Sold on a Monday

Ellis Reed is in Laurel Township, Pennsylvania, in August 1931. Ellis takes Society pictures, not exactly the “hard-nosed reporting” he wants to do (7). He does like to take photos of natural scenes. So on that day, when Ellis is looking through his camera lens, he sees two boys on a porch next to a sign, “2 children for sale,” and takes their picture.

Ellis knows that since the stock market crash in 1929, many parents take their children to orphanages or send them to relatives hoping they will be fed and clothed. But selling children made the Depression’s dark days even darker. Still, Ellis knew that hunger made people desperate. He speaks to the boys: two brothers of an age that if adopted would be put to work because only babies are welcomed as part of the family. He can see no signs of life in the home, so he drives his “old clunker” Model T back to Philadelphia (8). Ellis is hoping to erase the memory of what he saw. He wonders if he and Henry, his dead younger brother, would have met the same fate if Henry had lived.  

In the Examiner’s newsroom on a Friday afternoon, Lily, secretary to Howard Trimble, the editor in chief and also Ellis’s boss, is collecting photographs in the darkroom when she sees a group of photos that she knows are Ellis’s: simple pictures of a tree with initials carved and another of a simple flower. Lily thinks that she and Ellis work in jobs that do not take full advantage of their skills. Ellis writes for the women’s pages, but takes photos with considerable detail that most people would look past. But when Lily sees Ellis’s photo of the brothers for sale, “Like cattle at market” (12), she wants to help them because she is keeping a secret about her son, Samuel, whom she sees every weekend at her parents’ home in northern Delaware. The picture reinforces Lily’s pain about the choice she made to have her son and the need for every child to feel wanted, so she includes the picture in Trimble’s group of photos, hoping to create something positive “out of the utterly horrible” (13).

Ellis is rushing around his small apartment, past deadline. He imagines that one day he will be able to afford gasoline to drive to work. He arrives at the smoke-filled Examiner city room to learn that Lou Baylor, his immediate boss, and the managing editor, is not around, but Trimble wants to see him. Trimble asks Ellis to explain the photo of the children.

Ellis thinks he is in trouble for the late deadline and using the company’s camera and film to take the shot. So, Ellis explains that he worked at the Examiner for five years and does whatever assignment he can, including two years writing for the Society pages, and he works hard. But Trimble offers him a feature article to go and interview the boys and their parents. Ellis agrees. But once he considers what the exposure could do to the family, he asks to put the feature into a broader perspective—to explain why things like an economic downturn keep happening. When Trimble suggests reassigning the feature, Ellis agrees to write the story because it will get him closer to his dream of a byline—just like those of the chain-smoking Examiner reporter Clayton Brauer.

Lily is in the park on her lunch break recalling how tenants at the boardinghouse think she is “too prim and proper” (24), a characterization she rejects given Samuel. She sees Ellis writing, notebook out, papers crumbled around him. She relates his doggedness to her own days working on her high school newspaper. Lily feels responsible for his fate and knows she should not further involve herself in his story. But when Ellis invites her to sit down, she does, noticing Ellis’s blue eyes and his grin and skin coloring that remind her of Samuel (26).

Ellis tells her his problems with the story. Lily does not let on that she heard Trimble characterize it as “stale.” Ellis explains his approach, but Lily wonders why he did not write about the personal connection. She asks about his reaction when he saw the children and the sign. Ellis tells her about his brother: The sign did not upset him because of how resilient children are; “they only realize how unfair their lives are if you tell them” (28). Ellis thanks Lily for her insights. And even though she was not honest about Samuel and why the picture matters to her, Lily feels better about her own choices.

Ellis learns that the newspaper will publish his story. He hopes to be assigned to the City News desk and escape being made fun of. Because he works on the Society beat—mostly reserved for female reporters—the other reporters call him a “sob sister,” a nickname for female reporters.

Ellis tells Lily that the article will run in Thursday’s paper, then asks her on a date. She declines. Just as he is leaving her desk, Baylor says Ellis’s photo is ruined. Ellis only took one photo, but Baylor is adamant that he wants another “by end of workday” (34). So, Ellis heads back to Laurel in hopes of offering money for more photos.

At the house, Ellis sees the sign on the porch, but no one is home. Ruby Dillard, a little girl in shirtless overalls, clutching some dandelions, tells him the family is gone. After Ruby sells him some dandelions and runs home, Ellis remembers Lily’s advice about not giving up. He takes his camera and the sold sign, and heads to Ruby’s house to get a photo of Ruby and hopefully another sibling to recreate his original picture.