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THE WIDOW AND THE PEDDLER by Oren L. Gray, Sr.
There is a widow who lives in our town at the end of Cable Street.
She lives in one of the nicest houses in Tooterville and is known universally as Mrs. Killsix.
Her true name is unknown to me. Though it wouldn’t matter if I did know it since she’s so frequently widowed and remarried that I could no more keep up with her last name than our neighboring farmers can predict the Midwest’s changeable weather.
There was a time, here in Tooterville, when a man met a wealthy widow and would marry her to get her money.
Those days have ceased.
Nowadays a fellow is more likely to try and sell a widow lady some phony stock or bad land deal and then blow her dough on his own wayward needs. No marriage needed.
This is now the modern method as the 1920’s prepared to end.
Widow Killsix, as the neighbors refer to her, has been married six times.
Her first husband died shortly after their marriage and left her a large sum of life insurance money.
The coroner pronounced his death as proper.
However, it was rumored among the neiborhood’s wagging tongues that it was so much insurance money that surely there must have been some motive for his quick demise.
Some even went so far as to say that when the coroner arrived on that fateful day, the widow smiled at him a couple of times in a way inappropriate for a grieving widow.
Momentarily, the gossip goes, the coroner forgot that the husband was a corpse and returned those smiles.
But as the old biddies’ stories go, he consciously rebounded and realized his purpose in the home, rebuffing her third smile with a comment about the weather.
---
Tooterville’s change toward the modern times I mentioned earlier provided a new husband within a few months.
Husband number two snapped her right up and she set him up in business.
The first thing you know, he is broke and so is the widow.
One morning the widow informs the coroner that he is hanging in a tree just like an apple; that “Strange Fruit” Blues singer Billie Holiday would immortalize a decade later.
The wags start the suicide rumor and, sure enough, the coroner confirms it.
Around the neighborhood, the old biddies say that she nagged at him about losing her money until he strung himself up just to get away from her.
Some even went so far as to say they thought she dared him to hang himself.
---
The widow at the end of Cable Street was compelled to marry number three in order to save her home.
This time she marries an old man with a good business and a big bank account.
Naturally she outlives number three and she ends up with a tidy sum to see her through the coming years.
The gossip is that she wouldn’t let number three retire, but kept him toiling until the poor old man dropped in his tracks.
---
Not one to be alone, the widow lady snares husband number four almost immediately.
Thought here was --- going against modern convention --- he married her for her money.
He talks her into letting him invest it and was successful since he wanted to rake off some of it for himself.
He died one night of indigestion.
Whether the widow found out how he has invested her money, or whether it was her cooking will always be a matter of serious discussion in Tooterville.
---
None of that seems to have had any effect on husband number five.
He married the widow apparently for love and tried to make a fortune by hard work.
It is whispered around family circles here that he worked himself to death at her cajoling.
---
Husband number six came along shortly after and he started off where number five left off.
A hard worker, he wasn’t number six long when he fell down the stairs and left the widow a tidy sum.
It was again heard on street corners that something unseemly might have hastened number six’s demise.
Maybe, it was said, that he might even have had a little help in getting started down those stairs.
Now the widow on the corner is known as Tooterville’s Mrs. Killsix.
---
This week Mrs. Killsix again was our main topic of conversation.
While her youth has faded and Tooterville has become more modern, there is still the run of the mill peddler trying to sell some worthless real estate.
One came this way and hearing of the widow headed early this morning to her home on the corner of Cable Street.
Approaching it he realized he didn’t remember her name and stopped to inquire of the children playing in the street.
Promptly informed “Mrs. Killsix” lived in the corner house; he went merrily on his way.
The widow had never heard the local gossip --- being the sort to keep to herself --- nor had she ever heard the references to her being “Mrs. Killsix of Tooterville.”
When the peddler reached her door and introduced himself, he was positive that he would make a sale for he had specialized in wooing wealthy widows with land scams for the past twenty years.
As the door opened, the widow gave him the same friendly warm smile that no doubt had won the hearts of the other six.
Taken by it, the peddler stammered for the first time in his life before uttering: “Are you Mrs. Killsix?”
“What?” exclaimed the widow.
She pulled her broom from behind the door and started pummeling the peddler.
She followed him up Cable Street, him stumbling over the cobblestones and her wailing away with the broom.
Today the neighbors are talking again.
They say they heard her shout, “Mrs. Killsix am I? Well, if you don’t get out of here, I’ll be Mrs. Killseven!”
The peddler hasn’t been seen since this morning.
And, according to the latest gossip, she may indeed be Mrs. Killseven by now.
last update March 1, 2007
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Oren L. Gray Sr. turned 97 on Feb. 17, 2007. As a young man he sold articles to Grit...mostly on how to trap fur animals. He had to drop out of high school to farm for his father when his dad got sick. He went back and finished in three and a half years and was on the wrestling team and debate team. He was also a top baseball pitcher. He turned down an opportunity to become a professional wrestler because of objections by his wife of nearly 50 years, Jean Mercedes McGuire Gray.
Oren lived through The Great Depression, making a dollar a day in a rock quarry. At each day's end, the three workers with the largest pile of rocks were hired for the next day. He and another guy were the only two to last all summer.
Also during this time he was a grade school teacher and principal despite having only two years of business college and two years of junior college. Following his grandfather, W.W. Thompson onto the bench as Probate Judge in Parsons, Kansas, Gray was later elected Clerk of the Court. He read law on his own; petitioned the state Supreme Court; and passed the bar exam without going to a four-year college or law school. He was the last man in Kansas to become a lawyer this way.
He served in various political offices (including prosecuting attorney) for 35 years...ending his political career as a State Representative for 10 years.
He resides today with a daughter, Oene' LaRee (Gray) Morgan, and her family in Shawnee, Kansas. There are four generations living in the home.
He writes short stories and poetry...plays a mean game of gin rummy...and loves to go to the dog and horse tracks plus the casinos to play Black Jack.
