 Your coca-cola bottler presents Claudia based on the play and novels by Rose Franken Brought to you transcribed Monday through Friday by your friendly neighbor who bottles coca-cola Relax and while you're listening refresh yourself. Have a coke and now Claudia Oh David that's very pretty you're very good voice today. It's the first song recital. I've ever given in a filling I never thought I'd spend so much time in one I don't know why it's taking them so long just to change the oil in the car if they don't hurry We're never going to catch our farmer David. Why do we need a farmer? I thought you were going to be one darling a farmer isn't something you're going to be a farmer is something You have to be all along. I don't see what's so hard about it. You don't huh well mom And I always had a window box full of flowers. It's just the same thing, isn't it only a little bigger. Mm-hmm just a little Well, I'm a little bigger too. You're lots bigger Did you ever try to milk a window box at five o'clock in the morning? It's hard to milk a cow. Is that what you're trying to say? Can't be too hard David when you think of how many cows are milked every day. I mean if it were so hard I don't think so many people would know how to do it. They know how because they were born on farms you and I weren't Unless you want to count your window box. I do and I'm sure our cows won't count window boxes Can't you learn how? Read it in a book or that newspaper you've been carrying around with you for the last two days Yes, you mean the rural New Yorker. That's what it's called the rural New Yorker You think you'd be called the rural Connecticut or no that doesn't sound right, does it? Do they call people from Connecticut? Connecticutters? No I think it's Connecticuticians Connecticut... Connecticutist. Now they call them nutmeg Yankees. Oh it can't be that simple. This is the country. The Englands are supposed to be simple up here. Then what do they call people from Massachusetts? They call them Yankees too. You see it really isn't simple at all. I said it was supposed to be simple. All you have to do is look through this newspaper, and you see it really isn't simple at all. Farming is one of the most complicated occupations in the world. Who has been going on for so long? You'd think they'd have found a way to make it easier by now. The easier it gets, the more complicated it gets. What was that? I think that's one of the troubles. This magazine is full of ways to make your beets grow bigger and your hens lay more eggs. But I guess unless you were born and brought up in a chicken coop, you can't begin to understand it. But you've been looking at it for two days. I think by now you'd know it by heart. I haven't been trying to become a farmer by reading this newspaper. I've been reading the advertisements and trying to find one. Find one what? Find one farmer. His father and his wife. I'd like a couple. Never knew farmers advertised. There's a whole column of people who want farms. That's what I've been looking at. People who want farms. David, I am not going to sell that farm just because you can't understand what you read in a newspaper. Oh, they don't want to buy farms. They want to work on them. Only I don't see anyone who might work on our place. What's wrong with our place? It's beautiful. It's a real salt box with extensions. Certainly. With a championship herd of jerseys, grazing happily in our imagination. You mean a farmer won't come to work for us until we have a real farm? Until we do, we won't be able to afford one. Well then we'll just have to do it all by ourselves. We've got to find somebody around here in Eastbrook who could come and work for us part-time. After we get things started, I can learn how to milk the cows myself. At five o'clock in the morning? David, can't we get some cows that like to sleep late? There must be some. To read the rule of New Yorker, you'd think they'd found everything else. Tomatoes that won't blight, chickens that lay 340 eggs a year, strawberries that grow as big as yours and as big as your fist, how you'd overcome acid in the soil, how to get acid out of the soil if you haven't got it in the first place, but every good American cow still wakes up at five o'clock in the morning, even with daylight saving time. Then we certainly have to get a farmer. That's why we've made a date with Mr. Bell. I hope you'll be able to spare us one of his hands part-time. One of his hands? David, what are you saying? One of the people who works on his farm, they call them hands, with having him living at our house in the spare room with his wife to help you with the baby. He'd be able to work for us part-time for Mr. Bell the rest of the time. A minute ago there wasn't enough to keep one hand busy. Now we have to have four. I don't understand it. Where'd you get four? Well, two hands on the hand and two hands on the wife. That's four. That's our card. You must have the oil changed. And before I listen to any more of your arithmetic, let's go see Mr. Bell. What sort of a farmer is Mr. Bell? Well, to begin with, he's the only one nearest. The only one who might do. And everybody in Eastbrook says that he's the best farmer in the county. His cattle win all the ribbons at State Fair. His squash is as big as elephant's ears. Really? Mm-hmm. His corn grows eight feet high. He raises artichokes and scallions and coal-rabby and green peppers. And spinach and carrots and red peppers and a few specialty vegetables like andeeve and mushrooms. What's coal-rabby, Mr. Bell? You've never had coal-rabby. Nope. Well, it's a cross between turnips and cabbage. It brings a very good price. I'll give you some next summer. Thanks. I had no idea that Connecticut soil was so good for farming. I'd always thought of it mainly as a dairy country. There's no more fertile soil anywhere if you know how to treat it. And if you don't know, I suppose you'd better stick the daring, huh? Mm-hmm. Or raising turkey. Oh, I don't want to raise anything I'd have to eat later. Then you'd better not become a farmer. Anything that can look at me in the eye, I don't want to eat later. Well, Mrs. Norton, that cuts out pigs and chickens and calves. And I guess it cuts out black-eyed peas, too. We wouldn't want them to look as handsome as Mrs. Norton from outside. I guess maybe Mrs. Norton will someday be just like any farmer's wife and she'll eat anything if she's hungry enough. Well, Mrs. Norton, you'll be happy to hear that my wife won't eat a chicken unless I can prove to her I bought it downtown. And I think she lost her taste for veal completely since, uh, a little misunderstanding we had ten years ago. You see, David, it's just what I told you. Farmers aren't really different from people at all. A good farmer is just like a good businessman. The earth is a hard mistress, but if you use your head, you can make a give-back to you as much as you put in. Now, uh, let's see what your problem is. Well, the cows wake up at five o'clock in the morning. That's a very serious problem indeed. But I assure you it's a lot worse if they won't wake up at all. Well, my wife means that we expect to buy a few cows and we'll need somebody to take care of them. I think I can solve that. Now, frankly, Mr. Norton, I've been eyeing that land you bought for a long time. Your place isn't too far from here, and I can arrange that one of our men can take care of your herd in addition to mine. I'm sure we can work out a satisfactory arrangement that will include that. That's fine. Then, of course, you'll want alfalfa. Al-hoo? What? Are you kidding? Mr. Bell said something about an al-somebody. Mr. Bell suggested, darling, that we will have to plant something like al-falfa for the cows to graze on in the summertime. Oh, I know. They eat all summer and then in the winter they... What do farmers do in the winter, Mr. Bell? Well, I guess everyone who hasn't lived on a farm would like to know the answer to that one. And in a couple of years, I'll come around and ask you the question myself. Can you really become a farmer in a couple of years, Mr. Bell? It depends on how hard you try. Now, you've got some good land there, Mr. Norton. Open enough to run my tractors on. I'll be glad to work it for you. Oh, wait a minute. Have you a silo there? What's a silo? No, we haven't got one now. I didn't think you had. Old Pucker hasn't had cattle on that land in years. What's a silo? You can learn that at your leisure. You'll only need a temporary one to begin with. I'm raising more corn than I need here, and I'll sell it to you as part of the deal. You aren't leaving very much for us to do. How can we learn to be farmers this way, Mr. Bell? Then I assume you'll want some garden crops. Probably some corn, but I'm not mistaken. You have some apple trees at the foot of the hill. And walnut trees at the west? Walnuts, eh? Well, we can forget about those. It costs too much money to take care of them, and they don't bring enough unless you have a good-sized grove. Well, my wife isn't so far off when she says there isn't much left for us to take care of. Mr. Norton, the objective to accomplish this work is efficiently as possible. The cheapest way is to handle your place as part of mine. I can see you understand that. That's why you came to me. I came to your farm just the way I handle other fields I rent. Rented fields? Well, we don't exactly think of our places just a spare plot of ground, Mr. Bell. Now, Mr. Norton, I don't like to hear you talk that way. The trouble with most farmers is that they're sentimental and try to do everything the way their great-grandmum will did it. They don't like to hear their land being called truck-garden land when they've always had tobacco on it. They don't like to hear it called good-vegetable land if they've always used it for dairying. Yes, I know, but... I've made a success of farming, I think, because I've tried to be as cold-blooded about my farm as a businessman is about his factory. That's all a farm is, Mr. Norton. A factory without a roof. You look surprised, Mr. Norton. Didn't expect to find this kind of sense in the country, did you? But all we wanted was two cows. Even one cow. Doesn't matter how big or how small your farm is, you've got to think of it in the same practical and level-headed way a businessman plans his operations. But, Mr. Bell, if we'd wanted to be merely practical and level-headed, we might have stayed in New York. I hope you're not going to turn out to be one of those people who think the country is just an excuse for incompetence and inefficiency. Oh, no, we didn't think of it that way, but... Excuse me, Mrs. Norton. I'd like to finish this train of thought. Sorry. Now, farming a small place like yours involves a duplication of effort and wasteful procedures. I'll work out the unit cost for your land and when I put it under cultivation, we'll work out our respective shares of the ultimate product. David, do you understand what Mr. Bell says? I think I do. He means that he wants to farm our land the way he wants to and he'll give us a share of what he takes out of it and we'll be living on it like a couple of squatters. David, is that what we wanted? I don't think it is. Mr. Bell, I know you've been a farmer all your life and you know how to do these things much better than we do, but I'd like to continue my train of thought, Mrs. Norton. You have a very fine piece of property there and I don't want to see it go to waste, but when you say I've been a farmer all my life, you're wrong. You haven't been? But I thought, I mean, my husband said that all good farmers have to be born farmers. If I were a born farmer, Mrs. Norton, this farm here might be the same run-down, old-fashioned, decrepit place it was when I took it over ten years ago. Ten years ago? Then you mean you're really not from Connecticut at all? I should say not. I'm from New York. I used to run a factory that made electric motors. I had to move to the country, but I didn't leave my brains behind. Well, Mr. Bell, we may have left ours behind, but we really didn't mean to put our whole farm under cultivation quite this way. I'm afraid it's the only way in which I'd be willing financially to undertake it. Then you couldn't just share one man with us? Not without upsetting my own procedure. Well, then, that settles it. I'm sorry we even disturbed you, Mr. Bell. David, I... But I don't suppose you know of any couple who would live with us to help us out? I'm afraid I don't, Mr. Norton. I'm afraid I can't help you. David, listen to me, please. What is it, darling? David, I... Well, I think we're enough of a couple for any farm. You mean for any farm without cows? Well, they're without cows. I'm telling you, Mr. Bell wasn't born in Connecticut. I don't see why we have to have been born in Connecticut, either. And come to think of it, I... I won't mind getting up at five o'clock. Will you? Five o'clock? Well, that's very sweet of you, darling. But to begin with, we'll be getting our milk out of a nice glass bottle. Here's a pleasant suggestion to recall in the midst of marketing. Look around, and chances are you'll find a Coca-Cola cooler in your favorite food store. Then shift your bottles to the other arm, drop a nickel in the slot of that friendly cooler, and up will come a bottle of ice-cold refreshment. You'll find, as so many women do, that things seem to go a lot smoother when you shop refreshed. Excuse me, Mr. King, what happened to those nortons? Well, I guess they hurried back to the city, Mr. Bell. They looked a little disappointed to me. Can't understand why they should be. Well, I guess they just wanted to do it themselves, didn't they? Living in a city, you get kind of tired, not doing things for yourself, even things like your own laundry. Sometimes you send it to a Chinese laundry, and when you can't talk Chinese any better than David can, you have quite a time getting it back, as David finds out tomorrow. Well, be seeing you, Mr. Bell. I'll be seeing you too, Mr. King. As I was saying, every day Monday through Friday, Claudia comes to you transcribed with the best wishes of your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola. So listen again tomorrow at the same time, and now this is Joe King saying au revoir. And remember, whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of Coca-Cola. Or ice-cold Coca-Cola makes any pause. The pause that refreshes. This broadcast of Claudia was supervised and directed by William Brown Maloney. And now here's a word from your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola.