re available for later educational
expenses."

"Gracious, you wouldn't have to sell from door-to-door, would you?"

"Of course not. I'd just tell the kids how to do it."

Marjorie put back her head and laughed, and I was forced to join her,
for we both recognize that my understanding and "feel" for commercial
matters--if I may use that expression--is almost nonexistent.

"Oh, all right," I said, "laugh at my commercial aspirations. But don't
worry about it, really. Mr. McCormack said we could get Mr. Wells from
Commercial Department to help out if he was needed. There is one
problem, though. Mr. McCormack is going to put up fifty dollars to buy
any raw materials wanted and he rather suggested that I might advance
another fifty. The question is, could we do it?"

Marjorie did mental arithmetic. "Yes," she said, "yes, if it's something
you'd like to do."

We've had to watch such things rather closely for the last ten--no,
eleven years. Back in the old Ridgeville, fifty-odd miles to the south,
we had our home almost paid for, when the accident occurred. It was in
the path of the heaviest fallout, and we couldn't have kept on living
there even if the town had stayed. When Ridgeville moved to its present
site, so, of course, did we, which meant starting mortgage payments all
over again.

* * * * *

Thus it was that on a Wednesday morning about three weeks later, I was
sitting at one end of a plank picnic table with five boys and girls
lined up along the sides. This was to be our headquarters and factory
for the summer--a roomy unused barn belonging to the parents of one of
the group members, Tommy Miller.

"O.K.," I said, "let's relax. You don't need to treat me as a teacher,
you know. I stopped being a school teacher when the final grades went in
last Friday. I'm on vacation now. My job here is only to advise, and I'm
going to do that as little as possible. You're going to decide what to
do, and if it's safe and legal and possible to do with the starting
capital we have, I'll go along with it and help in any way I can. This
is your meeting."

Mr. McCormack had told me, and in some detail, about the youngsters I'd
be dealing with. The three who were sitting to my left were the ones who
had proposed the group in the first place.

Doris Enright was a grave young lady of ten years, who might, I thought,
be quite a beauty in a few more years, but was at the moment rather
angular--all