Betina Krahn Read Online Free

be our first applicant.” She turned to Hardwell Humphrey. “If you’ll be so good as to summon our first presenter.”
    Diamond’s first lottery winner proved to be a big German meat cutter who smelled faintly of schnapps and proposed a novel method for stuffing sauerkraut
inside
of wieners. Number thirty-three was a pair of genteel older ladies who had come to plead the plight of “barefoot” natives in tropical regions. They wanted funds to buy and ship shoes to missionaries … shoes, in their cosmology, being somehow fundamental to both salvation and godly behavior. Number forty-seven clanked and rattled through the door with a prototype of a mechanical chopper which could be used on an astonishing range of edible material,from cow silage to cannery beets. His demonstration with a bag of said beets left a worrisome crimson-purple puddle on the floor. In every case, she wrote out a bank draft and assigned a director to oversee the project.
    Next came number sixty-four, a fellow with an idea for a mechanized bread bakery, who also left the boardroom with a bank draft in his hands. Then came an enterprising young chemist with a new formula for bug spray … which he demonstrated by attaching a jar of it to a hand bellows and pumping the room full of noxious kerosene-based vapors. The directors staggered to the windows with handkerchiefs over their noses and frantically fanned away the fumes while Diamond dabbed at her tearing eyes and wrote out another draft.
    When the air had finally cleared, Diamond looked up to find several board members standing shoulder to shoulder, staring at her.
    “Sauerkraut
inside
wieners … mechanical food choppers … bread from a machine … now we’ve nearly been suffocated by poisonous vapors.” Only one spoke, but they all glowered. “You’ll never see a penny from such nonsense.”
    Diamond assessed their forbidding expressions, smiled, and played her trump card. “I believe that was exactly what you said about the electrical water-bath can-sealing process. And if memory serves, it made us one hundred thirteen thousand this quarter alone.”
    That gave them pause for a moment. Then another director spoke up.
    “But five thousand dollars just to peel a few beets—”
    “Is a bargain … if it leads to an efficient new machine for peeling and processing food,” she answered, sensing that their uneasiness required a broader response. “I know it is sometimes difficult for you to understand why I feel so strongly about this. But I’ve been blessed withmeans far beyond my needs, and with that blessing comes a great responsibility to use my wealth for the benefit of others. Progress can be a very expensive thing. And it has to start somewhere.”
    They lowered their gazes and shifted their feet and, one by one, retreated to their chairs to see what else Diamond Wingate and “progress” had in store.
    “That’s ten,” Hardwell said with an air of finality, an hour later, ushering the tenth lucky presenter to the door. “I’ll send the others home.”
    “You see?” Diamond, feeling somewhat vindicated in her largesse, rose, checked the pinning of her hat, and began to draw on her gloves. “No major catastrophes. And you must admit, we discovered some interesting prospects in our lottery.” She looked to her treasurer. “How much did we spend?”
    “I’ll have the number for you in just a moment.” The treasurer adjusted his spectacles and began a quick bit of arithmetic, which had to be redone when something disrupted his concentration. By the time he looked up with the answer, Diamond and everyone else in the room was staring at the door in alarm.
    Noise was rising beyond the heavy walnut panels: a cacophony of voices and scuffling sounds, overlayered by Hardwell Humphrey’s beleaguered voice.
    “Please—go home! I’m tellin’ you, Miss Wingate and the board are not seein’ anybody else today!” The door flew open, admitting both the sound of the