"The rolled oats we took to the grocery store are just not selling," a very serious William Holt told the people gathered at the dinner table of the Mountain Top Baptist Bible Institute. They were trying to diversify from selling eggs and teas. "The only ones buying them are up-timers. The down-timers still think they're horse food."
"The article in the papers didn't help?" Al Green asked the young Bible student.
"Not in the least," William said. "I think we should advertise on television."
"We could get a nurse from the hospital to go on a talk show like the one Becky used to run, and say we feed it to patients at the hospital to promote regularity when they're having bowel problems," Claudette offered.
"Then people would buy them when they get sick. How much would that help?" Brother Green asked. "We need something novel and not just another guest on a talk show."
"We could make up a big batch of oatmeal cookies and send them to school with the kids to share with their friends. No one is going to turn down free cookies. That might break the ice," Claudette suggested.
"We can try that. But, if we don't do something, we will have to sell our surplus oats to the feed store for next to nothing. Or sell them to a brewer," William said.
"No," Al replied. "I get enough flack about us selling tobacco in town. We don't need to be seen as supplying a brewer. The rumor that we still have Jenkin's still and a supply of his whiskey is getting me a cold shoulder from old friends who are still preaching abstinence. We need something to get more down-timers to try oatmeal."
"How are we going to convince them oats aren't just horse feed?" William asked.
"What we need is a talking horse going on TV and complaining about having to eat people food."
Claudette looked at her husband as if he were nuts. "Al, Dear, do you know how long it took them to train Mr. Ed? We don't have a special effects studio. Stick with giving away cookies. It will go a lot faster."
"But they are making flip books in town. Make a longer one and flip it under an opaque projector and point the camera at the screen and broadcast a cartoon horse complaining about having to eat people food. William, stop into Lyman's art gallery and see what they say."
The ladies of the institute made up a gross batch of cookies and sent them to school with the kids who didn't tell anyone what they were until after they ate them. The cookies were well received, but it didn't affect the sales at the grocer's very much.
A week later, William was back in the gallery a second time.
"Here's the script. Are you sure you can make a cartoon that can be shown on television?" William Holt asked as he handed the script to Mr. Lyman, the owner of the oldest art gallery in town. Lyman was selling as many flip books as paintings these days.
The mare with curlers in her hair put a bowl of steaming oatmeal on the kitchen table. The colt put a spoon in the bowl and left it there.
Colt: "Rolled oats? Mom! How could you? That's people food!, You really can't expect us to eat people food."
Mare: "It is not people food just because they've been rolled. They are still oats, and we've eaten oats all our lives."
Colt: "But, Mommm! They've been rolled flat. You can't chew them. They fall apart."
Mare: "If they are easier to eat, then they shouldn't be a problem. You can finish eating more quickly and get to school on time."
Colt: "But, Mom, they are too people food. The Scots eat them all the time. It's part of their national cuisine."
Mare: "Where did you hear that?"
Colt: "That little highland filly at school said the people back home in Scotland ate oats. She also said the Quaker people in America started rolling them in the eighteen hundreds to make them easier to cook. And in the nineteen hundreds, people were eating them all over the country. Up-time people still eat them."
Mare: "Up-time people are strange. Ask any animal with common sense. And they will tell you, up-time people are crazy and do all kinds of strange things, Down-time people don't eat rolled oats."
Colt: "So down-time people know what's good for them."
Mare: "If they knew what was good for them they would eat their oats. Oats are good for you. They're full of vitamins and minerals and high in nutrients. We eat them all the time, and why wouldn't people want to be as healthy as a horse?"
Colt: "I know why you are feeding us rolled oats. There was a sale on them down at the feed store. And you could get them cheap because they tried to sell them in the grocery store and no one would buy them. What next? Are you going to want us to eat potatoes like pigs?"
Mare: "Wash your mouth out with soap. Animals that will eat potatoes will eat anything. Oats are a perfectly decent meal. Being rolled doesn't change that."
Colt: "Yes, it does! They don't taste at all the same. Once they've been rolled, they are completely different in shape, and they don't taste the same."
Mare: "I was talking to Mrs. Clydesdale, and she said her family eats them all the time. She said her stud's performance went up over ten percent after they started eating rolled oats. He could pull a plow all day long and still come home frisky and bright-eyed. She told me it's because once they've been rolled, they digest easier. And she said they taste better than whole oats, She said that they are almost as good as oatmeal cookies."
Colt: "Yeck! Who would eat oatmeal cookies? Even a pig would turn his nose up at oatmeal cookies."
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