over with the rank grass now. I too should have
been on my way, writing off the Metamorphizer as a total loss and
considering methods for making a new and more profitable connection. Not
that I was one to leave a sinking ship, nor had I lost faith in the
potentialities of Miss Francis' discovery; but she either wasnt smart
enough to modify her formula, or else ... but there really wasnt any "or
else". She just wasnt smart enough to make the Metamorphizer marketable
and she was cheating me of the handsome return which should be
rightfully mine.
She'd made the stuff and deceived me by an unscrupulously worded
advertisement, now, no longer interested, she asked airily if further
effort were essential. Who wouldnt be indignant? And to cap it all she
suddenly ejaculated, "Can't dawdle around here all day" and after
snatching up a handful of the scythings, she left, rolling her large
body from side to side, galloping her untidy hair up and down over her
neck as she took rapid strides. Evidently the attractions of her messy
kitchen were more to her taste than the wholesome air of outdoors.
Pottering around, producing another mare's nest and eventually, I
suppose, getting another victim....
7. But I couldnt leave so cavalierly. Every leaf, stem, and blade of
the cancerous grass held me in somewhat the same way Miss Francis'
intense eyes did. It wasnt an aesthetic or morbid attraction--its basis
was strictly practical. If it could have been controlled--if only the
growth could be induced on a modified and proper scale--what a product!
A fury of frustration rocked my customary calm....
The stretch and retraction of the mower's arms, the swift, bright
curving as the scythe cut deeper, fascinated me. An unscrupulous
man--just as a whimsical thought--might go about in the night
inoculating lawns surreptitiously and appear with a crew next day to
offer his services in cutting them. Just goes to show how easy it is to
make dishonest speculations ... but of course such things don't pay in
the long run....
The lush area was being reduced, but perhaps not with the same rapidity
as at first when Mr Barelli was at the top of enthusiastic--if the
adjective was applicable--vigor. Oftener and oftener and oftener he
paused to sharpen his implement and I thought the cropped shocks were
becoming smaller and smaller. As the movement of the scythe swept the
guillotined grass backward, the trailing stolons entangled themselves
with the uncut stand, pulling the sheaves out of place and making the
stacks ragged and inadequate looking.
Behind me a cocky voice asked, "What's cooking around here, chum?"
I turned round to a young man, thin as a bamboo pole, elegantly
tailored, who yawned to advertise gold inlays. I explained while he
looked skeptical, bored and knowing simultaneously. "Who would tha
flummox, bah goom?" he inquired.
"Ay?"
He took a pack of playingcards from his pocket and riffled them
expertly. "Who you kidding, bud?" he translated.
"No one. Ask anybody here if this wasnt a dead lawn yesterday and if it
hasnt grown this high since morning."
He yawned again and proffered me the deck. "Pick any card," he
suggested. To avoid rudeness I selected one. He put the pack back and
said, "You have the nine of diamonds. Clever, eh?"
I didnt know whether it was or not. He accepted the pasteboard from me
and said, peering out from under furry black eyebrows, "If I brought in
a story like that, the chief would fire me before you could say James
Gordon Bennett."
"Youre a reporter?"
"Acute chap. Newspaperman. Name of Gootes. Jacson Gootes, Daily
Intelligencer, not