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By Root 1879 0

“A vote is the best friend we have. A vote from my momma and yours that walks to a little ramshackle wooden church in the country counts just as much as the rich man’s vote. Now, I hear some of you saying it don’t matter if I vote or not, the whole thing is fixed anyway . . . and you’re right, it is fixed. The man who gets the most votes wins—and I want your vote . . . I won’t lie to you. I could have gone after support from some of these big-money interest groups and be doing a whole lot better but I didn’t. Why? Because I don’t want to be in debt to anybody but you. So I’m asking you to give me a little something today, it don’t have to be much, just a little loan. What will I put up for collateral? Well, I don’t have much. I don’t own a house, my car’s not paid for. You can’t have my wife. But I’ll tell you what you can have is my word. My word that if you send me up there as your governor, I’ll work for you. And I want you to hold me to it. The only payback I want to have to make is to you people . . . and I’ll pay it back, law by law, road by road, school by school, and electric pole by electric pole.”

While the Missouri Plowboys played, the Finley men watched as every one of the farmers came up and put money in a big barrel that had HAMM’S PEST CONTROL written on the side and shook hands with him. When the lights went off and the projector shut down, Earl smiled. “This guy’s an idiot. We can beat him at his own game.”

The next day they hired for Pete Wheeler a huge Dixieland band to travel with him and brought in top entertainers from Hollywood and New York to appear at all his fund-raisers. At the big Kansas City “Peter Wheeler for Governor” dinner, they even flew big Kate Smith in from New York to open the evening by singing “God Bless America.”

The New Dog-and-Pony Show

Now, with all the parties, money, and efforts going into the Peter Wheeler campaign, Hamm started to worry. The more he thought about the promise he’d made to Betty Raye to quit politics if he lost, the more desperate he became. After being gone for a week he came into the bedroom around 3:00 A.M. and tried to wake Betty Raye without waking the baby. “Sweetheart,” he said, shaking her.

She opened her eyes. “Hey . . . what time is it?”

He sat down on the bed. “It’s late. But I need to talk to you.”

“Is anything wrong? Has anything happened?”

“No.”

She sat up and switched on the light. “Are you hungry?”

“No. The boys and I stopped on the way home and got a bite.”

She reached for her glasses and put them on and looked at him in the light. She could tell by the worried expression on his face that something was wrong. “What is it?”

He sighed. “Honey, you know I never wanted to bother you with any of this. And I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, but I need your help.”

He had never asked her for anything before except to marry him, so she knew it must be pretty serious. He looked so pitiful, she reached over and took his hand. He hesitated a moment and then said, “I hate to ask . . . but with all the big money being thrown at Peter Wheeler, I’m in trouble.”

“What can I do?”

“Well,” he said, “like I say, I hate to ask, but the boys were talking and they think that since your momma and the Oatmans have such a big following now, that if you were on the platform with me and let me introduce you to the audience it might help.”

The baby in the other room suddenly started to cry. Betty Raye got up out of bed and Hamm followed her. “All you would have to do is just sit there, honey, you wouldn’t have to sing or anything. And I’d get to be with you and the kids a lot more. . . . It would only be for a little while. . . .”

On April 6, Neighbor Dorothy reported to her listeners that the dessert cookbook had received an entry all the way from Lake Martin, Minnesota. “Mrs. Verna Pridgen writes, ‘Dear Neighbor Dorothy, I am sending you a recipe for a layer cake, some have called it a Minnehaha cake but while it is similar to the Minnehaha cake it is even nicer. I live out here on the Minnesota prairie and we call it a prairie cake.’ Thank you, Verna,