From the Relief Society Magazine, June 1951 –

How Dad Became a Salesman

By Luzelle S. Eliason

It was hot. Hot enough to make you dizzy, and dry, whew! Mom said it was good we had stored our best furniture in town when we rented our home there. She couldn’t have protected it from the dust out here on the dry farm. And it sure wouldn’t have matched the old house here either. I was sitting by the house in the shade waiting for Dad to be ready to go out to the field when I saw this long, low-built car plowing up the dust as it turned in our lane. It was sort of light brown in color, and I decided it must be someone from town. It didn’t belong to any of the neighboring farmers, I was sure, because I knew all their cars. It sure wasn’t built for our kind of roads. Coming along there it reminded me of Mom in her square dance dress, the way it’s liable to drag in the dust if she doesn’t hold it up. This car sure needed to hold up its fenders.

We were always glad to see someone come, though, because we got pretty lonely. Mom did especially. We’d only bought our farm a year before, and Mom still missed her friends in Dainesville, where Dad had been mathematics teacher in the high school. At first, she had not expected to move to the farm at all; but when Dad and I went, and had lots of trouble that first year with one thing and another, she decided we needed her, so she joined us.

The car stopped by the front gate, and the man and woman in it sat there a minute looking around. Then the man got out, and I decided he was a farmer after all. He was sunburned, and was dressed in suit pants, not too recently pressed, a tan shirt open at the neck, and a felt hat tipped at just the right angle. I didn’t like the smug way he was looking our place over. Nobody was asking him to live there. And then he turned to me and gave me the once over, but he didn’t seem quite so displeased with me. Good thing, because I was getting all ready to be impolite.

“Ah— hello,” he said, “you Mavis’ boy?”

“Yeh-Sir,” I said.

“Your folks home?”

“Yes, Sir. Will you come in?”

He nodded and beckoned to his wife, who got out of the car and came over.

By that time Mom had come to the door, and I thought at first she looked upset, but she quickly put on a bright smile of welcome.

“Why, Harvey Byington,” she cried, very jolly, “how nice to see you. And is this your wife? I’m so glad to meet you, Mrs. Byington. Come right in.”

“Oh-oh!” I thought, Harvey Byington, Mom’s old beau. The one she turned down because she’d never marry a farmer. Never I guess she would have though if she had liked him enough.

They came in the house, and I knew Mom was wishing she was inviting them in our home in Dainesville instead of this one. The last year we’d been renting it; had lived all winter on the farm in order to pay for it more quickly. If the wheat turned out good this year, we were going to remodel the farmhouse, and it sure needed it. Mom kept the three small rooms nice and clean, and put up curtains and things. There were two bedrooms and a large kitchen. We had a studio couch in the kitchen and used it for a living room, too.

Mom invited them in there to sit, saying something about things being just temporary, and she hoped they didn’t mind sitting in the kitchen. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Byington sort of exchange looks, then Mrs. Byington looked pityingly at Mom.

“Don’t you mind,” she said. “We all know it takes time to get started—for most people. Of course we had it real lucky that way, taking over the farm from Harvey’s folks. Harvey’s folks left us everything completely modern, you know; water and bath in the house. Just everything.”

“Oh, then you still live in Sage Valley?” That was the valley adjoining us.

“Yes, of course.” It was a funny thing about Mrs. Byington. She looked a little like Mom, only not near as pretty. I guess when he couldn’t get Mom, he found someone who looked as much like her as he could.

Dad came in just then. Mom introduced him to them, and soon as he could, Dad winked at me.

They talked awhile about farm prices, whether the frost had done any damage this year, and so on. Mr. Byington said, yes, he thought the yield on his farm was a little greater than Dad thought his was.

“Takes time and experience to get the best results, Reeves,” he said. “You— a— studied farming at school, though, I guess.” His manner said that farming wasn’t anything you could learn from a book.

“No, as a matter of fact,” Dad said, “mathematics was my major.”

Dad was almost as tan as Mr. Byington, but to meet them both on the street, you’d know Mr. Byington was a farmer, but Dad, with his loose fitting overalls and horn-rimmed glasses, still looked more like a school teacher. It was more than that, though. Dad had a studious way with him— a manner of examining things from all angles. At any rate Mr. Byington didn’t conceal the fact that he wasn’t impressed with the farmer Mom had married. Mom was looking more miserable by the minute.

“Think you’ll stay with this, Reeves?” Mr. Byington finally asked. I thought he sounded pretty sarcastic. “Or go back to teaching?”

Golly, I thought, Dad won’t let him get away with that crack. I looked at Mom, and she was smiling brightly as if she were enjoying the whole thing, but her hands were pleating and unpleating a corner of her apron.

Dad settled back in his chair and sort of half closed his eyes as if he hadn’t heard. Then he spoke very quietly, “As a matter of fact, Byington, seems to me a man takes a pretty big chance in this field. Frost, fire, hail— one hour of any of those, and what have you got?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I been in the game a good many years and haven’t suffered too much.”

“But you have taken losses?”

“Well, yes, three, four years back the hail did quite a bit of damage.”

“That’s just what I mean. Look at those black clouds over there in the west. A storm in this heat is pretty likely to mean hail.”

Mr. Byington walked over to the window and looked out.

“But, of course, you carry plenty of insurance against such an emergency?” Dad asked.

Mr. Byington came back and sat down nervously. “Well, no, kind of neglected to take it out. I was telling the wife maybe we ought to do that. Hope we won’t be too late.”

“You won’t be,” Dad said, getting up and walking over to his desk. He opened a drawer and took out an insurance policy.

“I have a couple of these, and if you like, I’ll write some hail insurance up for you. The premium is comparatively low.”

“You sell hail insurance?”

“Yes,” Dad said, “of course if you feel you can’t afford it right now—?

“We can afford it all right,” Harvey sputtered. “Sure— sure, Reeves, write it up.”

So Dad wrote it up, asking questions as to acreage, section, and so on. Then he handed it to Mr. Byington to read over.

“Looks all right to me, Reeves,” he said, handing it back, and taking out his checkbook. He quickly wrote out the check and gave that to Dad.

“Thank you, Byington,” Dad said, putting the check in the desk drawer with the policy. “I’ll send this right in, and you can relax. No more worry about the weather.”

“Well— yes, sure. Thanks a lot, Reeves,” Mr. Byington said, but he seemed sort of confused. “We better be going,” he said to his wife.

They got up to leave then, and Dad and Mom said nice to see them, and come again, and they said they would, and come see them.

“Oh, by the way, Byington,” Dad said, “you were asking whether we thought we’d stay with farming. Yes, we’ll stay with it. Makes a nice side line in the insurance business.”

“Yes, I guess it does,” Mr. Byington said, and I could hardly keep from laughing.

After they had gone, Mother turned proudly to Dad. “Why, Franklin, you’d be a wonderful success at selling insurance. I didn’t think you really meant it when you said you were going to try it.”

“Darn right,” Dad said, “we’ll move back to Dainesville this winter, and give it a try.”

It was the best news Mom had had for ages, and I was glad, too. Farming’s pretty lonesome in the winter.