Free Homer Price by Robert McCloskey Page B

Uncle Ulysses up and comingness, and, what’s more, she had the money to be receptive and up and coming
with.
Almost before the week was up, Miss Enders and the Judge (who was her lawyer) and Uncle Ulysses were having conferences. They wrote letters to Detroit, where they have assembly lines and sub-assembly lines and huge presses that can stamp out the whole side of a house just as easily as stamping out the body of a car or a section of a ship. They hired up and coming designers and landscape architects too. Almost before she knew it, Miss Enders had made arrangements for
one hundred houses
—a whole
suburb!
—to be built on the estate around the Enders Homestead. As Uncle Ulysses so wisely put it: “It don’t pay to go to all the trouble of mixing batter and getting the machine hot for two or three doughnuts. Might just as well make a
hundred
while you’re at it!”

    The plans were finally finished and the arrangements all made. The workmen arrived at the Enders estate and then things really began to happen. The trees were chopped down and hauled away; the land was leveled by huge tractors, and streets were laid out around the old Homestead in a day or two. Then power diggers arrived right on schedule and dug one foundation right after another.

    Homer drove over to the suburb with Uncle Ulysses and Miss Enders to see how things were going. Uncle Ulysses watched the dirt fly, and counted as the machines dug foundations. “Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four. I tell you, my boy,” he said to Homer, “you are witnessing the beginning of a new era in city planning and housing! Eighty, eighty-one . . . Why, tomorrow they will start to build; by the end of the week people will
live
here.”
    “Simply marvelous,” exclaimed Miss Enders. “Just think. Last week there were only grass and trees and squirrels on this spot!”
    Everything happened right on schedule, just as Uncle Ulysses had predicted.
    Huge trucks and trailers drove along the streets, unloaded sub-assembled sides and floors and roofs of houses, all complete to the last window, doorknob, light bulb, and hot and cold water. It was just a matter of an hour or so for the workmen to fasten the sides and floors together and put on the roof.
    As the Centerburg newspaper said in an editorial, “Truly we are witnessing a modern miracle. Little did Ezekiel Endersknow when he founded this town one hundred and fifty years ago that such things as this would come to pass. The
Centerburg Bugle
is sponsoring a ‘One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week’ to be celebrated when this new part of town is finished. Judge Shank and Miss Enders are heading the Committee and handling the celebration. Anyone wishing to take part in the Pageant, please get in touch with the Committee or call at the
Bugle
Office.”
    Toward the end of the week a truckload of mass produced furniture was moved into every house. Each front yard had its own climbing rose bush, two dwarf cedars, and maple trees, all planted and sodded round about. Each back yard had its mass produced ash can, bird house complete with weather vane, and revolving clothes line. In fact modern production genius had thought of everything: sheets, towels, pillow cases, and a print of Whistler’s Mother for over every fireplace. The houses were
complete
and ready to be moved into. They
were
moved into too! As you can see, moving in was little more than signing a paper and hanging your hat on the mass produced hanger in the hall.
    Uncle Ulysses was very busy these days attending to last minute details. The Judge and Miss Enders were working frantically on the Pageant for “One Hundred and Fifty Years of Centerburg Progress Week.”
    Uncle Ulysses attended to street lights and fire plugs, and one afternoon he met Homer on the street and asked, “Haveyou seen Dulcey Dooner around lately? I have to make arrangements to have street signs put up in the new suburb. Have you heard, Homer,” he added