Mrs. Beaver’s Store
She was a tiny lady of indeterminate age, but to a kid of six or seven, she was an old lady. She was thin, stringy, her skin loose like the old dress that hung on her frame, its color like her complexion, washed away years ago. She was the proprietor of a small, weather-beaten store on the main road through the town, now Farmersville Blvd. Her store was located directly across the road from where the Post Office is now. The floors were wood, dark, had a wet quality as if they had once been oiled. Her market was kept clean, the counters wiped down, the floors well swept.
What I remember most about her was her kindness. Her words were soft, concerning, even to us kids sent off “to the store” by mothers or older sisters to get “a few things.” It wasn’t unusual for us to be in her store multiple times during the day after school was out, or of an evening or on a Saturday afternoon. It was okay with her for us to be constantly coming in and out of the store. For our part, we looked forward to her.
We knew she would smile when we got there. The pieces of candy she slipped us, would make it worth it to have traversed halfway across town, to have run along the side of the roads, hopping from dirt paths to grassy spots, most times barefoot, assiduously avoiding the hot blacktop and patches of sticker burrs. You only had to step in a sticker patch once and go through the painful process of picking the little Ninga star like thorns out of the bottoms of your feet or toes to learn that they were to be avoided.
Her kindness was of a special kind. Respectful like. There was a level of trust she seemed to have for all of us, even us youngsters who traded at her store. Us kids, when we were sent to the Store, weren’t given cash. The only actual money we ever had in our possession, was the few nickels and dimes we got from returning soda bottles to the markets or gas stations. Instead, our purchases were put on “the bill.”
We would set the items we were sent for on the counter, which was about eye level to us. There was no cash register to ring up the order. Mrs. Beavers would total up the amounts on a large adding machine with a handle she would pull down a couple of times to advance the paper. The machine was, nevertheless, impressive. It was heavy, black and had gold lettering stenciled on the front. We read numerous times the legend noting it had been manufactured in someplace called, Chicago, Illinois. After adding up all the items, she would then enter the total amount in pencil on a receipt book like the ones waitresses used to use in restaurants. She would place the book on the counter in front of us and we would scrawl out our first names while she bagged up our purchases, maybe slipping in another piece of candy, a root beer barrel or wax pop stick. And then with our bag of sundries we would be out the door to navigate our way back between the sticker burr patches to home.
It’s not unusual these days to hear people who live a Christian life denigrated. But for people like Mrs. Beaver’s there was an element of faith in her kindness, it was a form of trust she and others like her had that others would do right if you believed in them. That trust saved our family from some bad times in the mid 1950s.
The economy was sputtering in the middle of the decade. Times got hard and my father was out of work for months. There was no money. No unemployment checks, no food stamps. Such notions didn’t exist. The grocery bill kept growing and there was no way to pay it down. Our family was in dire financial straits, and my parents were humiliated. I understood about our troubles, at least as much as a seven-year-old could. I can remember listening to my parent’s discussions. There was seemingly no solution. During that time, we got so far behind on what we owed to Mrs. Beaver’s, my brother and I were sent to the store because my mother was too embarrassed to go herself. Mrs. Beavers never said anything to either of us. She just kept adding up our purchases on that old adding machine and putting the little book in front of us to sign.
One day, my Father had a bit of good news. The government was engaged in a highway building program and Dad knew someone at the Union Hall who said they were hiring over on the Mojave Desert by Victorville. He had hopes of getting hired on as an oiler servicing heavy earth moving equipment, “Cats” and “Twenties” they called them. Only problem was there was no money for him to get across the state to take the job.
Banks, back then, as now, could be relied on to enthusiastically loan money to those who didn’t need it; but to people who actually needed money their coffers were locked up tight.
My Father went to Mrs. Beavers. He was not an educated man. He was not schooled in the social graces. He knew nothing of contracts or leveraged debts. He simply told her he needed money to get over to the desert to take a job. Mrs. Beavers, according to how my father told it, simply stepped to the front counter, and pulled out a gray box from a bottom shelf. She opened it with a key and counted out $200 in cash and handed it to him. The only thing she said, was “Well, John, then you better get over there and take that job.” She never asked him to sign anything, she never solicited a promise of any kind to repay her.
He used the money to buy gas to get to Victorville and rent a room. He got the job and it paid well enough that soon he sent for the rest of the family. My mother, by herself, drove us kids over Tehachapi pass and across the Mohave in an old 1940 Chevrolet. Back then it was thought a good way to travel was to take off from home at midnight when few were on the roads. I remember her staying behind and following big trucks because their lights were easy to follow. We stayed in that little room my Father had rented and over the next year, worked on the highway near Victorville and then followed the company as they bid on highway jobs in Sacramento and Oakland. And he paid back the loan to Mrs. Beavers and retired the entire grocery bill.
A kindness seasoned with faith and trust defined the character of people like Mrs. Beavers. They relied on judgements of good character over paper promises. They were always willing take a risk to help friends. Those folks people helped by people like Mrs. Beaver were poor, out of work, hurting, and the risk of her not being paid back what she loaned them was real. But like her, folks helped out anyway and maintained a dignity about how they went about it. It’s the way it was with our people. Dependable. Reliable.
Such occurrences are well to remember in a time when our own youth are taught in school and larger society to trust nothing, not our history, not each other, not even their identity. It’s good to harken back to a time where trust was executed at risk, based on judgements of character and expectation, trust that people similarly situated would do the right thing, that they wanted to do the right thing no matter what. That a man would, if given the chance, honor his debts. Debts incurred not by contract or negotiated conditions, but on his word as a man.
And lastly, lest anyone mistake this little kind old lady for an easy touch, I would be remiss not to mention the time someone tried to rob her. On my trips to the store, as I waited for her to add up things on her old machine, I used to routinely look up and stare at two holes in the ceiling. I had learned how they got there. The holes were bullet holes.
One day two thugs, most likely from Visalia or Porterville of course, rushed into the store shouting “This is a hold up! Give us the cash, all the cash!” Mrs. Beavers’ reached under the counter, but instead of the cash box, she came out with a pistol and with a hand shaking all over started shooting. She just started pulling the trigger. Bullets hit the ceiling and the wall, nowhere near the robbers. Nevertheless, having rapidly modified their thinking about robbing this little old lady and her store, they went tumbling out of the front door as fast as they could to make a getaway.
Our people were kind. They trusted each other. They helped one another. But they weren’t whiny, and they could and would defend themselves.
The photographs are of my Father at work as an oiler; of he, my brother, sister and me over on the desert and of my sister and mother goofing for the camera, while I proudly display my new wallet.
Farmersville Tales is posted Sundays. For more writings by Phil Cline, visit philcline.com