to a very late breakfast at Blossom Farm. His grandmother sat across from him, watching him eat. She smiled. Augustus had always had such a healthy appetite. She was complimenting him now on how hard he’d worked on creating a schedule for the seniors.
Gus carried his dishes to the sink, topped off his coffee cup, then sat down across from his grandmother. “Listen, Granny, you need to stop with the trips to the post office; it takes too much time and costs too much. Let’s open an account with UPS, and they’ll give us the shipping supplies, they pick up, and you save labor. You guys have been chasing back and forth to three different post offices. That’s a lot of hours that are being wasted. Now, having said that, do you all understand that you need to tell me which . . . I don’t know how you define it . . . but which thing right now is earning you the most money? I’m not talking about the steady bread-and-butter money that keeps you going, like your newsletters.”
“That’s easy. The fascinators. We have so many orders we can’t fill because the feathers are so hard to work with. I’m thinking this is a bit of a fad, so we want to cash in now while they’re so popular. I forgot to tell you yesterday that one of our new staff had a great idea. A freebie. A good-luck charm, a talisman, if you will. A faux-jade four-leaf clover. Sonia even knew where we could order them in bulk. Violet placed the order last night for overnight delivery today. We plan to mail them to all past and current customers. A goodwill gesture you can call it. Personally, I jumped at the idea.”
“There you go again, massive mailing. All the more reason to use UPS, as they will pick up the packages. You also need a postage meter.”
“Okay, I’ll put that on my list,” Rose said. “I’m glad you’re on board, Augustus.”
“Me, too, Granny. Me, too.”
“Okay, then, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty and concentrate our efforts on what we have to do to bring things up to date, where you can make the most money in the shortest period of time. We figure out how to capitalize on our people resources and make it happen. How long does it take to make one of those fascinators—those feather things? One other thing, Granny. Once the members of your staff become familiar with their jobs, I want you to rotate them. Each member of your staff needs to know every other job in case of any kind of setback—and there will be setbacks of one kind or another, you can count on it. If everyone knows everyone else’s job, you won’t lose momentum. Do you agree or not?”
“I totally agree. We can’t keep operating by the seat of our pants. We all know we need structure and discipline of a sort. But to answer your question on the fascinators, it takes a half-hour to make them. Depends on who is working on them. Our fingers are not as nimble as they used to be. It’s not an easy task, to attach the thin wires to the feathers. The wires have to be cut just right, so the feathers aren’t bouncing all over the place. But we precut them, so we conquered that problem. The main problem, Augustus, is the coloring for the feathers. We’ve only had a few orders for white ones. Without a doubt, we could make a lot of money but . . .”
“How is your feather supply?”
“We have enough to fill our current orders. We have a long wait list simply because we didn’t know if we could fill the demand. Like I said, Augustus, it’s coloring the feathers that’s our problem. It’s dye versus spray and where to do it. We need ideal conditions because feathers are virtually weightless. If you so much as breathe on them, they move. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Actually, I do. Pastor Evans still has bingo nights, doesn’t he?” At his grandmother’s nod, Gus continued, “You know that big drum they use to turn the numbers before they call them? Do you think he’d let us use it if we made a donation to the church? I remember when Barney and I were kids, you used to take us with you at night when it was your turn to work bingo. We could use the drum to contain the feathers after