Chapter 125: Networking for the Simple Minded

Edited: 2 May 2021

Networking like this turned out to be fun. The first hour was spent making decisions or listening to updates on what had occurred with all of our new prizes thus far. There was a lot going on and I was glad for Clara’s help; it would have been a mess without her. Within an hour, I managed to get though the entire list or defer items until tomorrow. I think the entire crew felt better with those tasks handled. Some things had to wait, like the people and the livestock. Those were things that would be properly sorted the next day. All were well situated for the night.

We had even managed to procure enough tents for the new slaves and guards to protect them at night. The guards mostly came from our crew, with the promise of a bonus in the morning if they protected these people overnight. It was handy to have Sheriff around to speak to that group and remind them that the guards were to protect them. He also reminded them of Missouri law and the price for running. He was honest, telling them that it would be better to wait until they saw this new situation. I wasn’t there to hear exactly what he said, but I heard back from Amos that Sheriff had been most impressive.

With all of my work handled and most of the long day behind me, I sat back to enjoy my evening. Apparently I was going to meet a lot of people because there was a small queue built up. I looked to Clara with some trepidation. “They will all want to buy us a drink. We need a way out of that. Any ideas?”

She thought for a bit and replied, “There happens to be an orphan children’s fund. Perhaps we could accept donations to that, instead of a drink?”

Well, that seemed like a decent idea, so I sent her to ask Mrs. Bryne for a jar and any small change they had. Giving her some quarters to buy the change, I also gave her two St. Louis paper dollars to prime the jar. Clara wrote up a quick little paper sign and with that we started to welcome guests.

I made an accidental time error during this process and ordered fries. Not thinking clearly and feeling peckish, I innocently asked for an order to snack on. French fries or Pomme Frittes wouldn’t be offered until the World’s Fair around the turn of the century. I tried to back out but Mrs. Byrnes reminded me that she knew I was well-travelled and this would be a great favor to her. So I went to the kitchen and showed her.

She had a large pan of oil, hot and ready to fry chicken. Of course, she had potatoes. The recipe is easy and I walked her through the steps in a few short minutes. She was thrilled with the result and set to making one full order. I looked for sauces and could only find a pan of brown gravy available, so I took a bowl of that out.

We had barely seated our first guests when out came our fries so I had no choice but to invite our guests to sample the hors d’oeuvre. He was the Mayor, after all. Well the Mr. Mayor’s plump and hoity-toity wife seemed to love them, particularly covered in gravy. I tried to ignore her, salted a few fries from my pinch bowl and paid attention to the prominent politician. As usual, he was the typical politician and really had nothing to say except to invite me to come back and auction at their annual fall fair. They had never heard anything like me. Well, of course they hadn’t. I’d even thrown some rap lyrics in there when I was getting bored. I agreed to consider it and we managed to shoo them away, but not before Mrs. Mayor ordered fries for her own table. I simply told Mrs. Byrne just to keep them coming as long as I had table visitors. They couldn’t talk as much when they were eating.