The Thirteenth Trunk by Vida Jameson (Saturday Evening Post, 8th February 1947)1 starts with Lynn, who is working as a switchboard operator for a New York company called Courlandt Coal on a busy winter’s day. During the rush she gets a call on a disconnected line—but nonetheless hears a strangely accented caller called Van Kieft saying that he wants coal from Riven Hill. She quickly passes him on to a salesman called Jack Blake (who she has a crush on).
Later, Blake arrives at the order room with a coffee for Lynn, and he tells her about the conversation with the “screwball” that she put through to him. Apparently Van Kieft told Blake that he arrived in New York with a shipment from Riven Hill (an anthracite mine in Pennsylvannia) and that he needs a piece of that coal to get home. Blake concludes his story by saying that Van Kieft is obviously a drunk, a homesick miner . . . or a lost gnome!
The rest of the story develops two subplots: the first is a problem at the local hospital, which has been sent the wrong kind of coal and is having a problem with its heating, and the second is Lynn’s discovery, after another call with Van Kieft, and then having him turn up at the office, that he really is a gnome.
These two threads resolve in the remainder of the story (spoiler), which sees Blake identify the problem at the hospital (too fine a grade of coal is falling through the grates of the boilers before it can burn) and organise a replacement shipment of coal for them. The company can’t deliver, however, partly because of a carbon monoxide incident that puts several drivers out of action, and partly because the streets are snow- and ice-bound. Step forward Van Klieft, who says he is an elemental being and—if given a piece of his native Riven Hill coal—will be able to “do anything in the earth”. When Van Klieft finally gets the coal he needs, he takes Blake and the shipment directly to the hospital:
Five minutes later a truck was on the scales, loading for the hospital.
Ginger, seeing Lynn’s uneasiness, relieved her at the switchboard. Lynn seated herself with a good view of the window, pretending to sort orders. She saw Jack come out and climb into the cab. He saw her and blew her a kiss.
A few seconds later a tiny brown-and-green figure scuttled past and sprang up beside Jack. Lynn saw with relief that Van Kieft was too little to be seen, once in the truck.
At that, it turned out to be impossible to fool the yard laborers completely. The truck rolled off the scales and turned down the street. Presently an excited and gesticulating group of workmen was gathered out in front of the office. Grant strode out and restored order. But all that afternoon the gossip filtered into the office. One of the men swore that “t’at crazy salesman, he jus’ drive across Lenox Avenoo and disappear into t’at hill. So help me. Miss Dawson, I saw wit’ my own eyes!” p. 123
The hospital get their coal, Blake gets a promotion from sales to engineering and, presumably, Lynn gets her man.
Although this sounds like a fairly lightweight Unknown-type fantasy, I’d make two observations: first, it’s an amusing and polished piece, especially for a debut story and, second, it has a very realistic setting (Jameson must have worked in this kind of office at some point in her life). This latter not only grounds the frothier fantasy part of the story, but it’s also pretty interesting account of a lost time and almost lost trade.
*** (Good). 5,400 words. Story link. Saturday Evening Post Archive Subscriptions.
1. I ended up reading this story as the result of a daisy chain of links and comments, which started with a review of the Summer 1950 issue of F&SF by Rich Horton. This led to a discussion of some of the contributors, one of whom was Cleve Cartmill: when I looked up his Wikipedia entry, I discovered that he was at one point married to Vida Jameson, the daughter of SF writer Malcolm Jameson. I recognised her name as Vida was mentioned by Alfred Bester in Hell’s Cartographers, where Bester stated that, at informal writer’s lunches he attended in the late 1930s, “Now and then [Malcolm Jameson] brought along his pretty daughter who turned everybody’s head.” (Malcolm Jameson’s ISFDB page is here, and I recommend reading his fantasy story—later turned into a Twilight Zone episode—Blind Alley).
My comment about Cleve Cartmill and Vida Jameson led to the posting of another link, which not only had a photo of her, but also provided the information that, while she was temporarily living with Robert and Virginia Heinlein, she published a story in the Saturday Evening Post (the same issue that published Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth)—which led me to finding that copy on the Internet Archive.
I also note in passing that Malcolm Jameson’s wife, Mary McGregor, also published a fantasy story, Transients (Unknown Worlds, February 1943), which is also worth a look.
Finally, there is a Jameson genealogy blog here, maintained by Wendy McClure, Malcolm Jameson and Mary McGregor’s great-granddaughter.