 Your Coca-Cola bottler presents Claudia, based on the famous play and novels by Rose Frankin. 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. David, Mr. Tucker, I'll be here any minute. I am finished almost. I have never heard of such nonsense in all my life. What nonsense is business of buying a cow on the installment plan? That's an idea. We can't work out a deal for cash with Warren. Maybe he would consider installments. I didn't mean paying for the cow on installments. I meant buying it on installments. One day you've bought a cow. The next you haven't. Mr. Warren wants to sell. He doesn't want to sell. They order these things differently in New England. I like old Mr. Tucker, but I think he's made something very simple, very, very difficult. If you hadn't got him mixed into all this, you'd have just simply gone out and bought a cow. Oh, that's what you think. It hadn't been for Mr. Tucker. Mr. Warren wouldn't have even considered selling a cow. Now, after four days, he's only considering it. You don't even know how much he wants for this cow. Mr. Tucker didn't think the time was right to discuss price yesterday. David, how much do you think Mr. Warren will want? I don't think she'll be cheap. A hundred dollars? A hundred dollars won't buy much of a cow. A hundred dollars will buy an awful lot of milk. Oh, that must be Mr.... Oh, Tucker here. Tucker here. You're not ready? You'll be here breakfast, will you? That's my middle of the hour. Good morning to you, Mrs. Brown. Good morning. Good morning to you, Mr. Tucker. Still of the mind to buy that cow? Still of the mind. The question is, are we of a pocketbook, too? That's the crux of the situation. Matthew Warren's a hard man to drive a price with, who's the sharpest trade and I ever did to keep Matthew from mentioning a price. Let him mention a price and you're done for. Let him once hear his own voice say a figure and all haters in high water won't budge him from it. Have you some idea in your mind, Mr. Tucker, of how much Mr. Warren will want? More, son, more. More than what? More than I hope we're going to give him. You won't buy that cow cheap, son. I'm afraid not. Well, come along, you young ones. Time's a curdling in the veins. Get out your horse and buggy and let's be on our way. Well, the way I figure it, Matthew, is we might have a light with it. Early frost to tighten up the ground and then a nice, easy winter. Yeah, a lot of signs point to a hard winter though. No, nope, nope, nope, nope. The way I figure it, weather goes in cycles. You mean one bad year and one good year? Nope. There you go. There's good eating apples that grow, Matthew. Uh-huh. Well, the weather's got a lot of time to turn around in. It comes in 40-year cycles, I figure. 40-year cycles? Yup. Expert in weather, I am. Student, you might say. Seen two 40-year cycles, I haven't. She's coming right to the way I figure. Remember the winter in 1907? If you're asking me, I don't. Matthew, I could stand another apple. Now, come on back to the barrel and we'll get out some more. You know what the hard thing is, we'll put apples each day. We've talked about crops and weather and an old harness that broke the days when they raised cranberries. The weather again, the saw Mr. Warren bought from old Mr. Tucker. Now we're back to the weather again. We're back at the beginning of a 40-year cycle. Nobody will talk about the cow we want to buy. David, why don't you take the bull by the horns and just... Haven't you got your metaphor slightly mixed? No, the cow by the horns and jump right in. We're angels and Jared Tucker, fear to tread. I'm right, I'm never wrong. That winter was the same year I had the twin heifer calves out of my old design cow. You had the trotting horse named Barbara B. What won that race, county fair? That was a good year. Ah, yes, but it was a hard winter. So it stands to... Look, Mr. Warren, I hate to interrupt this discussion, but I'm afraid I'm a direct man. I can be direct too, son, whenever I mind, sir. Well, what we're really here for is to find out the price you want for the cow that we want to buy and determine whether it's a price we can afford to pay. Whether it's a fair price. I'm a man of fair prices, Jared. Not like some people like me, if I was pushed to it. Ah, still harping over that dang old sow you bought from me. Most men had charged her off to profit and loss and experience. I ain't charging her off to profit and loss and I ain't a forgetter. And I ain't going to go to an old coop like you to buy experience. You bought the sow? Well, take the experience too. It was for free. Practically, I didn't charge much for it. Anyway, I wasn't sure for certain that sow would have no more pigs. I'm sorry, Mr. Warren, that our business with you about a cow has to get mixed up in the middle of your business with Mr. Tucker about a pig. In the middle of Jared and I have been fighting over that sow for 12 years. 12 years? Yeah, 12 years she's all let and done with. Matthew, you'll never get the better of me in a trade, so why don't you stop trying? 12 years. We're not making a short memory in this part of the country. 12 years. Mr. Warren, if we don't start talking about your cow now, she'll be dead and we'll be buying her daughter before we get around here. All right, all right. Let's talk. Well, now you must have some idea of a price in your mind. I have. Right here in my pocket, I have a figure written down. Don't say it, Matthew, and don't show it. But that's what we're here to find out. Matthew, before you mention a price on that there, cow, I want you to go up on a mountaintop, figuratively speaking, and examine your soul. We're off again, David. Examine it for what, Jared? Examine it that you've set a fair price. A man has to live with his self and his conscience. These two youngins, they don't know much about cows. Ain't you enough to pick out the best one in my herd? Babes in the woods. And she's a good cow, but she's maybe not the best one in the world. And these youngins are your neighbors. You want to live peaceful with them. You want them to look up to you and revere you. Straight is the way, and narrow is the gate, Matthew, and it won't be long before you have to go through it. You won't want to be carrying the burden and sin of a shop trade, and use yourious price to these two youngins. There's short shrift for users in heaven, Matthew. Ain't Peter will be examining you about my sow, Jared. Long before he'll be talking to me about the cow, you young Nautens might want to buy from me. We're back on the saw again. Jared and I are never very far from it, Mr. Nautens. However, Jared just gave me an idea. I don't give much away. But if I gave you an idea, it was probably a good one. You like these young Nautens, don't you, Jared? Well, uh... Oh, well, uh... The manner of the... Give an idea, so we might as well give compliments. They're fine people, good neighbors, and fine young people. What's the catch? That was a lovely compliment, Mr. Tucker. Generous man I am, generous. And, uh, you know a lot about cows. And you're a good neighbor, too, at heart. But most of all, you're a fair man, probably one of the fairest men in Eastbrook. Well, Matthew, I'm not going to deny it. A fair man? No, I'm not going to deny it. What you said warms the cockles of my heart. What's the catch? No catch. But since you're such a known and fair man, I'm going to let you set the price of the majesty count. Me? You can't do no such thing to me! I'm doing it. You set the price, and the Nautens will know it's fair, and I'll be satisfied because I'll know it's fair. I think I know. It's a little unconventional, but it seems fair enough to me. Fair! Fair! Who said I was fair? I never claimed to be fair. What's fairness got to do with the trade? All you need in trade is your witch with you. I got my witch with me. God dang you, Matthew Warren. This is the snidest trick you ever played. I know that you know that I know that you know I know how much this majesty count is worth. Then you name the price, and I'll abide by it. I... I could say a hundred dollars. Oh, she's worth more than that. Jared knows that. Or if he doesn't, he'd be proven he doesn't know much about cows. Who says I don't know much about cows? I know all there is to know about cows. One of the nice things about you, Jared, is your modesty. What's the use of modesty? You'll be good, you're good. I'm not a man for hiding a light under a bushel. Well, by the light you're not hiding under a bushel, Mr. Tucker. How much do you say the cows worth? The cow? How much is she worth? Yeah. She's worth more, I'd like to say. Well, say it, Mr. Tucker. She's too much. Well, there's them that have paid 3,000 and more for cows. I wouldn't say it was any better than this here majesty cow. 3,000 and more. Them as did wasn't farmers, least ways they weren't New England farmers from around here. Matthew, you were thinking of these young ones as city folks or gentlemen farmers with lots of easy money? I'm looking on them justice, I would be looking on you, Jared. I'm afraid we're back to the sour Jared's soul. Just as you'd be looking to me, eh? Matthew, this is a ganged hard thing you're doing to me. Making me cut my own throat in the trade. But if I was buying the majesty cow, I'd do... Well, I wouldn't pay you a durn sent more than $450. A dollar over that and it'd gall me. Any dollar under would be so much greater. $450. That's an awful lot for a cow. Yeah, but it's a fine cow, darling. You're a gold gang, right? It's a fine cow. It breaks my heart to have to say so, though. Well, Mr. Warren, Jared Tucker said that good things in life never come cheap, so I guess you've sold your cow. Hold on a moment, son. No, you don't, Matthew. You made a bargain, stick by it. You said you'd stick by the price I made. Don't you cheat these here young people? Now, Mr. Miss Norton here, in this piece of paper I've read the price I hold this majesty cow at and that price I'll take, not a cent less. $325. Mr. Warren, this cow is really worth more than that one. That's what I figure she's worth to me and that's what I'll sell her to you for. Once I set a figure in my mind, I don't ever ship. I'm a sought man that way. Jared can tell you. Who sweetens the bargain? Thank you, then. I'll sweeten it. Your man Fritz stopped by on his way into town this morning, Mr. Norton. He liked the cow and he liked the price. And seeing as she won't be fresh for a while and your barn's not quite finished, I'll keep her here for a week or two. That'll be the sweetening. Here, Matthew Warren, what was all this confounded business of getting me to set a price on this here, towel, when you already fixed the price into your own mind? If you'd been a fine this cow, Jared, you'd have paid $125 more than the Norton's. You know, it sort of pays me back for our deal on the saw. You know, when it really comes to trading, I could take your high thou faggot wouldn't even know it. Well, I'll be. You'll be gall-danged along with me. Well, I guess you and I are really babes in the woods when it comes to Yankee trading. When you're complaining about high prices, give a moment's thought to those things that haven't gone up. There's Coca-Cola, for instance. Coke was a nickel in 1886 and it's a nickel today. Moreover, its quality has never buried in all those years. Today, as always, delicious ice-cold Coca-Cola can be relied upon to bring you the pause that refreshes. Well, howdy, Bob. Howdy, Mr. Tucker. Well, son, you just seen a better man get the worst of it. Don't die easy, do you, Jared? Oh, long way from dead I am. Warn better watch yourself. Next time we trade, there'll be no host bard and I'll nail him to the barn door. But the youngins bought their selves a good, good cow at a fair, fair price. I hear David's brother and his wife are coming up here tomorrow. Oh, that, uh, that Hartley feller trades down in Wall Street. Never could see what fun a man gets down there. Now in trading cows, you really got something there. Well, the notons have got their cow and tomorrow they're going to have family and family-in-law. Oh, families, families. Families can be pesky and in-laws can be, can be more than pesky. Well, they don't have to be, Jared. Oh, mind you listening, son. I said they can be. Well, so long I've got to be going. So long, Jared. As I was about to say, 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. For Coca-Cola makes any pause the pause that represses. And ice-cold Coca-Cola is everywhere. 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.