 Starring Helen Hayes in Spin the Silver Dollar on the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. But first here is Ted Pearson with some timely information on weed killers. Weed pulling and digging is a very hard and back-breaking job, and in the case of poison ivy, well, a dangerous one as well. Now, DuPont has two chemical weed killers which destroy weeds, many kinds of weeds. Carmack's 2-4-D in tablet form destroys weeds and lawns, but doesn't harm the grass. The other DuPont weed killer is Amate. It's quick and sure death to such noxious weeds as poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. Both are easy and safe to handle. You simply mix them in water and spray until the weeds are thoroughly wet. Carmack's 2-4-D and Amate are two more of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. The DuPont Company presents Spin the Silver Dollar, starring Helen Hayes as Sally Lippincott on the Cavalcade of America. Hear that telephone bell? It's ringing for me, Sally Lippincott, or for Bill. Bill's my husband, and we're magazine writers, and all day long the telephone rings, and on the other end there are some inhuman human beings called editors. Hello? Oh, hello, Mr. Harlow. No, Bill isn't here. Yes, I know he said he would be, but he had to see a family lawyer about a trading post in Arizona. The article? Yes, wasn't it wonderful? I think Bill has never been so clever. Oh, I'm so glad you liked it too. What? Oh, I see. Well, that can easily be fixed. Huh? Revamp the lead? Uh-huh. Yeah? What's wrong with the ending? Oh, I get it. And get more specific incidents into the middle portion. Well, I'm glad you liked the title. Goodbye. Sally! Yes, Bill? Sally, I've got some bad news. We've got to go out to Arizona. Oh, no! Well, here's the situation. Since Uncle Jim died, that trading post has been inactive. It's worth a lot of money if it's operating or if it can be sold. Well, you and I have to go out there and run it until we can find a buyer. Why, you and I? Because we're writers. We're not chained to a desk and an office. Now, Bill, I don't think it's fair, and I refuse to go. But we've got to go, Sally. I don't like it any better than you do. Besides, we'll be paid. We'll shiver to death. We'll roast. It's on the desert. And our customers are Indian? Uh-huh. Navajo. I see. Bill, what's the name of this trading post? Wide Ruin. Oh, cozy. Well, Bill, I won't do it. I will not. It's not fair. I will absolutely not. I will absolutely not. We went to Wide Ruins. We spun a silver dollar, and I lost as usual. Wide Ruins. It was well-named. The desert all around was wide, and the trading post was a ruin. Well, how do you like it? Isn't there anything but desert around here? Well, it's kind of pleasant, though. Come on, let's go in and look the place over, Sally. You go. I don't want to fall through the floor. You'll fall through the floor? There's nothing wrong with this building with a good coat of paint. Can't fix. Nothing? Take a look at the roof. I'm looking. We'll fix that. Come on, let's go in and set up Husky. The place could use some paint. Bill, we've got company. Company? Where? Oh, hello. Hello. How do you do? We're Mr. and Mrs. Lippincott. We've come to take over the trading post. Hello. Do you live near here? Yes. I expect we'll be doing business together. Yes. Well, if you'll excuse us. One minute, Bill. I think this man wants to say something to us. Didn't you want to say something, Mr. Yes. Well, what is it? Me, Joe Toddy. Welcome to White Ruins. Oh, lovely. Thank you very much indeed. Yes, thank you. We're glad to be here. Me, come do business with you. Sally, our first customer. No, me, come fix roof. You, my customer. That was our introduction to life among the Navajos. They're a curiously calm people. And since we had come fresh from the jangle of telephone calls and the urgency of deadlines in the city, we found calmness to be most unnerving. May I pay next week? That's all right. What's your name? Tell me your name so that I can charge this flower to you. Sally, come here. You must never ask a Navajo his name directly. No? I'll answer you. Well, then I'll have to get this man's name from one of his friends. No, no, no. They don't like that either. But I have to keep my books straight. How am I going to find out his name? Like this. Sally, this customer's name is Redberry with a big leaf. You're wrong. My name is Sushi Bege. You see? There you are. Write it down, Sally. We rug, you won't buy. Well, we buy rugs. Let's unroll it and see. Oh, there's lettering on it. You say hello. Hello, but where's the O? No room for O. Customs of the Navajos. And the most important thing we learned about them is that they derive their whole nature, their philosophy, even their complexion from the desert around them. It's woven into their rugs and it runs through all their speech. I guess Little Jimmy was the one who finally made me realize this. Little Jimmy first came to the trading post with Joe Toddy, his father. Me, come fix woof now. Well, I should think he would, Joe. You've left us without a roof for almost a week. Only in two time. Bill. Yes? Who left these drawings on the front step? Drawings? I don't know, Sally. Those Jimmy's. Jimmy's? Jimmy, my boy. There he is. Where? Oh, there in the doorway. Well, hello, little boy. Oh, he ran away. Yes, he never stayed. And he drew these pictures. They're wonderful. Look, Bill, see those trees. See, those are magnificent. Joe, how old is your boy? Eight. Did he ever try painting? No. Bill, we have a paint set in stock and some paper for watercolor. That's right. Here, Joe, here are some paints and a nice brush and some paper. Will you give these to Jimmy for us? Yes, thank you. I go give him now. Joe, some other time. That was the beginning of our acquaintance with Jimmy. We never heard the sound of his voice. He'd edge sidewise into the store, shyly lay a painting on the counter, and then he would flee. We kept him supplied with paints and paper and he kept us supplied with paintings. Paintings that drew their subjects from the things he saw around him. Horses and deer slender graceful trees and always in the background the vast stretch of desert sand brown and yellow and bronze. But, Bill and I had other things to think about besides Jimmy. Joe Toddy had finally fixed our roof, but now the insects came. Sally, something has got to be done. Yes? Well, we've sent for the insecticide. Yes, and we waited for three weeks. So? So I'm going to make an insecticide of my own. No, you're not. We've got to. We've got a chance to sell wide ruins. Fellow named Grayson called from Tucson just now. He's coming to look the place over tomorrow. Bill, that's wonderful. Sure it is, but he'll never buy the place if he gets eaten alive while he's inspecting it. He's an Easterner, says he wants peace. Well, there's no more peaceful place than... Oh. What's the matter? I never realized until I said it how peaceful wide ruins is. Yeah, it is peaceful, but that's neither here nor there. We've got to get rid of these insects so he gets here. I'm going to make insecticide right now. Now, pour in a little more from that bottle, Sally. How long do you have to stir that mess before it becomes insecticide? If it becomes insecticide. If it becomes insecticide. I don't know, maybe forever. Now, Sally, just hand me that bottle. It was a strange explosion. It went almost directly upward. I got a little burn on my wrist and Bill got a large one on his cheek, but nothing in the room was damaged. You're lucky. Well, yes, except for three things. The explosion literally raised Joe Toddy's new roof. Mr. Grayson saw the roofless trading post the next day and went right back to Tucson. And Joe Toddy refused to repair the roof this time. May no go near trading post. But why not, Joe? Big blow-up. Evil spirits mad at your house. Oh, that's foolish, Joe. May be foolish, but you'll see how foolish when no Indians go to trading post. Indians know anger, evil spirits. Indians know to business with you, but Indians sorry if you starve. You were with a pretty problem that no grocer back home ever had to face. What do you do when you're going rapidly into bankruptcy because your customers think the evil spirits have the evil eye on your store? Bill and I called in the medicine man. Lukachukai, his name was, the wrinkled old man with humorous eyes. Anazazi's angry with you. Anazazi? Anazazi's evil spirits. Oh, what do we do to make them smile again? Take a rug from counter, sped on floor. All right. Right here? That will do. Now here, here a chance. You hold one. Here? You hold one. Thank you. So, now let us kneel on rug. Hey, now. Hoey, it's time for you. Hoey, it's time for you. Hoey, it's time for you. May you be blessed. See you soon, see you soon. See you soon. See you soon. Hoey, it's time for you. Now, let me sprinkle secret corn pollen on your hand. Now, your hand. Now, taste. Yes, taste. Now, throw it high to God. Is that the end of the ceremony? That is end. We rise now. Are the Anazazis gone? Anazazis never go. But they are not angry any longer. I want to thank you very much. And I want to tell you how impressive the ceremony was. The Anazazis no longer trouble you. My people will be pleased to come once more to your store. Thank you. But I would like to know why you call me in, why you ask me to perform this ceremony. You are white people, white people not to believe in our gods. But we believe all gods are the same. Same? Yes, but we are strangers in your country and we do not know how to approach the gods in a Navajo way. And that's why we asked you to help us. You're good people. May you prosper here. Is it permitted to give you a gift? It is permitted, yes, but not a big gift. Well, there's some seaweed candy here on the counter. Here, this candy is made from the flowers that grow under the sea. Bill bought it when he went to California. How you get candy from flowers that grow under the sea? He bought it in California. You don't believe him? I believe you, and I have requests. Next time you go to sea, will you bring me back some white sand, some black sand, and one wave? You're listening to Spin the Silver Dollar, the story of Bill and Sally Lippincott who took over an Navajo trading post. Tonight's star is Helen Hayes at Sally Lippincott on The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, and a number of better things for better living through chemistry. That was our introduction to Navajo ceremonies. We were to take part in many other ceremonies while we were at wide ruins. The most interesting to me at any rate, because I am a woman, was one that I learned about through Jimmy. You see, all this time, Jimmy kept coming to the trading post, and after he had silently handed me another picture, he never stayed longer than one shy second, and he never spoke, not with his tongue, but with his pictures he was eloquent. In beautiful pastels he pictured the desert and the animals in which he seemed most interested. Never a human being, never until one day, the picture that he left was of a young girl before an Indian hogan, lying on a mat with her head toward the east. Underneath he had scrawled, my sister. I was interested, so I went to see his sister, and I showed her the picture. Oh, it's beautiful. Yes, but it made me wonder, and that's why I came to see you. Do you always sleep outside the hogan? Oh, no. This is part of ceremony of coming into womanhood. It is held in the hope that the girl may become all that a woman can be. A bearer of children? Yes, but more than that. Our people believe that a woman is the way her eyes look out of her mind. Mary, that's a very beautiful idea, and a true one. Please, I am to become a woman. You are a woman. What is it like? That's not easy to say, Mary. Some people might say that to be a woman is to be sad, because the men do the strutting and the big important work like building and planning, harvesting, making money. But I always remember that women do the little important work, the comforting, the teaching, the singing. I'm not sad because I'm a woman, Mary. I'm joyous, because to be a woman means to give life and to love life, to give strength and to draw strength from the giving. Thank you. I wanted to know. That is the way I want to feel about being a woman. Will you come to my ceremony? So I went to the ceremony, marking Mary's coming to womanhood. The ceremony, oh, look at you, Kai, led the chanting. The medicine man was the center of the ceremony, but Mary was its spirit. Mary, who came through it with a straight back and almond eyes and a clear dark skin like a warm, young animal, but lovely and untouchable too. Mary was a woman now. And yet the most touching occurrence that ran through our lives at the trading post was the daily coming and going of young Jimmy. And one day we had good news for him and I determined to make him speak. Jimmy, we've sold some of your pictures. I have a great deal of money for you. Look, Jimmy, you can buy anything you want in this store. What would you like, huh? No, I won't do you any good to point, Jimmy. You'll have to tell me what you want. That's it, Jimmy. Look, everything over. See anything you like? Oh, no, you can't take it. You've got to ask for it. Jimmy, come back. Come on, Jimmy. Come on. That's right. There. Jimmy, you don't have to talk if you don't want to. I'm sorry I treated you that way. Here, it was this water pistol you wanted, wasn't it? Here it is. Aren't you even going to say thank you? Well, you feel thank you, don't you, Jimmy? You know, Jimmy, I want you to talk because I like you so much and I'd like to hear the sound of your voice. Isn't there something you'd like to say to me? I... I... There was a charm in our life at Wide Ruins and there was a pulse beat about the place as there is everywhere, only at Wide Ruins the pulse beat was slow and steady and strong. Bill and I almost forgot that we were there to sell the trading post. We almost forgot that we were anxious to get back to the city to the writing of cute little pieces for magazines of national circulation. But then one day the door of the trading post opened and we were reminded of both facts in an instance. Well, well, Bill and Sally Lippincott. That's right, and this is Charlie Dixon. How do you do? How do you do? Charlie, these are two of the finest writers an editor ever had. And kids, I've come a hundred miles out of my way to bring you two back to New York. Well, we'd love to go, but we can't. Oh, nonsense. You're here because the post couldn't be sold, aren't you? Well, I brought a buyer with me. What? What do you say, Charlie? Well, I'm not sure yet, but this certainly looks like what I want. Oh, Charlie. Charlie wants to get away from it all. Well, then you'll like it here, Mr. Dixon. Oh, yes, this is the place for you. Have you ever watched a desert sunset? No. You'll have to learn the ways of the Indians. You'll have to let them teach you. Yes. You start out being patient with them, being patronizing, but they just stare at you like, like wooden Indians. And finally you feel small and cheap and over-civilized. And then you begin to see things the way they see them. It's really wonderful. It sounds wonderful. Well, it looks as if we're all going to get what we want. Charlie, you get right down to business and make out a check. And then I'm going to carry Sally and Bill back to New York with me. And, boy, are they going to make up for lost time. Am I going to make you two writers work? What's the matter, Sally? Bill, are you thinking the same thing I am? I certainly am. I'm sorry, Mr. Dixon, but wide ruins is not for sale. It was just a feeling we had. Bill and I couldn't quite explain why we had suddenly decided to stay at wide ruins. It had something to do with the desert and with all the stuff of the desert that went into little Jimmy's paintings or the Navajo women's rugs. And it had something to do with the peacefulness that we had found out here among the Navajos. But there was more to it than that. Something we couldn't put into words until the Indians, wouldn't you know it, taught us what it was. They had heard about a war going on in Europe, and they'd heard whispers that America might fight in that war. The elders of the tribe held counsel, and they sent all Lukachukei to Bill. The elders of the tribe wished to go to war. My friend, I'm afraid the government will want the young men. No, we wish young men remain behind. We have had our sports, our marriage, our children. We have lived. Our sons should live now. So we, the elders, will go, and our sons remain behind. My dear friend, I'm afraid you don't understand. The government will make your young men go. It will be a law. And I know that you'll want to obey that law. Your young men will have to go. Very well. Then we go to go into battle ahead of young men of our tribe, so they will be unharmed. That was our answer. That told us why we wanted to stay among the Navajos of wide ruins. The peacefulness we had found on the desert came from a philosophy that we had absorbed from the Indians. A philosophy of calmness and bravery and the kind of deep wisdom that permitted the older men to sacrifice themselves so that the younger ones would know laughter and love, would marry and beget that the race might go on. The war did come, and Bill, who went and I, who stayed at home, both faced it better because we had been at wide ruins. And we're back at wide ruins now, and here we'll stay among our friends and our teachers, the Indians of the desert, who are themselves like the desert, quiet and constant and deep and natural and American. We'll return to our capital-cape microphone in a moment. Now here is Ted Pearson. Every home gardener knows that plants are attacked and often killed by insect enemies, and that plants have diseases just like human beings. The insects and diseases that harm plants harm all of us. They mean less food for one thing because home vegetable gardens contribute a sizable amount to our national food supply. They mean less enjoyment to the home flower gardener. They even mean less happiness for the little girl in the city who tries to grow a single geranium on a window edge. So it's good news that now, for the first time, the DuPont company is manufacturing an all-purpose garden dust. Just what is an all-purpose garden dust, and why is it such good news? Well, until now you have generally had to buy a different product for each insect and plant disease. You may have wondered, as a good many other people have, why on earth somebody didn't invent one compound to do the whole job of protection? Well, the reason was that although the idea was there, the materials were not. Before such a compound could come into being, ingredients had to be discovered or developed. They would do the complete job when they were added together, and that's what chemists and biologists have now accomplished. The new DuPont garden compound contains four main ingredients. There's rotinone, DuPont DDT, and two new effective DuPont fungicides, Firmate and Xerlate. Applying it to gardens every seven to ten days gives protection against more than 40 insects and more than 20 plant diseases which may attack garden plants. However, applications should be stopped about 30 days before vegetables are picked. Home gardeners will especially appreciate the fact that DuPont garden dust is easy to use. It's sold as a dry powder. You can use it right out of the container. Or if you want to spray, all you do is add water. Now, here's a good illustration of chemical science at work. There was a need for a single compound to protect plants, but the compound could not come into being until a number of chemicals were available, each of which would take on part of the job and all of which would act together easily, effectively and economically. Chemists with other scientists developed those materials. And now you can buy an all-purpose garden dust. This is why we speak of our DuPont products as better things for better living through chemistry. And now, here is Helen Hayes. Thank you. If you're like me, you'll remember how exciting automobiles were in our childhood. Our memories may not go back 50 years, but the first auto in Detroit appeared that long ago. And next week, Cavalcade is honoring the industry's golden jubilee in a colorful story called, I Guess It's Here to Stay, starring Everett Sloan. It's a good story and I know you'll like it. Good night. Cavalcade marks with pleasure another milestone of progress in the automotive world. The return of the Memorial Day Classic, the Indianapolis Speed Race, which will be run this Thursday for the first time since the war began. The music for tonight's DuPont Cavalcade was composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Voorhees. Our Cavalcade play was written by Robert Senadulla, and based on incidents from the book, Spin a Silver Dollar, by Alberto Hannum, published by The Viking Press. Featured with Ms. Hayes in tonight's cast were Carl Frank and Wanda Hernandez. Others in the cast included Sidney Sloan, Wilda Hinkel, Edith Tacna, and Cameron Pradham. This is Dwight Wiest inviting to listen next week to I Guess It's Here to Stay, starring Everett Sloan on the Cavalcade of America, brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company.