Ring Around the Sun

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE huge sign was draped diagonally across the front of the huge show window. It read:

HOUSES

TAILORED TO ORDER

$500 a room

LIBERAL TRADE-IN ON YOUR OLD HOME

In the window was a five or six room house, set in the middle of a small, beautifully planned lawn and garden. There was a sundial in the garden and a cupola with a flying duck weather vane on the attached garage. Two white lawn chairs and a white round table stood on the clipped grass and there was a new and shiny car standing in the driveway.

Ann squeezed Vickers' arm. "Let's go in."

"This must be what Crawford was talking about," said Vickers.

"You got lots of time to catch the bus," Ann said.

"We might as well. If you get interested in looking at a house you won't be chewing me."

"If I thought it were possible, I'd trap and marry you."

"And make my life a hell."

"Why, certainly," Ann told him sweetly. "Why else would I do it?"

They went in the door and it swung to behind them and the noise of the Street was shut away and they walked on the deep green carpeting that doubled as a lawn.

A salesman saw them and came over.

"We were just passing by," said Ann, "and we thought we would drop in. It looks like a fine house and…"

"It is a fine house," the salesman assured them, "and it has many special features."

"Is that true what the sign said?" asked Vickers. "Five hundred dollars a room?"

"Everyone asks me that. They read the sign, but they don't believe it, so the first thing they ask me when they come in is whether it is really true we sell these houses for five hundred a room."

"Well, is it?" insisted Vickers.

"Oh, most certainly," said the salesman. "A five room house is twenty-five hundred dollars and a ten room house would be five thousand dollars. Most people of course, aren't interested in a ten room house at first."

"What do you mean, at first?"

"Well, you see, it's this way, sir," the salesman said. "This is what you might call a house that grows. You buy a five room house, say, and in a little while you figure that you want another room, so we come out and redesign the house and make it a six room house."

"Isn't that expensive?" Ann asked.

"Oh, not at all," the salesman said. "It only costs you five hundred dollars for the extra room. That is a flat and standard charge."

"This is a prefabricated house, isn't it?" asked Ann.

"I suppose you would call it that, although it does the house injustice. When you say 'prefabricated' you are thinking of a house that is pre-cut and sort of stuck together. Takes a week or ten days to put it together and then you just have a shell — no heating plant, no fireplace, no nothing."

"I'm interested in this extra room angle," said Vickers. "You say that when they want an extra room they just call you up and you come out and stick one on."

The salesman stiffened slightly. "Not _exactly_, sir. We stick nothing on. We _redesign_ your house. At all times, your house is well planned and practical, designed in accordance with the highest scientific and esthetic concepts of what a home should be. In some cases, adding another room means that we have to change the whole house around, rearrange the rooms and such.

"Of course," he added, "if you wanted to change the place completely the best thing might be to trade the house in on a new one. For doing that we make a service charge of one per cent per year of the original cost, plus, of course, the charge for the extra rooms."

He looked at the two of them, hopefully. "You have a house, perhaps?"

"A little cottage up the valley," said Vickers. "It's not much of a place."

"Worth how much, would you say?"

"Fifteen or twenty thousand, but I doubt if I could get that much."

"We'd give you twenty thousand," said the salesman, "subject to appraisal. Our appraisals are most liberal."

"Look," said Vickers, "I'd only want a five or six room house. That would only come to twenty five hundred or three thousand."

"Oh, that's all right," the salesman told him. "We'd pay the difference in cash."

"That doesn't make sense!"

"Why, of course it does. We're quite willing to pay the going market value on existing structures in order to introduce our own. In your case, we'd pay you the difference, then we'd take your old place and move it away and set up the new one. It's as simple as that."

Ann spoke to Vickers. "Go ahead and tell the man that you aren't iaving any. This sounds like a good sound business proposition to me, so of course you'll turn it down."

"Madam," said the salesman, "I don't quite understand."

"It's just a private joke," Vickers interrupted.

"Ah… well, I was telling you that this house has some special features."

"Go ahead, please," said Ann. "Tell us about them."

"Very happy to. For instance there is the solar plant. You know what a solar plant is."

Vickers nodded. "A power plant operated by the sun."

"Exactly," said the salesman. "This plant, however, is somewhat more efficient than the usual solar plant. It not only heats the house in winter, but supplies electrical power for all the year around. It eliminates the necessity of relying upon a public utility for your power. I might add there is plenty of power, much more than you will ever need."

"A nice feature," said Ann.

"And it comes fully equipped. You get a refrigerator and a home freezer, an automatic washer and dryer, a dish washer, a garbage disposal unit, a toaster, a waffle iron, radio, television, and other odds and ends."

"Paying extra for them, of course," said Vickers.

"Oh, indeed not. _All_ you pay is five hundred a room."

"And beds?" asked Ann. "Chairs and stuff like that?"

"I'm sorry," said the salesman. "You have to furnish those yourself."

"There is an extra charge," Vickers persisted, "for carting way the old house and putting up the new one."

The salesman drew himself erect and spoke with quiet dignity. "I want you to understand that this is an honest offer. There are _no_ hidden costs. You buy the house and pay — or arrange to pay — at the rate of five hundred a room. We have trained crews of workmen who move away your old house and erect the new one. All of that is included in the original cost. There is nothing added on. Of course, some buyers want to change location. In that case we are usually able to work out an acceptable exchange plan between their old real estate and the new location they select. You, I presume, would want to stay where you are. You said you were up the valley. A most attractive place."

"Well, I don't know," said Vickers.

"I forgot to mention one thing," the salesman went on.

"You never have to paint this house. It is built of material that is of the same color all the way through. The color never wears off or fades. We have a wide range of very attractive color combinations."

"We don't want to take up too much of your time," said Vickers. "You see, we're not really customers. We just dropped _in_."

"But you have a house?"

"Yes, I have a house."

"And we stand ready to replace the house and pay you a comfortable sum besides."

"I know all that," said Vickers, "but…"

"It seems to me," the salesman said, "that you should be the one trying to sell me instead of me trying to sell you."

"I have a house, and I like it. How would I know I'd like one of these new houses?"

"Why, sir," said the salesman, "I just been telling you —»

"I'm used to my house. I'm acquainted with it and it's used to me. I've become attached to it."

"Jay Vickers!" said Ann. "You can't become that attached to a house in three years. To hear you talk about it, you'd think it was your old ancestral home."

Vickers was obstinate. "I have the feel of it. I know the place. There's a creaky board in the dining room and I step on it on purpose at times just to hear it creak. And there's a pair of robins that have a nest in the vine on the porch and there's a cricket in the basement. I've hunted for that cricket, but I never could find him; he was too smart for me. And now I wouldn't touch him if I could, because he's a part of the house and —»

"You'd never be bothered with crickets in one of our houses. They have bug repellent built right into them. You never are bothered with mosquitoes or ants or crickets or anything of the sort."

"But I'm not bothered with this cricket," said Vickers. "That is what I was trying to tell you. I like it. I'm not sure I'd like a house where a cricket couldn't live. Now, mice, that's a little different."

"I dare say," declared the salesman, "that you would not have mice in one of our houses."

"I won't have any in mine, either. I called in an exterminator to get rid of them, and they'll be gone by the time I get home."

"One thing is bothering me, said Ann to the salesman. "You remember all that equipment you mentioned, the washer and refrigerator and…"

"Yes, certainly."

"But you didn't mention anything about a stove."

"Didn't I?" asked the salesman. "Now, how could I have let it slip my mind? Of course you get a stove."