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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Books by Elizabeth Camden
  3. Title Page
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Historical Note
  47. Questions for Discussion
  48. In 2020, look forCaroline Delacroix’sstory in
  49. About the Author
  50. Back Ads
  51. Back Cover

She looked at Gray. “How much do you suppose it costs the Magruders to make a bottle of the cheap vanilla flavoring?”

“Four cents,” he said immediately. “I had Otis figure it out.”

“And how much do they sell it for?”

“A dollar.”

“And do you know how many bottles they sell?”

Gray shook his head. “I know they cook it up by the tanker, but I don’t know how much they sell. A lot, I’m sure.”

And plenty of those bottles would have been sold in Kansas. For each adulterated product, the Magruders pocketed plenty of money, and that meant they were tricking farmers in Kansas, factory workers in Boston, and meat packers in Chicago. All over America, there were people who stood on their feet while laboring hard for every penny, and they had a right to know what they were buying.

“I know the meeting is only going to deal with the military contracts,” Annabelle said, “but why not hold the Magruders’ feet to the fire for every jar of food they sell anywhere in the country?”

“The army isn’t going to entertain discussion about the general food supply,” Gray said.

“Wait a minute.” Caroline straightened as a look of fierce concentration came over her face. “What if they don’t know our real aim? Perhaps we focus on a demand to list ingredients on food supplied to the military, get the Magruders to agree, then hit them with a second punch. Demand they treat the general market with the same respect as the military. I can be sure the press is there so they can report on every word. If we play our cards right, we can paint them into a corner.”

It would take a mountain of data to prove the Magruders had been systematically cheating their customers, but Annabelle knew how to start looking.

Forty

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Over the next three days, Annabelle worked alongside Gray in the glorious reading room of the Library of Congress, plowing through census records to create a demographic profile of the country. They used commercial reports to figure out how much food was produced and sold within each state. The Bureau of Labor Statistics told them how much the average farmer, factory worker, and store clerk earned. The Magruders’ meeting with the army was fast approaching, so they worked through lunch and dinner to compile their mountain of statistics.