To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 9 - Dollars and Sense

Where is that damned cat?

No, no, cancel that. Pixel, Mama Maureen didn't mean that; she's just worried and upset. Pixel is a good boy, a fine boy; everybody knows that.

But, damn it, where are you when I need you?

As soon as we were settled into our new home we shopped for Briney's kitten, but not in pet shops. I'm not sure that there was such a thing as a pet shop in KC in 1906; I don't recall ever having seen one that far back... and I do remember that we bought goldfish at Woolworth's or at Kresge's, not at a pet shop. Special items for cats, such as flea powder, we bought at the Dog and Cat Hospital at 31 st and Main. But finding a kitten required asking the wind.

First I got permission to put a notice on the bulletin board at Nancy's school. Then I told our grocer that we were looking for a kitten, and left the same word with our huckster - a greengrocer who stopped his wagon in our block every weekday morning to offer fresh fruits and vegetables.

The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company peddled its wares the same way but its Sales wagon called only once a week since it carried only tea and coffee, sugar and spices. But that meant it covered a larger area with more customers and therefore greater chances of finding kittens. So I gave their driver our telephone number, Home Linwood 446, and asked him to call me if he heard of a litter of kittens, and then (having asked a favour) I bought his special for the week, twenty-five pounds of sugar for a dollar.

A mistake - He insisted on carrying it in for me, asserting that twenty-five pounds was much too heavy for a lady... and I learned that what he really wanted was to get me alone. I evaded his hands by picking up Brian, Junior, a tactic Mrs Ohlschlager had taught me when Nancy was tiny. It works best with a small and very wet baby but any child small enough to pick up will throw a hopeful male off his stride and cool him down. Oh, it won't stop a crazy rapist, but most deliverymen (and plumbers, repairmen, etc.) are not rapists; they are simply ordinary rutty males who will go for it if offered. The problem is simply to turn him down firmly but gently, without causing him to lose face. Picking up a child does this.

It was bad judgement also because a whole dollar was too much of my household budget to tie up in sugar, and (worse) I did not have ant-proof storage for that much sugar... sol wound up spending another sixty cents on a sugar safe as big as my flour bin - which left me so short on cash a week later that I served fried mush for supper when my ‘plan ahead' called for ground beef patties. It was almost the end of the month, so it was serve mush or ask Briney for an advance... which I would not do.

With fried mush I served mo strips of bacon to Brian and one to me, and one strip, fried crisp, and crumbled, divided for Carol and Nancy. (Brian, Junior, still regarded Cream o' Wheat as a gourmet dish, so he got that plus what milk I had left in my breasts.) Fresh dandelion greens helped to fill out the menu, and their butter-yellow blooms I floated in a shallow dish as a centrepiece. (Can anyone tell me why such pretty flowers are considered weeds?)

It was a skimpy supper but I ended it with a substantial dessert I could make with what I had on hand, plus two cooking apples picked up cheap that morning from my huckster: apple dumplings with hard sauce.

Hard sauce should be made with confectioners' sugar - but Aunt Carole had taught me how to crush and crush and keep on crushing granulated sugar, using a big spoon and a bowl, to achieve a fair imitation of powdered sugar. I had enough butter on hand and vanilla extract, and I used one teaspoon of cooking brandy - also on hand; Aunt Carole had given it to me on my wedding day. (It was now half gone. I tasted it once - horrible! But a smidgen of it at the right time and place certainly enhanced the flavour of food.)

Brian made no comment on fried mush, but complimented me on the dumplings.

On the first of the month following he said, ‘Mo, the papers say that food prices are up even though the farmers are squawking. And I'm certain that this bigger house is costing you more to run, if only in electricity, gas and Sapolio. How much more each month do you need?'

‘Sir, I'm not asking for more money. We'll get by.'

I'm sure we will but the hot weather will be with us next month. I don't want you paying the iceman the way some housewives do. Let's raise your allowance by five dollars.'

‘Oh, I don't need that much!'

‘My lady, let's do raise it that much, and see how it works out. If you have money left over at the end of the month, tuck it away. At the end of the year you can buy me a yacht.'

‘Yes, sir. What colour?'

‘Surprise me.'

I managed to add pennies and nickels and dimes to that ‘egg money' over the months by never using a charge account, even with my grocer-which was just as well, as Brian was in business for himself sooner than he had anticipated.

His employer, Mr Fones, had made him a junior associate after two years, then assistant manager in 1904. Six months after we moved into our wonderful new house Mr Fones decided to retire and offered Brian a chance to buy him out.

It was one of the few times I have seen my husband in a quandary. He usually made decisions quickly with the icy calm of a riverboat gambler; this time he seemed bemused sugaring his coffee twice, then forgetting to drink it.

At last he said, ‘Maureen, I'm going to have to consult you on a business matter.'

‘But, Brian, I don't know anything about business.'

‘Listen to me, my love. Ordinarily I will not bother you about business. Deo volente, I will not need to do so again. But this affects you and our three children and the one that has caused you to get out your fat clothes again.' He told me in detail what Mr Fones had offered.

I thought hard about it, then said, ‘Brian, under this agreement you are to pay this - drawing acount you called it - to Mr Fones each month?'

‘Yes. If the business makes more profit than the average of the last few years, his share increases.'

‘Suppose it makes less. His share goes down?'

‘Not below that drawing account figure.'

‘Even if the business loses money?'

‘Even if it loses money. Yes, that's part of the proposal.'

‘Briney, just what is it he is selling you? You are contracting - will be contracting if you accept - to support him indefinitely -‘

‘No, just twelve years. His life expectancy.'

‘If he dies, it ends? Hmm! Does he know about my great aunt Borgia?'

‘No, it doesn't end if he dies, so get that gleam out of your eye. If he dies, it goes to his estate.'

‘Ali right, twelve years. You support him for twelve years. What do you get out of it?'

‘Well... I receive a going business. Its files, its records, and, principally, its goodwill. I'll have the right to use the name "Fones and Smith, Mining Consultants".' He stopped.

‘What else?' I asked.

‘The office furniture and the lease. You've seen the office.'

Yes, I had. Down in the west bottoms, across from International Harvester. In the spring flood of 1903 when the Missouri River again failed to turn that comer and tried to run up the Kaw almost to Lawrence, Briney had to go to work in a row boat. I had wondered then why a mining company would be down there - no mining in the west bottoms, just black mud clear down to China. And the heavy stink of the stockyards.

‘Brian, why are the offices there?'

‘Cheap rent. It would cost us four times as much to get the same space on Walnut or Main, even clear out at 15 th. I take over the lease, of course.'

I thought about it hard for several minutes. ‘Sir, how much of the firm's travelling has Mr Fones been doing?'

‘Originally? Or recently? When I first went to work for him, both he and Mr Davis made field trips; I stayed in the office. Then he broke me in on what he expected from a survey - that was bafore Mr Davis retired. Then -‘

‘Excuse me, sir. I mean, how much travelling has Mr Fones done this past year?'

‘Eh? Mr Fones has not made a field survey for more than two years. He's made a couple of money trips. Two to St Louis, one to Chicago.'

‘While you made all the muddy-boots trips?'

‘You could call it that.'

‘That's what you call it, Briney. Dear, you do want to go into business for yourself, don't you?'

‘You know that I do. This is just sooner than I had thought I could manage it.'

‘Are you seriously asking me to say what I think you should do? Or are you just using me as a sounding board to get your thoughts straight?'

He gave me his endearing grin. ‘Maybe some of both. I'll make the decision. But I do want you to tell me what to do, just as if it were entirely up to you.'

‘Very well, sir. But I need more information. I have never known the amount of your salary - and I don't want to know now; it's not fitting for a wife to ask - but tell me this. Is that drawing account figure more or less than your salary?'

‘Eh? More. Quite a bit more. Even with the bonuses I have received on some deals.'

‘I see. All right, Briney; I'll express my advice in the imperative. Refuse his offer. Go down tomorrow morning and tell him so. At the same time hit him for a raise. Ask him - no, tell him - that you expect a salary equal to that drawing account he was proposing to siphon out of the business.'

Briney looked startled, then laughed. ‘He'll have a stroke.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. But he is certain to be angry. Count on that and be braced for it. Don't let him get you even the least bit angry. Just tell him calmly that fair is fair. For the last two years you have been doing all the hard and dirty work. If the business can afford to pay Mr Fones that big a drawing account for not working at all, it can certainly pay you the same amount for working very hard indeed. True?'

‘Well... yes. Mr Fones won't like it.'

‘I don't expect him to like it. He's trying to hornswoggle you; he's certain not to like it when the same swindle is offered to him. Briney, that's a touchstone for a fair deal that my father taught me: does it feel like a fair deal if it's turned the other way round, mirror image? Point this out to him.'

‘All right. When he comes down off the ceiling. Mo, he won't pay me that much. Wouldn't it be better for me to resign?'

‘Truly, Briney, I don't think so. If you simply quit, he will make loud squawks about your disloyalty - how he took you on as a youngster with no experience and taught you the trade -‘

‘There's some truth in that. Before he hired me, I had had practical experience underground in lead and zinc and in coal through working summers while I was going to school. But no experience with precious metals, just book learning. So I've learned quite a lot while working for him.'

‘Which is why you must not resign instead you are simply asking to be paid what you are worth. What the proposition he offered you shouts aloud that you are worth. Fair is fair. He can go ahead and retire, and pay you that amount to run the business, while he enjoys the net profit himself.'

‘He'll give birth to a porcupine. Breech presentation.'

‘No, he'll fire you. Oh, he may possibly offer you a counterproposal; it may take a while. But he will fire you. Briney, would it suit you to stop on your way home at Wyandotte Office Supply and buy a second-hand Oliver typewriter? Pretty please? No, best to rent one for a month with privilege of applying rent on purchase; I should try it out before we tie up so much money. In the meantime we'll design some stationery. "Brian Smith Associates", I think. Mining Consultants. No, Business Consultants. Mining Properties. Farms and Ranches. Mineral Rights. Petroleum Rights. Water Rights.'

‘Hey, I don't know all those things'

‘You will.' I patted my tummy. ‘three months from now this little boiled pig will ring the cash register for us.' I thought about the double eagle Father had slipped into my purse on our wedding day. I had never spent it; I was fairly sure Briney did not know that I had it. Father's formal wedding present to us had been a cheque that had gone into furniture for that little crackerbox we had first lived in. ‘Dear, I guarantee to keep us fed until you can report this baby to judge Sperling. Then the Foundation's payment for this baby ought to keep us going for a while... and you and I can try to ring the cash register a fifth time before the cash from number four runs out'

I went on, ‘If the business isn't making money by then, it might be time for you to look for a job. But I'm betting that from now on you will always be your own boss... and that we will wind up rich. I have confidence in you, sir. That's why I married you.'

‘Really? I thought there was another reason. That wee bit of proud flesh:

‘There's that, I admit. A contributing factor. But don't change the subject. You've given Mr Fones more than six hard-working years - much of your time away from home - and now he wants to indenture you, make you his bound boy, for a pittance. He's trying to milk you like a cow. Let him know that you know it... and that you won't let him get away with it.'

My husband nodded soberly. ‘I won't let him. Beloved, I knew what he was trying to do. But I had to think of you and our children.'

‘You do. You will. You always have.'

Brian came home early the next day, carrying a battered Oliver typewriter. He put it down and kissed me. ‘Madam, I have joined the ranks of the unemployed.'

‘Really? Oh, goodie!'

‘I am an ungrateful wretch. I am no better than a Wobbly and I probably am one. He has treated me like his own son, his own flesh and blood. And now I do this to him. Smith, get out of here! Leave these premises; I don't want to see your face again. Don't you dare take even a piece of paper out of this office. You are through as a mining consultant; I'm going to let the whole mining community know how thoroughly unreliable, completely undependable, utterly ungrateful you are.'

‘Doesn't he owe you some salary?'

‘Salary and two weeks notice and earned participation in that Silver Plume Colorado deal. I declined to budge until he paid up. He did, reluctantly, with more comments on my character.' Briney sighed. ‘Mo, it upset me to listen to what he said. But I feel relieved, too. Free, for the first time in more than six years.'

‘Let me draw you a tub. Then dinner in your robe and then to bed. Poor Briney! I love you, sir.'

My sewing-room became an office and we installed a Bell telephone in addition to our Home instrument and put the them side by side near my typewriter. Our letterhead carried both numbers and a post office box number. I kept a baby bed in there and a couch I used for quick naps. Mr Fones animosity did not seem to hurt' us, and it may have helped simply by emphasising that Brian was no longer working for Davis and Fones - a fact Brian advertised in all the trade journals. My first job with the typewriter was to write to about one hundred and fifty people and or firms, announcing that Brian Smith Associates was now in business... and announcing a new policy.

‘The idea is, Mo, that I am betting on my own judgement, I'll confer with anyone, first visit free, here in Kansas City. If I travel, it's my railroad ticket, two dollars a night for a hotel room, three dollars a day for food, costs such as livery stable rents as required by the survey, plus per diem consulting fee... all in advance. In advance because I saw while working for Mr Fones how nearly impossible it is to get a client to pay for a dead horse. Fones did it by refusing to budge until he had a retainer in hand equal to his projected expenses, applied overhead, and expected minimum profit... more, if he could squeeze it out.

‘It's on that per diem that I'll differ in my methods from Davis and Fones. I will use a formal, signed contract, with two options, the client to make his choice ahead of time. Forty dollars a day -‘

‘What!!'

But Briney had spoken seriously. ‘Mr Fones charged a client that much for my services. My dear, there are plenty of lawyers who get paid that much per diem for nice clean work in a warm courtroom. I want to be paid at that rate for trudging and sloshing and sometimes crawling through mines that are always cold and usually wet. For that price they'll get my best professional judgement as to how much it will cost to work that mine, including capital investment required before they ship their first ton of ore... and my best guess, based on assays, geology, and other factors, as to whether or not the claim can be worked at a profit... for it is a sad fact that, in the mining business as a whole, more money goes into the ground than ever is taken out.

‘That's the business I'm in, Mo. Not in mining. I get paid for telling people not to mine. To cut their losses and run. They often don't believe me, which is why I must insist on being paid in advance.

‘But once in a while I have had the happy privilege of telling someone, "Go ahead, do it! It will cost you this big wad of money... but you should get it all back and more."

‘And that is where the second option comes in, the one I really prefer. Under the second option I gamble with the client. I lower my per diem and instead take some points on the net, if and when. I won't take more than five points at most, and I won't do a held survey for less than expenses plus a per diem of fifteen dollars a day, minimum. That bracket leaves room to dicker.

Now-Can you write a model letter for me, explaining the tariff schedule? How they can have our best work, at our standard fee. Or we'll gamble with them at a much lower fee, and they will still have our best work.'

‘I'll try, Mister Boss Man, sir.'

It paid. It made us rich. But I did not suspect how well it paid until forty years later when circumstances caused my husband and me to count up all our assets and figure their worth. But that is forty years later and this account may not go on that long.

It paid especially well through an oddity of human psychology... or an oddity of persons seized by the mining mania, which may not be the same thing. Like this...

The compulsive gamblers, the sort who try to beat lotteries or slot machines or other house games, almost always were betting on striking it rich on some caim that could not be worked at a profit. Each of these saw himself as another Cowboy Womack... and did not want to share his lucky star with some hireling, even at only five points. So, if he could scrape it up, he paid the full fee, grumbling.

After a survey (when I was my husband's secretary) I would prepare a letter along these lines, telling this optimist that his best vein was:

- surrounded by country rock that has to be dug out to get at the high grade. The mine can not be worked successfully without drifting a new tunnel out to the north to the highway, through a right of way still to be negotiated via the third level of the claim to the north of yours.

In addition, your claim requires a blacksmith, a tool repair shop, a new pumping system, new ties and rails for approximately two hundred yards of track, etc., etc. - plus wages for eighty shifts per month as required by the bond-and-lease for an estimated three years before appreciable pay tonnage could be taken to the mill, etc., etc., see enclosures A, B, and C.

In view of the state of the claim and the capital investment required to work it, we regret to have to report that we recommend against attempting to work this claim.

We agree with your arithmetic as to the effect on the commercial feasibility of processing low-grade ore if the new Congress does in fact pass legislation requiring free and unlimited coinage of silver at sixteen to one. But we are not as sanguine as you are that such legislation will indeed pass.

We are forced to recommend that you sell your bond-and-lease for whatever it will bring. Or cut your losses and surrender it.

We remain, sincerely at your service,

Brian Smith Associates

By

Brian Smith, President

This report was typical for an old claim being reopened by a new optimist - the commonest situation in mining. (The West is pocked with holes where some prospector ran out of money and luck.)

I wrote many letters like that one. They hardly ever believed unfavourable reports. They frequently demanded their money back. Then a client often took the bit in his teeth and went ahead anyhow... and went broke trying to satisfy a bond-and-lease on country rock assaying only enough silver per ton to go broke on, plus a trace of platinum and a whiff of gold.

The clients attempting to mine gold were even worse. There is something about gold that has an effect on human judgement similar to that of heroin or cocaine.

But there were also a few rational investors - gamblers, but gambling the odds correctly. Offered a chance to reduce upfront expenses in exchange for points, they often took that option... and the claims selected by these more level-headed people were more likely to merit a go-ahead from Brian.

Even these worthwhile mining claims usually lost money in the long run, through failure of their owners/operators to shut down soon enough when the operations stopped paying their costs. (Brian did not lose when that happened; he simply stopped making money from his percentage of the net.) But some of them made money and some of them made lots of money and some of them were still making money regularly forty years later. Brian's willingness to postpone his return other than a modest fee put our children into the best schools and Brian's quondam secretary, Mama Maureen, into big, fat emeralds. (I don't like diamonds. Too cold.)

I see that I've missed telling about Nelson and Betty Lou and Random Numbers and Mr Renwick. That's what comes of being a Time Corps operative; all times look alike to you, and temporal sequence becomes unimportant. All right, let's fill in.

Random Numbers may have been the silliest cat I've ever lived with - although all cats are sui generis, and Pixel has his supporters for the title of funniest cat, unlimited, all times, all universes. But I'm sure Betty Lou would vote for Random Numbers. Theoretically title to Random lay in Brian, since the cat was his bride's wedding present to him, somewhat delayed. But it is silly to talk of title to a cat, and Randie felt that Betty Lou was his personal slave, available at all hours to scratch his skull, cuddle him, and open doors for him, a conviction she supported by her slavish obedience to his tiniest whim.

Betty Lou was Brian's favourite sweetheart for, oh, pretty steadily for three years, then as circumstances brought them together for years and years. Betty Lou was Nelson's wife, Nelson being my cousin who played fast and loose with a lemon meringue pie. My past had come back to haunt me.

Nelson showed up in December of 1906, shortly after Brian had decided to strike out on his own. Brian had met Nelson once, at our wedding, and neither of us had seen him since that day.

He had been fifteen then, no taller than I; now he was a tall, handsome young man of twenty-three, who had earned a master's degree in agronomy at Kansas State University, Manhattan... and was as charming as ever, or more so. I felt that old tingle deep inside me and those cold lightnings at the base of my spine. I said to myself, Maureen, as a dog returneth to its vomit, you are in trouble. The only thing protecting you is that you are seven months gone, big as a house, and as seductive as a Poland China sow. Tell Briney in bed tonight and get him to keep a close eye on you.

Big help! Nelson showed up in the afternoon. Brian invited him to stay for dinner. When he learned that Nelson had not checked into a hotel, he invited Nelson to stay overnight. That was to be expected; at that year and in that part of the country, people never stayed in hotels when homes of kinfolk were at hand. We had had overnighters several times even in our first crackerbox; if you didn't have a spare bed, you made up a pallet on the floor.

I didn't say anything to Brian that night. While I was sure that I had told Briney the lemon-pie story, I wasn't sure that I had mentioned Nelson by name. If I had not-or if Brian had not made the connection - then let sleeping dogs bury their own bones. It was swell to have an understanding and tolerant husband but, Maureen, don't be a greedy slut! Don't stir it up again.

Nelson was still there the next day. Brian was his own boss now, but not overwhelmed by clients; he had no need to leave the house that day other than to check our post office box at the Southside substation. Nelson had arrived in an automobile, a smart four-passenger Reo runabout. Nelson offered to drive Brian to the post office.

He offered to take me, too. I was glad that I had the excuse of a little girl - Nancy was at school; Carol at home - and a baby boy not to accept. I had never ridden in an automobile and, to tell the truth, I was scared. Surely, I expected to ride in one someday; I could see a time coming when they would be commonplace. But I was always more timid when I was pregnant, especially toward the end - my worst nightmare concerned miscarriage.

Brian said, ‘Can't you get the Jenkins girl to come over for an hour?'

I said, ‘Thank you, another time, Nelson. Brian, paying for a baby watcher is an unnecessary expense.'

‘Penny pincher.'

‘I surely am. As your office manager I intend to pinch every penny so hard that the Indian will scream in pain. Go along, gentlemen; I'll get the breakfast dishes done while you're out.'

They were gone three hours. I could have walked to the post office and back in less time. But, following a corollary in my expanded Ten Commandments, I said nothing and did not mention my frets about accidents. I smiled and said happily, ‘Welcome home, gentlemen! Lunch will be ready in twenty minutes.'

Briney said, ‘Mo, meet our new partner! Nel is going to justify our letterhead. He's going to teach me farms and ranches and which end of a cow the milk comes out of... and I'm going to teach him how to tell fool's gold from fools.'

‘Oh, wonderful!' (One fifth of zero is zero; one sixth of zero is still zero - but it's what Brian wants.) I gave Nelson a quick peck. ‘Welcome to the firm!'

‘Thank you, Maureen. It should be a good team,' Nelson said solemnly. ‘Brian tells me he is too lazy to swing a pick, and you know I'm too lazy to pitch manure... so we'll both be gentlemen and tell other people how to do it.'

‘Logical,' I agreed.

‘Besides, I don't own a farm and I haven't been able to find a job as a county agent - or even as the boy who opens the mail for a county agent. I'm looking for a job to let me support a wife. Brian's offer is heaven sent.'

‘Brian is paying you enough to support a wife?' (Oh, Briney!)

‘That's just it,' Brian answered. ‘I'm not paying him anything. That's why we can afford to hire him.'

‘Oh.' I nodded in agreement. Seems a fair arrangement. Nelson, after a year, if your performance is still satisfactory, I'll recommend to Brian that we double your wages.'

‘Maureen, you always were a dead game sport.'

I did not ask him what he meant by that. I had a bottle of muscatel tucked away, bought by Briney for Thanksgiving. It was full, save for a little used for one toast. I fetched it for that purpose. ‘Gentlemen, let us toast the new partnership.'

‘Hear, hear!'

So we did and the gentlemen drank and I touched my lips to mine, then Nelson offered another toast: ‘Life is short.'

I looked at him, kept surprise out of my face, but answered, ‘But the years are long.'

He answered, just as judge Sperling had given it to us:

‘Not "While the evil days come not":

‘Oh, Nelson!' I spilled my glass. Then I threw myself on him and kissed him properly.

There was no mystery, truly. Nelson was of course eligible on one side of his family; we shared Johnson grandparents (and great-grandparents, although three of four were dead now all past a hundred). My father had written to judge Sperling (I learnt later) and said that it had come to his attention that his sister in law, Mrs James Ewing Johnson of Thebes, née Carole Yvonne Pelletier of New Orleans, had living parents; therefore his nephew Nelson Johnson might be eligible for Howard Foundation benefits, stipulating that he married an eligible.

It took them awhile, as they check health and other things, and, in Nelson's case, that his father had actually died by mischance (drowning) and not through other cause.

Nelson was in Kansas City because Thebes and its environs had no Howard-listed young females. So he was given a list for Kansas City - both Kansas Cities, Missouri and Kansas.

And that's how we met Betty Lou - Miss Elizabeth Louise Barstow Nelson did his final courting - got her pregnant, I mean - under our roof, while Maureen played shut-eye chaperone, a role I would fill repeatedly for my own girls in future years.

This protected me from my own folly - and I felt rather grumpy about it. Nelson had been my personal property before Betty Lou ever set eyes on him. But Betty Lou is a darling; I couldn't stay grumpy. Eventually I had no need to feel grumpy.

Betty Lou was from Massachusetts. She had been attending KU, God knows why - Massachusetts has some adequate schools. But it worked out that we stood in for her parents as they could not come out for her wedding; they were taking care of their parents. Theoretically Nelson and Betty Lou should have gone back to Boston to be married. But they did not want to spend the money. The Gold Panic was getting underway, and, while that would make a boom in Brian's business, as yet it just meant that money was tight.

Her wedding took place in our parlour on 14 February, a blustery cold day. Our new pastor, Dr Draper, tied the knot, I presided over the reception, with too much help from Random Numbers, who was convinced that the party was in his honour.

Then, when Dr and Mrs Draper had left, I went slowly upstairs, with Brian and Dr Rumsey helping me... the first time and almost the last time that I waited long enough for my doctor to arrive.

George Edward weighed seven pounds three ounces.