Plunk and Tallow were there looking dilapidated and frightened
MARK TIDD, EDITOR
BY
CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND
author of
“Mark Tidd” “Mark Tidd in the Backwoods”
“Mark Tidd’s Citadel” etc.
ILLUSTRATED
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Mark Tidd, Editor
Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
ILLUSTRATIONS
[Plunk and tallow were there looking dilapidated and frightened]
[We went to selling papers as hard as we could, and before noon we were cleaned out]
[“Huh!” says the second man, and we recognized him as the man with the black gloves]
[Jethro just rushed at us and grabbed a-holt of Rock, rough-like]
CHAPTER I
“Binney,” says Mark Tidd to me, “the Wicksville Trumpet is b-b-busted.”
“Well,” says I, “it’s been cracked for quite a spell. It hain’t been tootin’ loud enough to notice for a year.”
“Used to be a g-good newspaper once,” says Mark.
“Yes—once,” says I, “but not more ’n once. That hain’t any record. If I’d been gettin’ out a paper fifty-two times a year for twenty years I bet I could ’a’ made more ’n one of those times a good one.”
Mark looked at me sudden out of his little eyes that had to sort of peek up over his fat cheeks. “Binney,” says he, “you hain’t as useless as I calc’lated. That’s an idea.”
“Oh,” says I, “is that what it is? I sort of figgered maybe it was a notion.”
Mark turned the whole of him around so he could face Plunk Smalley and Tallow Martin, who were standing behind him. By rights you ought to have a turn-table to move Mark around on, like they have for locomotives. He’s ’most as heavy as a locomotive, and when he talks sometimes it sounds like a locomotive pulling a load up-hill, snorting and puffing—he stutters so.
“Fellows,” says he, “this Binney Jenks is g-g-gettin’ so he talks like a minstrel show. Makes reg’lar j-jokes one right after another. Looks l-like he hain’t got time to be sensible any more.”
“But what’s the idea?” says Tallow.
“Want to talk to my father first,” says Mark. “C-come on.”
Mark’s father didn’t use to have any money at all. He just sat around inventing things and reading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. First he’d invent a little, and then he’d read a little, and it was a wonder he didn’t get the two mixed up. But finally he up and invented a turbine-engine, and it made such a pile of money for him that he didn’t need to do a thing but read Gibbon and carry bushel-baskets of dollars to the bank every little while.
Usually when a man goes and gets rich all of a sudden there’s some difference in him. He builds him a big house and hires a lot of folks to brush his clothes and make his beds and cook chicken for him three meals a day. But not Mr. Tidd. You wouldn’t ever think he had a cent more than he used to. He kept his little machine-shop in the barn, and wore overalls mostly—when he didn’t get on his Sunday suit by mistake. He was as like as not to do that very thing, if Mark’s mother didn’t keep her eye on him. He was a fine kind of a man, but he couldn’t remember things for a cent. If Mrs. Tidd sent him to the grocery for a bottle of vanilla, he’d like as not bring home a bag of onions. As far as he’d get with remembering, you see, would be that he wanted something with a smell to it.
Mrs. Tidd was fine, too. She scolded quite considerable, but that was just make-believe. If you’d come in sudden and tell her you were hungry and wanted a piece of bread-and-butter she’d sort of frown, and say you couldn’t have it and that it wasn’t good for boys to be stuffing themselves between meals—and then, most likely, she’d call you back and give you a piece of pie.
Getting rich hadn’t changed her, either. Once she tried keeping a hired girl, but it only lasted a week. She claimed it was more work following the girl around and saving what she wasted than it was to do the work itself.
Well, we hustled up to Mark’s house and went back to his father’s shop. Mr. Tidd, in greasy overalls, sat right smack in the middle of the floor, reading a book that looked like it was pretty close to worn out. We didn’t have to ask what it was—it was Gibbon. He didn’t need to read it; he could have recited it if he’d a mind to.
“Hello, pa,” says Mark.
Mr. Tidd looked up sort of vague, as if he wondered who this stranger could be. Then he says: “Howdy, Marcus Aurelius. I was hopin’ maybe you’d drop in. Young eyes is better ’n old ones. Take a sort of a kind of a look around to see if you can find a chunk of lead—about four inches square and six inches long. Pretty hefty it was. Don’t see how I come to mislay it.”
We looked and looked, and no lead was anywhere to be found. But Mark did find a package with two pounds of butter in it.
“What’s the b-b-butter for, pa?” he asked.
“Why,” says Mr. Tidd, scratching his head, “why, seems to me like your ma sent me after that butter. Guess I must ’a’ fetched it in and clean forgot it.”
“Um!” says Mark, and out of the shop he went. In two minutes he came back, lugging the chunk of lead.
“Where’d you git it, Marcus Aurelius?” says Mr. Tidd.
“In the ice-b-box,” says Mark. “Boon’s I see that b-butter I knew right off where the lead was. You got the lead same time you did the butter, didn’t you, pa?”
“Yes,” says Mr. Tidd.
Mark nodded his head like he’d known it all along. “Sure,” says he, “and you p-p-put the lead in the ice-box and fetched the butter out to the shop.”
“I swan!” says Mr. Tidd. “I calc’late your ma ’u’d been some s’prised if she started spreadin’ bread, eh?” He chuckled and chuckled, and so did we.
“Pa,” says Mark, when we quit laughing, “there was s-s-somethin’ I wanted to talk over with you.”
“Go ahead,” says Mr. Tidd.
“I got the idea from Binney,” says Mark.
“Huh!” says I, “I hain’t had any ideas this week.”
“Your b-best ideas,” says Mark, “is the ones you don’t know you have.”
“What’s the idee?” asked Mr. Tidd.
“I’m thinkin’,” says Mark, “of becomin’ an editor.”
“Sho!” says Mr. Tidd. He was surprised, and I guess maybe we three boys weren’t surprised, too! But if you’re around much with Mark Tidd you’ve got to get used to it. He’s always surprising you; it’s a regular business with him.
“What you goin’ to be editor of?” says I.
“The Wicksville Trumpet—if pa’s willin’,” says he.
I grinned. I almost laughed out loud. “Shucks!” says I.
“I’ll bet he can do it,” says Plunk Smalley.
Mark didn’t pay any attention to us, but just talked to Mr. Tidd. “The paper’s b-b-busted,” says he, stuttering for all that was in him, “and it’s goin’ to be s-s-sold at s-sheriff’s sale. I figger it’ll go cheap. Now, pa, can’t you make out to buy it for us?” Mind how he said us? That’s the kind of a fellow he was. If you were a friend of his he stuck to you, and whatever he started you could be in if you wanted to.
“Um!” says Mr. Tidd. “A newspaper’s a mighty important thing, Marcus Aurelius. I don’t call to mind that Gibbon mentions any of ’em in this book, but they’re important jest the same. Figger you could make out to run it so’s not to do any harm?”
“Yes, pa,” says Mark.
“I’ll talk it over with your ma,” says Mr. Tidd. That was always the way with him. He had to talk over with Mrs. Tidd every last thing he did, if it wasn’t anything more important than digging worms to go fishing. Yes, sir, he’d ask her what corner of the garden she thought was most likely for worms, and she’d tell him, and nobody could get him to dig anywheres else, either.
We all went traipsing into the kitchen, where Mrs. Tidd was baking a batch of fried-cakes.
“Git right out of here,” she says. “I’m busy. Won’t have you underfoot. Git right out.”
“Now, ma,” says Mr. Tidd, “we wasn’t after fried-cakes—though one wouldn’t go bad at this minute. We want to talk newspaper.”
“Go talk it to somebody else,” says Mrs. Tidd. “What about newspapers?” Now wasn’t that just like her? First tell us to talk to somebody else, and then ask about it in the same breath. “Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, you keep your hands off’n them fried-cakes,” she said, sharp-like.
“Why,” says Mr. Tidd, “Marcus Aurelius wants I should buy the Wicksville Trumpet for him and the boys.”
“Nonsense!” says Mrs. Tidd, with a sniff, handing two crisp, brown fried-cakes to each of us. “Nonsense!”
“Ma,” says Mark, “it’s goin’ to be s-s-sold by the sheriff. Then there won’t be any more paper here. How’ll you ever git along without the p-p-p-personals to read?”
“Nonsense!” says Mrs. Tidd again.
“We can b-buy it dirt cheap,” says Mark, “and we can run it and m-make money while we’re doin’ it, and sell out after a while and m-make a profit.”
“What you’d make,” says Mrs. Tidd, “would be monkeys of yourselves. No use arguin’ with me. You can’t doit.” She turned her back and dropped some more cakes into the grease. “How much you calc’late it’ll cost?” says she.
“Two-three h-hunderd dollars,” says Mark.
“Jest be throwin’ it away,” says Mrs. Tidd. “Now clear out. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
We turned and went out. Before we were off the back stoop she came to the door. “You go to Lawyer Jones,” says she, “and have him do the buyin’. Hain’t one of you fit to dicker for a cent’s worth of dried fish.”
Mark he looked at me and winked. He knew his ma pretty well, and so did we; but this time I thought she meant what she said.
We all hurried down to Lawyer Jones’s office and told him about it. He acted like he thought Mr. Tidd was crazy, and he said it was an outrage to put the control of a Moulder of Public Opinion—that’s what he called a newspaper—? into the hands of harum-scarum boys. But all the same he chuckled a little and says he figured Wicksville was in for stirring times and he was glad he was alive to watch what was going to happen.
“Tidd,” said Lawyer Jones, when we were through talking about the paper, “did you know Henry Wigglesworth died last night?”
“No,” says Mr. Tidd, looking as if he didn’t quite know who Henry Wigglesworth was. But we boys knew Mr. Wigglesworth was ’most as rich as Mr. Tidd, so folks said. He owned a great big farm—hundreds of acres of it—just outside of town, and he was one of the directors of the bank and of the electric-light company. Altogether, folks believed he must have pretty close to a quarter of a million dollars, and that’s a heap, I can tell you.
Everybody knew Mr. Wigglesworth, but not many were acquainted with him. What I mean by acquainted is what we call so in Wicksville. It means you stop to talk with him, and drop in at his house and stay to dinner if you want to, and go to help when his horse gets sick, and ask him to come help if you get in some kind of a pickle, that’s being acquainted. Well, nobody I know of was that way with Mr. Wigglesworth. I don’t know as I ever heard of a man that had been inside Mr. Wigglesworth’s big house, or that had had Mr. Wigglesworth in his house.
He wasn’t exactly mean. No, he wasn’t that. He was just big, and stern-looking, and dignified, and acted like he wanted folks to let him alone. Mark said to me one day that he acted like he was always sorry about something, but I don’t see what made Mark think so. Anyhow, folks were afraid of him and let him alone, which, probably, was just what he wanted. But he was talked about considerable, you can bet.
The way he lived all alone, with just one man that did his cooking and helped take care of the big house, made folks talk, because it was queer. Come to think about it, everything about that house of Mr. Wigglesworth’s was queer. Sort of spooky, I’d call it.
And now he was dead.
“Yes, sir,” said Lawyer Jones, “he’s dead and gone. I was called up there before daylight, Tidd, and what d’you suppose I found in the house?”
“Wa-al,” says Mr. Tidd, “I dunno ’s I’d be prepared to state.”
“A boy,” says Lawyer Jones, and looked at us with the kind of expression a man wears when he expects he’s going to startle you. And he did it, all right.
“A b-boy!” says Mark Tidd.
“A boy,” says Lawyer Jones again. “About fifteen, I calc’late he is.”
“Who is he?” says Mark.
“That,” says Lawyer Jones, “is what I’d give ten dollars to find out.”
“Didn’t you ask him?” says Tallow.
“He didn’t know himself,” says Lawyer Jones.
“Shucks!” says I, not meaning to be disrespectful.
“It’s the truth,” says Lawyer Jones. “Didn’t know who he was nor what for he was in Henry Wigglesworth’s house. Says his first name is Rock and that he didn’t ever have a last name. Just Rock. Says a man named Peterkin brought him here four days ago, and left him. Says Wigglesworth never spoke to him, but just come sneakin’ in one night after he was in bed, with a lamp in his hand, and stood looking down at him. The boy says he pretended he was asleep. That’s all there is to it, and I wish I had an idee what it all means.”
I looked at Mark Tidd. His little eyes were twinkling the way they do when he’s all wrought up and interested, and his lips were pressed together so they looked kind of white. You could see he was ’most eaten up with curiosity. But he didn’t ask any questions.
In a few minutes we went out and walked back to Mr. Tidd’s shop, where we all sat down to talk things over.
“R-reg’lar mystery,” says Mark.
“Can’t make no head or tail to it,” says Tallow.
And that’s what Wicksville in general decided—that they couldn’t make head nor tail to it. It gave everybody in town something to talk about and figure over.
When the Man With the Black Gloves came to town and Henry Wigglesworth’s will was found, folks puzzled more than ever.
But we boys had other fish to fry—except Mark. I guess he had the Wigglesworth mystery more in his mind than he did the Wicksville Trumpet. But after the next morning he had to think more about the Trumpet, for Lawyer Jones bid it in for us at the sheriff’s sale of three hundred and thirty-two dollars—and Mark Tidd was a real, live, untamed editor.
CHAPTER II
Mr. Tidd went along with us when we took possession of the Wicksville Trumpet. He headed straight for the room where the machinery was, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall sticking out of his pocket. Which one interested him first would have him for the morning—so Mark began to talk printing-press right off. Mr. Tidd went and looked it over and sniffed in a gentle, mild-mannered sort of way.
It wasn’t much of a press, I expect. You worked it with a big crank, like turning a coffee-grinder. We boys had seen it done lots of times, for we’d hung around the printing-office more or less, and sometimes we’d helped fold papers and such things. So we had some experience. Some was about all we had, though. We knew as much about running a newspaper as a man that’s picked a sliver out of his finger knows about surgery.
Mr. Tidd shucked off his coat and started prodding around in the insides of the press.
Mark motioned to us and we sneaked out into the office.
“Now,” says Mark, “we c-c-commence. I’m editor and you f-fellows are everything else.”
“What else is there?” says I. “I want to pick out a good job.”
“You can be assistant b-business manager,” says Mark.
“Assistant?” says I. “Who’s the real thing?”
“Me,” says Mark.
“Huh!” says I.
“You’re a reporter, too,” says he. “You and Plunk and T-Tallow.”
“What’s my job?” says Tallow.
“You’re a-a-assistant foreman of the pressroom,” says Mark.
“Huh! Who’s foreman?”
“Me,” says Mark.
“What job have you got that I can be assistant to?” says Plunk.
“You’re assistant circulation manager,” says he.
“All we got to do is be those things you’ve said, and reporters besides?” says I.
“That, and hustle for ads., and help run the press, and fold papers, and learn to set type, and clean up, and help l-l-lick folks that come in to l-lick the editor, and run the job press, and collect money, and get subscribers, and d-d-drum up printin’ jobs. When you hain’t got anythin’ else to d-do, you can be l-lookin’ for news.”
“Too much loafin’ about this to suit me,” says Tallow.
“Say,” says Plunk, “how does a newspaper make money, anyhow?”
“It d-don’t,” says Mark. “Anyhow old Rogers always said so; but it t-tries to make money by gettin’ folks to subscribe, and by havin’ f-folks advertise, and by doin’ printin’ jobs—like tickets for the Congregational Young Ladies’ Auxiliary Annual Chicken-Pie Supper.”
“How many subscribers did the Trumpet have when it busted?” says I.
“Hunderd and t-twenty-six,” says Mark. “And listen to this, you f-fellows, we’ve got to have a thousand.”
“Huh!” says I. “You’ll have to git a few dozen fam’lies to move in first.”
“Yes,” says Plunk, “and about that type-settin’—who’s goin’ to teach it to us?”
Mark scratched his head at that. Who was going to teach us how to do it? But that was a worry that didn’t last long. We found a bridge to cross that difficulty and the name of it was Tecumseh Androcles Spat. He came in through the door that very minute.
He looked like Abraham Lincoln in his shirtsleeves. Tall he was, and bony, and he hadn’t any coat on, and he did have one of those old flat-brimmed silk hats.
He looked at us a moment and then says:
“Do I find myself standing in the editorial sanctum of one of those bulwarks of liberty and free speech—the local newspaper?”
“Right on the edge of it,” says Mark.
“Where then, may I ask, is that great and good man, the editor?”
Mark sort of puffed out his chest and looked important.
“I am the editor,” says he.
The tall man looked sort of taken back, but just the same he took off his hat with a sweep.
“I greet you sir,” he said. “You see before you no less a person than Tecumseh Androcles Spat. From my earliest youth the smell of printer’s ink has been in my nose. My services have been sought, obtained, and finally dispensed with in no less than one hundred and seventy-four printing establishments. I desire to round out the number and make it a full century and three-quarters. Therefore, I apply to you for employment.”
“Can you set type?” says Mark, beginning to look cheerful.
“Stick type? Can Tecumseh Androcles Spat stick type? My young friend, my first tooth was cut on a quoin; I learned my letters at the case; at the immature age of seven—an infant prodigy, with all modesty I say it—I could set the most complicated display. To-day, in my maturity, you perceive me unrivaled in my profession. I am the Compleat Printer.”
“You can have a j-job,” says Mark, “but I dunno if you’ll ever get your wages.”
“No matter, no matter. I am accustomed to that. Give me but a corner to slumber in, food for my stomach, tobacco for my pipe, and my soul is at peace.”
“You’re hired,” says Mark.
“Where’s your coat?” says I.
“In useful service, my young friend. It hangs from crossed sticks in the midst of a garden patch a mile or more away. It was a lovely garden patch wherein grew peas, string-beans, luscious cabbages, fragrant onions. But it was being destroyed. The birds of the air descended upon it in thousands. I looked, I comprehended. What a pity, said I. So, to avert further depredations, I stripped my coat, hung it from crossed sticks, and stood it in the midst of the garden patch. The garden needed it worse than I. Each time I gaze upon my uncoated arms I say to myself, ‘Tecumseh Androcles Spat is doing his part to preserve the nation’s food.’”
“He talks like he was a lot educated,” says Plunk.
Tecumseh Androcles overheard him. “Educated. Ah, indeed. Have I not in my day set type for every page of Goober’s Grammar, Mills’s Spelling Book, to say nothing of histories, philosophies, dictionaries. But most important of all, almanacs. Young gentlemen, I have set no less than ten almanacs from beginning to end. What university, I ask you, can equip you with the facts contained in a family almanac?”
“You’ll n-n-need all you know around here,” Mark says, with a grin. “We just bought this p-paper at sheriff’s sale, and we’ve got the whole business to learn.”
“Good! Splendid! You’re in luck. Tecumseh Androcles Spat is the man to teach you. Where’ll I begin?”
“You might go out in the shop and l-look around. Sort of get the lay of the land,” says Mark.
He hung his silk hat on a hook and, in the most pompous, dignified way you ever saw, he stalked out into the press-room.
“Now for b-business,” says Mark. “First thing ’s to get some s-subscribers. Folks’ll take the Trumpet if they know it’s goin’ to amount to s-somethin’. We’ve got to tell ’em.”
“How?” says I.
“By talkin’ it, singin’ it, w-whistlin’ it and p-playin’ it on your mouth-organ,” says Mark, with a grin. “Also by printin’ it. We’ll get out some hand-bills—and some bigger bills to stick on fences and things. I’ll get up the bills. While I’m doin’ it you fellows go out and see what you can l-learn from Tecumseh Androcles.”
So Mark sat down to his desk and got a pencil and commenced scratching his head. The rest of us went out into the other room—and there was Mr. Tidd and Tecumseh Androcles in a regular old argument. Both of them had forgot all about working.
“’Tain’t so,” Mr. Tidd said, as loud and excited as he was capable of. “There hain’t no book got more solid and useful knowledge in it than Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It’s better ’n the whole kit and bundle of the rest of the books in the nation.”
“My friend,” said Tecumseh, “your view is narrow, not to say biased. I have read the volumes you praise. Without doubt there is merit in them. Oh, without doubt. But as compared to that marvelous book, Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler, it is the nickering of a match to the shining of the noonday sun.”
“Angler,” says Mr. Tidd, disgusted as could be.
“Yes, Angler,” says Tecumseh.
“Huh!” says Mr. Tidd.
“Do not snort at Izaak Walton,” roared Tecumseh. “I will not stand by to see it done.”
“Then don’t go belittlin’ Gibbon,” says Mr. Tidd.
“Have you read The Compleat Angler?” shouted Tecumseh.
“No,” says Mr. Tidd, more warlike than I thought he had it in him to be, “nor I hain’t read the Compleat Fly-catcher, nor the Compleat Cold-catcher, nor—?”
“Sir!” yelled Tecumseh, reaching as if to take off his coat and finding it was off. It sort of surprised him, I guess, but he got over it and shook his fist under Mr. Tidd’s nose. He quit talking educated and careful, too—just for that minute.
“Your Gibbon wasn’t nothin’ but a flea on Walton’s collar,” says he.
It looked like there was going to be a regular rumpus, so I sort of stepped up and says:
“How’s the printin’-press gettin’ along, Mr. Tidd?”
“Eh?” says he. “Printin’-press. What printin’-press?”
“This one,” says I.
“Um!” says he, rubbing his chin. “Calc’late I plum’ forgot it. What’s matter with it, Binney?”
“You was goin’ to find out,” says I.
“So I was.... So I was,” says he.
“And you,” says I to Tecumseh Androcles, “you quit botherin’ him. He’s busy. See if it hain’t catchin’.”
Well, sir, you should have seen Tecumseh go to work. He could work, too, and knew just what he was doing. He set every one of us doing something, and it didn’t seem like ten minutes, though it must have been an hour or so, when Mark came out with some paper in his hand.
“Here’s the hand-bill,” says he. “Tecumseh Androcles, can you s-s-set this up so’s it’ll look strikin’?”
“Give it to me, young man, and you shall see. Ah, you shall see.”
So Tecumseh went to work and in no time had the thing set up. He fixed it so it would go on the job press and then we began printing it. Just let me tell you it was a jim-dandy. This is how it went:
THE WICKSVILLE “TRUMPET”
IS GOING TO TOOT
New Editor, New Management
New Policy, New Everything
First Toot Thursday
Mark Tidd and Company will
give this town a paper that will
make the State jealous.
$1.25 a Year
If there’s anything you want
to know, look in the “Trumpet”
for it. It’ll be there.
Don’t crowd, don’t push. But
hand in your subscription early.
If you miss the first toot you’ll
never forgive yourself.
SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE
By that time it was noon. Tecumseh was the first one to notice it.
“It is my custom,” said he, “to eat at this time. As I understand it you are to supply me with nourishment.”
“That was the b-bargain,” says Mark. “Come on.”
He went out with Tecumseh, and the rest of us followed. We knew he didn’t have any money to buy a meal with, because he’d spent his last cent the day before, and we wondered what he was up to. He went straight to the Acme Restaurant.
“Where’s the boss?” he says to the girl at the counter.
“Kitchen,” says she.
“Call him out,” says he.
“Call him yourself,” says she. “Your voice is as strong as mine.”
So Mark yelled, and in a minute out came Mr. Schmidt, waddling like an old duck.
“Vat iss?” says he.
“I want to b-board this gentleman here,” says Mark, pointing to Tecumseh.
“Yass,” says Mr. Schmidt.
“But I hain’t got any m-money.”
“Den you don’t got any board,” says Mr. Schmidt——
“But I’ve g-got a business p-proposition to make you.”
“Make it quick, cakes iss in dat stove,” says Mr. Schmidt.
“We own the newspaper,” says Mark. “It’s going to be the g-greatest newspaper in the State. Everybody’s goin’ to read it. You’re goin’ to r-r-read it. Now, I want to make money for you.”
“Why?” says Mr. Schmidt.
“Because,” says Mark, “I like the way your cakes smell,” and then he went ahead quick, telling the old fellow how much more money he would make if he advertised in the Trumpet and told folks about his pies and his meats, and what he was going to serve for meals. Once or twice Mr. Schmidt tried to interrupt, but Mark never gave him a chance. He ended up: “Now, Mr. Schmidt, you board Tecumseh Androcles and give him three good meals a day, and we’ll advertise your place so every f-f-farmer that comes to town will want to eat here. I’ll write the ads. m-myself. I wouldn’t do that for everybody. We’ll give you a full column every w-w-week.”
“I don’t—” began Mr. Schmidt, but Mark was at him again, and pretty soon Mr. Schmidt waved his hands in the air and says: “Stop. Vill you stop? Eh? Cakes I haff in dat oven. Dey schpoil. I advertise. Sure. I do anyt’ing if you go away. T’ree meal a day. You advertise a column in your paper. Iss dat it?”
“Yes,” says Mark, and waved Tecumseh to a seat at a table. “Be sure you eat a c-c-column’s worth every week,” says he, and grinned at us.
That was our first stroke of business. I guess it was a good bargain. Once I saw Tecumseh eating, and I guess we didn’t get much the worst of it. No, I guess Mark Tidd didn’t get beaten very bad on that bargain.
We went outside and started for home. At the corner we nearly bumped into a stranger. He was a small man, with the blackest eyes you ever saw, and he scowled at us as if we hadn’t any right to be alive. One funny thing about him was that he had on black kid gloves.
“I don’t l-like that man’s looks,” says Mark, turning to stare after him. “Wouldn’t trust him with a red-hot stove, ’cause maybe his hands would be made of asbestos.”
“Did look mean,” says I. “Wonder who he was?”
“Dunno,” says Mark, “and don’t want to.”
But he was mistaken about that. Before long Mark Tidd did want to know who he was, and wanted to know it worse than he had ever wanted to know anything in his life.
And that’s how we saw the Man With the Black Gloves for the first time.
CHAPTER III
“The t-trouble with this business,” says Mark, when we were back in the office, “is that we haven’t m-much workin’ capital.”
“What’s workin’ capital?” Plunk wanted to know.
“It’s money you have to keep your b-business runnin’. Right now we have to buy ink and p-paper and things. We aren’t t-takin’ in enough money to do it, and to pay rent, and such like. All we’ve got is f-fifty dollars, and that’s got to do. Ma says so. She says dad can t-throw away so much money, but not another cent; and if we can’t make this p-paper pay on what we’ve got, why we can just up and b-bust.”
“Um!” says I. “I guess we better get a wiggle on us, then.”
“C-can’t get many subscribers before the f-first paper comes out, but we’ll print f-f-five hunderd of ’em, anyhow. Cost money, but we got to do it.”
“How’ll you get rid of ’em?” Tallow wanted to know.
“Sell ’em,” says Mark, sharp-like. “We’ll each take a bundle and sell ’em on the s-s-street like in the cities. Get more money out of ’em, too. Subscribers get f-f-fifty-two copies for a dollar and a quarter. We’ll sell ’em for three cents—and folks’ll buy ’em, too. Won’t come down with a year’s subscription right off, but they’ll dig up t-t-three cents just so’s they can make fun of what we’re doin’.”
“Got to have some news for the paper,” I says.
“Yes,” says Mark. “We’ve got a start. There’s the story about Henry Wigglesworth being dead, and about that boy. Probably the will will be r-r-read this week, too. But we’ve got to go after l-little things for p-p-personal items.”
“How d’ye know when a thing’s news?” says Plunk.
“Well,” says Mark, “everything’s news in Wicksville. But some things is better news than others, and we can write m-m-more about ’em. Now, s’pose Sam Wilkins hammers his finger with a h-hammer. Bein’s it’s nobody but Sam, we’d just write a little piece somethin’ like this: ‘Sam Wilkins up and banged his thumb with a hammer, Thursday afternoon. The doctor says Sam’ll recover.’
“But if Sam’s brother was one of the selectmen, we’d say: ‘Samuel Wilkins, brother of our well-known and highly esteemed selectman, Hiram P. Wilkins, painfully injured himself Thursday while working on his brother’s hen-coop. The selectman examined the injured thumb and gave it as his opinion that Samuel would be able to go to work again before the summer was over. Much regret has been expressed over the h-happening, because it delays the completion of the selectman’s splendid new hen-house, which is one any village may be proud of.’ See. T-that’s the idee. If Sam’s brother was President of the United States we’d write a whole column about it, and try to p-p-print a picture of the hurt t-thumb.”
“I see,” says I.
“Me, too,” says the other fellows.
Just then Mr. Greening, of the Big Corner Store, came in.
“Howdy, boys!” says he.
“Howdy!” says we.
“In shape to print some hand-bills?”
“You b-bet,” says Mark. “Reg’lar size?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Five hundred. How much?”
Right off, without so much as waiting to wink, Mark told him.
“All right. Can I have ’em to-morrow sure?”
“Yes, sir. G-gettin’ out jobs on time is our s-s-specialty. Promptness and quality,” says Mark, “is the watchword of this office.”
“Fine. Do a good job on these and I’ll have more for you every week.”
“M-much obleeged,” says Mark.
When Mr. Greening was gone I says to Mark: “How in the world did you know how much to charge him? Bet you got it wrong.”
“You d-d-do, eh?” says Mark, with a twinkle in his little eyes. “Well, if I did, Binney, it hain’t wrong on the losin’ side for us. No, siree. I’ve b-been goin’ over the books the last owner of this p-p-paper left here, to find out how much he charged for j-j-jobs, and what j-jobs was likely to come in. Mr. Greening’s was one of ’em. So when he come I just charged him what the other feller would have charged—and added t-t-ten per cent, to make sure we wouldn’t l-lose anything.”
He looked proud and pleased with himself, like he always does when he does something that’s pretty good. It was pretty good, too. You’ve got to take off your hat to Mark when it comes to making money. He’s a regular schemer, but for all that, he’s fair. Nobody—at least no other kid in Wicksville—would have thought of getting at prices the way Mark did.
“The other owner of the p-p-paper didn’t make money,” says Mark. “That’s why I added ten per cent. If we f-f-find that isn’t enough, we’ll add more—and we’ll get it, too, ’cause we’re goin’ to turn out first-class work—and turn it out just when we p-p-promise to. Folks don’t mind a few cents extry if they get quality and promptness.”
Tecumseh Androcles Spat came in from the composing-room just then, shaking his head from side to side and looking as doleful as a gander on a rainy day.
“Mr. Editor,” said he, “my talents are lying idle. It should not be so. At this moment I should be dazzling the inhabitants of this village with typographical displays such as their eyes have never feasted on. Yet no copy hangs on the hook.”
“In just one s-s-second there’ll be some hangin’ there,” said Mark, and he reached out and stuck the paper Mr. Greening had given him on the hook where stuff is put that the man in the composing-room is to set in type.
Tecumseh Androcles stared at it, cocked his head on one side, wrinkled his nose, and then began making funny motions in the air with one hand like he was drawing lines and making dots and flourishes.
“Good,” says he in a minute. “The thing is done. Tecumseh Androcles Spat sees the completed hand-bill in his mind’s eye—and it is beautiful.”
“M-make it beautiful,” says Mark, “but also make it quick!”
“Young sir,” says Tecumseh, “no compositor between the Broad Atlantic and the boundless Pacific can vie with me in speed. I shall show you.”
And he dodged out into the composing-room so quickly his head seemed to snap like the snapper on the end of a horse-whip.
“I’m afraid,” says Mark, “that Tecumseh’s bothered with what some folks call artistic t-t-temperament. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s hard to m-manage.”
“You’ll manage it, all right,” says Tallow. “I’ll bet you could drive two artistic temperaments in a team.”
“I’d hate to try,” says Mark, but you could see he was tickled. He always likes to be appreciated—and so do the rest of us, I guess.
“Now,” says he, “Plunk and Tallow, scatter and hunt up news. Don’t miss anythin’. F-f-fetch in everything you get to hear, and we’ll use all we can that’s really n-news. Now git—and don’t loaf.”
“Huh!” says Plunk. “Guess we hain’t any more apt to loaf than you are.”
“Reporters always try to loaf,” says Mark. “I read it in a book.”
Then Mark says to me that he shouldn’t be surprised if it would be a good idea for me to go to the hotel and find out who was registered there, and what they came to town for, and how long they were going to stay.
“And,” says he, “if there’s any of t-t-them that sounds like he might be int’restin’, get a talk with him and write up what he says.”
So off I went to the hotel.
“Gimme a look at the register,” says I to Billy Green, the clerk.
“What d’you want to look at the register for?” says Bill, winking at a traveling man that was standing close by.
“To see who’s registered,” says I. “Did you think I wanted to read a poem out of it?”
Bill laughed and pulled the book away.
“No kids allowed,” says he. “I’ll bet your hands are dirty and you’d muss it all up.”
“Bill,” says I, “you better quit makin’ fun of me, or I’ll put a piece in the paper about how you got on the dining-car last week, and didn’t know what finger-bowls was, and drank the water out of your’n, thinkin’ it was lemonade ’cause it had lemon peelin’ in it.”
Bill he got pretty red and looked sideways at the traveling man and tried to laugh it off. But it was so, and I knew it. He didn’t know how I knew it, and I wasn’t going to tell him.
“Do I get to see the register?” says I.
“What you got to do with the newspaper?” he wanted to know.
“Mark Tidd and Plunk and Tallow and me is runnin’ it,” says I, “and I’m after news.”
“Guess I’ll have to let you see it, then,” says he, and he pushed it over.
There was five men registered fresh that morning. Three of them I knew, for they were traveling men that came to town every week. One of the others was just a man from Freesoil that didn’t amount to much, though I wrote a line mentioning that he was in town. The other fellow I’d never heard of.
“Who’s this Silas Spragg?” says I.
“Dunno,” says Billy. “He hain’t stated his business.”
“Guess I’ll interview him, then,” says I. “Maybe there’s some news in him. Where’s he hidin’ away?”
“That’s him on the sidewalk, there,” says Bill, and he pointed to a man about thirty years old who was leaning against a hitching-post in front and looking at the town like he didn’t think much of it.
“Much obliged,” says I, and went out to see Mr. Spragg.
“Good mornin’,” says I. “Is this Mr. Silas Spragg?”
“Yes,” says he, sharp-like. “What of it?”
I figured maybe his breakfast hadn’t agreed with him, or that his shoes was too tight, or something.
“I just saw your name on the register,” says I, “and, bein’ as I represent the newspaper, I figgered I’d better get acquainted with you. Ever been here before?”
“No,” says he. “If I had ’a’ been I wouldn’t have come back this time.”
“Goin’ to stay long?” I asked.
He sort of grinned. “Reg’lar newspaper man, hain’t you?” says he. “Run one of them amateur newspapers?”
“No,” says I, “professional. Reg’lar paper printed on a printin’-press, with advertisin’ in it, issued every Thursday, a dollar and a quarter a year.”
“Huh!” says he. “What paper’s that?”
“The Wicksville Trumpet,” says I.
He laughed. “That’s busted,” says he. “Sheriff took it for debts. You can’t fool me, sonny.”
“Yes,” says I, “it was sold by the sheriff and Mark Tidd’s dad bought it for us four fellers to run. It hain’t busted any more, and, mister, it hain’t goin’ to be busted, either. Guess you don’t know Mark Tidd, do you?”
“No,” says he, “but I hope he didn’t spend much money for his paper.”
“Why?” says I.
“’Cause he’s goin’ to lose it,” says he.
“Maybe,” says I, “he’ll have somethin’ to say about that.”
“So’ll I,” says he, “and here’s some news for you. You’ll like to print it, I’ll bet. I’m a newspaper man myself. Part owner of the Eagle Center Clarion. When we heard the Trumpet was busted we decided to grab on to this town and get out a special edition of the Clarion for it. See? One plant to print two papers. I’m here to be editor of the Wicksville edition.... Now what d’you think about bustin’, eh? Figger there’s room for two papers here?”
“No,” says I; “so you’d better take the noon train back to Eagle Center.”
He laughed, disagreeable-like. “Not me,” says he. “The Clarion’ll own this town in two months. We’ll give ’em a real paper that folks’ll buy and depend on. You might as well shut up shop right off and save expense. Maybe we’d go so far as to give you a few dollars for the junk up at your office.”
“Huh!” says I. “If you’re lookin’ for a row, I guess we can pervide it for you. And we’ll start right off. Sorry I hain’t got time to talk to you any more, but I’ve got somethin’ to do. Yes, Mister Spragg, I’m movin’ on now, and in ten minutes the Eagle Center Clarion’ll be startin’ in to wish it hadn’t ever tried to hog the whole State. Good-by, mister. Better leave while you’ve got change enough left to pay your fare.”
He said something to me that sounded like he was real mad, and I moved off considerable rapid, because I didn’t know but what he’d take it into his head to get rough. Yes, I went away from there prompt, and hurried to the office. Mark was sitting at his desk, editing.
“Hey, Mark,” says I, “we’re up against it again. Seems like we’re always runnin’ up against it. Folks won’t let us have peace.”
“N-n-now what?” says he.
“Eagle Center Clarion’s goin’ to print a special Wicksville edition,” says I. “They’ve got an editor here, and he says he’s goin’ to put us out of business.”
“Um!” says Mark, and turned around so his face was toward the window. “S-s-special edition, eh?” Then he began tugging at his ear like he always does when there’s a problem to figure out or some sort of difficult thing to overcome. “Well,” says he in a minute, “I don’t see how we can s-s-stop ’em. But we’ll let ’em know they’ve got competition, eh, Binney?”
“You bet,” says I.
“Got to m-m-make our first paper a hummer,” says he, “so folks’ll talk about it and wonder what the dickens we’ll p-p-print next week.”
“Fine,” says I. “How’ll we get about it.”
“Best way,” says he, “is to take a chance of gettin’ licked.”
“Sounds good,” says I.
“We’ll p-p-print some real news,” says he, “and we’ll have a c-c-couple of typographical errors that h-happen on purpose.”
“Dunno what they be,” says I, “but they sound int’restin’.”
“They will be,” says he. “I’ll m-m-make ’em myself.”
“Kind of discouragin’ to have another paper crowdin’ in here right at the start,” says I.
“Shucks!” says he. “Just m-m-makes more work and more f-f-figgerin’. ’Tain’t any fun to do a thing that’s easy. Anybody can do an easy thing. Where the fun comes in is havin’ to f-f-fight for it.”
“Maybe,” says I, “but that’s where the worry comes, too.”
“Keep so b-busy you won’t have time to worry,” says he, “and first l-let’s go find your Mister Spragg.”
“Come on,” says I, and off we went to the hotel.
Mr. Spragg was still leaning against the same hitching-post. If he wasn’t going to do anything but hold up a post, I thought to myself, maybe we won’t have such a hard time of it, after all.
“Mister Spragg,” says I, “let me introduce the editor of the Wicksville Trumpet.”
“Him?” says Mr. Spragg, staring at Mark.
“Him,” says I.
Then Mr. Spragg did something he hadn’t ought to have done—not if he was wise. He busted right out laughing in Mark’s face.
“Him the editor!” says Mr. Spragg. “Oh, my goodness! Thought I was up against some kind of a man, but nothin’ but an over-fed kid that’s so fat he can’t hardly waddle. Oh! Oh!”
I kept my eyes on Mark, but he didn’t turn a hair. You would have thought he didn’t even hear what Spragg said, for he just waited for the man to get through laughing, and then he said, quiet-like:
“Glad to meet you, Mister S-s-spragg.”
“Go along, fatty,” says Spragg, “and don’t bother me.”
“I d-d-don’t want to bother you unless I have to,” says Mark, as calm and quiet as a china nest egg. “I figgered maybe you’d like to t-t-talk things over a bit.”
“With you?” says Spragg, as scornful as anything. “No time to bother with kids.”
“All right,” says Mark, still polite as peas. “I j-just wanted to give you the chance, that was all. I don’t b’lieve in sailin’ into a f-feller till there’s some reason for it, and if there’s a chance to be f-friends and keep out hard feelin’, I’m the one to do all I can.”
“Don’t be scairt of me, sonny. I hain’t goin’ to hurt you any—that is, outside of bustin’ up that paper you’re playin’ with.”
“Oh,” says Mark, “you’re aimin’ to do that, eh? I didn’t have any right to complain when you came in here with your p-p-paper. You had a right to if you wanted to. And you had a r-r-right to take away my subscribers and advertisers if you could get ’em—by fair, b-b-business-like means. But you didn’t have a right to come in here d-d-deliberately intendin’ to bust up our business. That hain’t fair or honest.”
He stopped and looked Mr. Spragg over from head to toes.
“Come to t-think of it,” says he, “I don’t b’lieve I like your l-looks. You look like a bluffer to me, and your eyes are too close t-together for folks to be warranted in t-trustin’ you far. So I sha’n’t.... That’s about all. I wanted to be d-d-decent about it, but I guess that hain’t your way of doin’. So I’ll issue a little warnin’. Go as far as you kin to get business. Go after my business as hard as you can m-m-manage—but do it fair and above-board and the way d-decent business men do. As l-long as you stick to the rules there won’t be any trouble. But the f-first time I catch you t-t-tryin’ to do anythin’ underhand or shysterin’ you’ll think you sat down unexpected on to a nest of yaller-jackets. Jest f-f-fix that in your mind, Mister Spragg.... Good-by.”
For a minute Spragg stood looking at Mark bug-eyed. He was ’most strangled with astonishment, I guess. We turned and walked off, and we’d gone fifty feet before he came to himself enough to say a word. Then he yelled:
“Hey, come back here! Hey, you! What you mean talkin’ like that?” And he started after us. But just then Billy Green, the hotel clerk, came out.
“What’s matter?” says he, and then he saw Mark and me. “Hain’t been goin’ up against Mark Tidd, have you?” says he to Spragg.
“That fat kid was sassin’ me,” says he.
“Thank your stars,” says Billy, “that’s all he done to you. Take my advice and forgit it.”
Mark didn’t miss a word of it, and I could see his ears getting pink with pleasure. He wasn’t swell-headed, and I guess I’ve said so before, but he did like to hear nice things said about himself, and more than anything else he liked to know that folks figured he wasn’t the sort you could take advantage of. Mark was different from most fellows. He’d rather have the sharpest brain in town than to win the most events in the Olympic Games. And you could tickle him more by praising something he’d thought up than by praising something he’d just done.
Mark didn’t say anything while we walked a couple of blocks, but a man with one eye, and that one under a patch, could have seen he was studying and studying.
“Well,” says I, “what’s the word?”
“Wisht he hadn’t showed up so s-s-soon,” says Mark, “I was perty busy before. I wanted t-t-time to think and study on somethin’ else for a while. Now I’ll have to think and s-s-study about how to stop Spragg from gettin’ the best of us, and how to get the b-best of him. Only we’ve got to be fair.”
“Sure,” says I, “but what else did you want to figger on?”
“The Wigglesworth business,” says he. “I wanted to p-p-puzzle out what’s goin’ on, and I wanted to s-sneak out and see that boy and t-talk to him. I bet he knows things Lawyer Jones didn’t get out of him. Boys don’t always tell men all they know.... Well, I’ll just have to f-f-find time to do both.”
“We’ll help all we can,” says I. “Maybe we’ll be some good.”
“Now don’t go gettin’ sore,” says Mark. “I hain’t ever slighted you yet, have I? Eh? When anythin’ was g-goin’ on you got plenty to do, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” says I.
“Well,” says he, “more l-likely you’ll get more ’n you want to do this time.... I do wisht I could figger out where that boy comes in. Rock’s his name. What’s he got to do with Henry Wigglesworth? Why didn’t Mr. Wigglesworth speak to him at all? Remember Lawyer Jones said he didn’t. Then what m-m-made Mr. Wigglesworth come s-sneakin’ in at night to look at him? That’s the hardest of all. He could see the b-boy all day. What for did he want to be p-p-prowlin’ in with a lamp to look at him at night? It’s all mixed up. But you can bet there’s s-somethin’ behind it all that’ll m-make a dandy newspaper story when we get to the b-b-bottom of it.”
“Maybe we won’t,” says I.
He turned on me quick. “We will,” says he, “or bust.”
“Huh!” says I. “We can’t always come out on top.”
“We can always if we t-t-try hard enough. The reason some folks is always f-f-failin’ is because they don’t think hard enough and work hard enough. Laziness makes more f-f-failures than bad luck.”
“Maybe,” says I, “but this looks like it was too tough a job for just kids.”
“Wait and see,” says he.
“I’ll help you,” says I.
Lots of fellows would have told me to mind my own business, or maybe laughed at me and said I wasn’t smart enough to help, but not Mark.
“All right,” says he, “two heads is b-better than a sack of meal. What I m-miss you may see, and what you don’t catch on to may stick out plain to me. Let’s get at it.”
CHAPTER IV
The first thing that happened was the coming of the Man With the Black Gloves. All of a sudden we looked up and there he was standing in the door, squinting at us with his disagreeable eyes. You haven’t any idea how quiet he’d come. One second he wasn’t there; the next second there he was, and no fuss about it at all.
“Howdy!” says Mark.
“Proprietor in?” says the man, chopping off his words like he hated to use them at all.
“I’m one of t-them,” says Mark. “What can I do for you?”
“Liner ad. How much?” He didn’t throw in one extra word for good measure. After he was gone Mark says he bet he was stingy as anything. He said he guessed so because he hated to give away the cheapest thing in the world—which is talk.
“Cent a word,” says Mark.
The Man With the Black Gloves poked out a paper to Mark and says, “Head it ‘Personal.’” Then he passed over a quarter and Mark counted the words and gave back the change. The man turned and went out as quiet as he came, not even nodding good-by.
Mark stood looking after him, and when he was out of ear-shot he turned to me and said almost in a whisper, “Binney, l-l-look here!”
Something in his voice made me come quick. I took the paper out of his hand and read what was written on it. It said:
Jethro: On deck. Report. Center Line Bridge. Eight. G. G. G.
“Funny kind of an ad.,” says I.
“F-f-funny kind of a man,” says Mark. “What d’you make of it?”
“Nothin’,” says I.
“He’s up to somethin’,” says Mark.
“Huh!” says I. “Haven’t we got work enough and mysteries enough on hand without goin’ out of our way to find another?”
“But,” says Mark, “this is s-s-suspicious.”
“What of it?” says I.
“Looks to me,” says he, “like it was our d-duty as newspaper men to l-l-look into it. May be for the good of the community.”
“Rats!” says I.
“He hain’t plannin’ no good,” says Mark.
“Likely he hain’t,” says I, “but what business is it of ours?”
“Everything is a newspaper man’s b-business,” says Mark, “even things that hain’t none of his b-business.”
“That sounds crazy,” says I.
“Anyhow,” says he, “I’m goin’ to f-f-find out what’s the meanin’ of this ad.”
“Go ahead,” says I, “and if you get into trouble don’t ask me to pull you out.”
Mark looked at me and grinned, and I grinned back, for it was funny. Usually the one to get folks out of trouble wasn’t me. I was better at getting them into it. But Mark, why, he made a sort of business of jerking us out of scrapes we got into!
“Why,” says I, “would a man put in an ad. like that? Why doesn’t he go tell this Jethro instead of puttin’ it in the paper?”
“One reason,” says Mark, “is because he d-d-don’t want to be seen near where this Jethro is stayin’.”
That did sound reasonable.
“Yes,” says Mark, tugging at his ear. “Jethro’s expectin’ this feller. This Black Glove feller’s the boss, it looks to me Jethro’s either d-doin’ somethin’ or f-f-findin’ out somethin’ for Black Gloves, and this ad. tells him to report. That’s easy. He’s to do his r-r-reportin’ at the Center Line Bridge, and the ‘eight’ means eight o’clock.... But what d-day?”
“Why,” says I, “the day the paper comes out!”
“N-no,” says Mark. “I f-figger he means next day. By that time Jethro’d have time to get his p-p-paper and see the ad. Most likely he’s been told to look for his orders that way.”
“To be sure,” says I, and it did seem pretty clear after Mark reasoned it out, but I never would have got that far in six years of digging.
“So,” says Mark, “you and me will be at Center Line Bridge Friday n-n-night an hour ahead of t-t-time, so’s to hide away and overhear what’s up.”
“And probably git our backs busted,” says I.
“Hain’t n-never got ’em b-busted yet,” says he.
“All right, Mark,” I says. “Where you go I go, but one of these times neither one of us’ll be comin’ back in one piece. No, sir, we’ll be gettin’ scattered all over the county so our folks’ll have to gather us up in a basket.”
“B-b-between now and Friday,” says Mark, changing the subject, “there’s a n-newspaper to get out. Stop gabblin’ and go to work.”
Mark turned around to his desk and went to work. I stood around a minute and then, not seeing anything special to get at, I asked him what he wanted me to do.
“Go out and get some advertisin’,” says he, and went to work again.
Get some advertising, says he! I had about as much idea how to get advertising as I had how to catch eels with my bare hands—and I found out that advertisements were just about as easy to catch as eels. Yes, and maybe a little harder. If you try to catch an eel, why, he just wriggles away, but if you try to catch an advertisement the man you try to catch it from is as likely as not to kick you out of his store. I don’t see why ads. aren’t catching, like measles or mumps. It would make it a heap easier for us newspaper men.
Anyhow, all the business I managed to get was a miserable little advertisement from old man Crane, who had started to grow whiskers and wanted to trade a safety razor for a brush and comb. It was a cent a word and there were fifteen words. I didn’t see exactly how we were going to get rich at that rate.
While I was on my way back to the office I saw what looked like it was going to be a fight, so I stopped around to watch, but it turned out to be nothing but a squabble. It was kind of fun, though, even if nobody did anything but talk and holler. The men mixed up in it were Mr. Pawl, who owned the Emporium Grocery, and Mr. Giddings, who ran the Busy Big Market.
When I got there they were just beginning to get started good. Mr. Pawl, who was about five feet and a half tall, was reaching up in the air as far as he could reach to shake his fist under Mr. Giddings’s nose—and Mr. Giddings’s nose was so high up he couldn’t even come near it.
“You did,” says he, hollering as loud as he could yell. “You know you did, you—you yaller grasshopper. She come right over and told me. ’Tain’t the first time, neither. But it’s goin’ to be the last. No man kin say to Missis Petty that the eggs in my store was laid by a hen that was sufferin’ from ague. No, sir, nobody kin. Sufferin’ from ague, says you, so that the eggs was addled before they was laid, on account of the hen shakin’ and shiverin’ so.... That’s what you told her, you wab-blin’ old bean-pole. Tryin’ to drive away my customers, eh? I’ll show you.”
“Now, Banty,” says Mr. Giddings, calling Mr. Pawl a name that always made him mad enough to eat a barrel of nails, because he didn’t like to have folks mention his size, “now, Banty, jest keep your feet on the ground. ’Tain’t a mite worse for me to tell Missis Petty what I told her than it is for you to tell Missis Green that whenever you grease up your buggy you git a pound of my butter ’cause it’s better for the purpose than the best axle grease—but hain’t good for nothin’ else. Remember that, don’t you, you half-grown toadstool? ... Jest let me tell you, this here slanderin’ ’s been goin’ on long enough, and I’m a-goin’ to fight back. I’ll give you tit for tat, and don’t you forgit it.”
“I’ll have the law on you,” Mr. Pawl hollered.
“Law—shucks! I’ll take you acrost my knee and spank you,” says Giddings.
“I won’t muss up my hands touchin’ you,” says Pawl. “’Twouldn’t hurt you nohow, with your rhinoceros hide. Only way to git you sufferin’ is to touch your pocket-book. From now I’m a-goin’ after your business, and goin’ after it hard. I’ll bust you, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll bust you so’s you can’t be put together with glue.”
“Two kin play that fiddle,” says Mr. Giddings. “In two months there won’t be but one grocery store in Wicksville, and that one’ll be Giddings’s Busy Big Market. Now run along and sleep on that.”
Giddings walked off, leaving Pawl dancing up and down and making noises that didn’t have any sense to them. He was so mad he didn’t know if he was a man in Wicksville or a rampaging hyena in the Desert of Sahara.
I poked along to the office with my little ad. and handed it to Mark, sort of figgerin’ maybe he’d be mad because I hadn’t got more, but he wasn’t, and I might have known he wouldn’t be.
“F-f-fine,” says he. “That’s a starter. I didn’t really f-f-figger you’d get any, first time out. Bet you get to be the best advertisin’-getter in the office.”
Maybe he didn’t mean it, and maybe he was saying it just to make me feel good, but anyhow it was a good idea. If he’d growled and acted disappointed, most likely it would have taken the heart out of me, so that next time I’d have done worse. But as it was I felt, somehow, like I could go out and get a whole basketful of ads. now. That was Mark Tidd’s way of doing things. He knew how to manage fellows and how to get the most work out of them. I’ll bet you that some day he’s one of the biggest business men there is. I don’t mean big just because he’s such a whopper, but important.
I told him about the row between Pawl and Giddings, and he laughed till the fat on his cheeks wabbled like a dish of jelly. Then he got sober and began tugging his ear.
“Come on, Binney,” says he.
“Where?” says I.
“Out to git some b-b-business,” Says he.
I went following along till he came to Pawl’s Emporium and was turning in.
“Hey,” says I, “what you goin’ in here for? He’s too mad to sell things, let alone buyin’ advertisin’ space.”
“Maybe,” says Mark. “Let’s try, anyhow.”
So in we went. Mr. Pawl was behind the counter, walking up and down like a wolf in a circus cage, and every little while he would up with his fist and bang it down with all his might. I guess he imagined he was smashing Giddings.
“Come on away from here,” says I to Mark. “He may take it into his head to wallop us.”
Mark just grinned.
“Howdy, Mr. Pawl!” says he.
Mr. Pawl just glared at him and banged the counter again.
“I don’t b-b-blame you for being mad,” says Mark. “I’d be madder ’n you are if it was me.”
“If what was you?” says Mr. Pawl.
“If a competitor was t-tryin’ to get ahead of me like yours is tryin’ to get ahead of you.”
“What’s he doin’ now? What’s he doin’ now?” Mr. Pawl yelled at the top of his voice.
“I’ll tell you what I think he’s goin’ to d-d-do,” says Mark. “He’s goin’ to go after your customers hard. He’s goin’ to offer ’em b-bargains, and maybe he’ll have somethin’ to say about you.”
“What d’you mean? How’ll he offer bargains? Where’ll he say anythin’ about me?”
“I think,” says Mark, “he’s goin’ to p-p-put a big advertisement in the p-p-paper. If he does he’ll tell f-f-folks about some whoppin’ bargains. And I guess maybe he’ll compare his store with yours, and his b-bargains with yours, and your stuff won’t get p-praised much. D’you f-figger it will?”
“Advertise, will he? Thinks he can git ahead of me, does he? Go spatterin’ printer’s ink, eh? Well, he better not. I’ll have the law on him, so I will. I’ll make him wish his name wasn’t Giddings ’fore I’m through with him.”
“I know what I’d do if I was you,” says Mark.
“What ’u’d you do?” growled Mr. Pawl.
“I’d b-b-beat him at his own game,” says Mark. “I wouldn’t let on I f-f-figgered he was goin’ to advertise, but I’d advertise myself, and wouldn’t I offer b-bargains! I’ll bet I’d put things in the paper that would start a reg’lar p-p-procession into this store. And if I could think of anythin’ to say, I guess I’d sort of allude to competitors and their way of d-d-doin’ business, and such.”
“If I could think of anythin’!” yelled Mr. Pawl. “You bet I kin think of somethin’. How big a advertisement d’you figger he’ll print?”
“Prob’ly all of half a p-page,” says Mark.
“I’ll have a page, a whole blinged page. I’ll show him! That’s the way we do business in the Emporium. No half-pages for us. We go the whole hog when we go.... Now git out of here, you kids. I’m goin’ to be busy. I’ve got to rig up a whole-page ad. for that paper, and I got to do it quick to beat that raker-handle of a Giddings.... When’s the paper come out?”
“To-morrow,” says Mark. “Better get your ad. in this afternoon.”
“You bet I will,” says Mr. Pawl, and while we were going out he was already writing on it.
Mark looked at me and grinned. “F-f-funny he didn’t kick us out,” says he.
“Mark Tidd,” says I, “I take off my hat. Talk about grabbin’ a opportunity when it’s passin’! Well, I guess maybe you didn’t grab this one.”
“You lugged in the opportunity,” says Mark, giving me credit like he always does, even though I didn’t deserve much of it. “But we hain’t quite through grabbin’ yet,” says he. “We got to see Mr. Giddings.”
We went catercorner across the street to the Busy Big Market, and there was Mr. Giddings in the door, with a grin on his face, looking down at a crate of eggs. On the crate he had just stuck a sign, which read:
These Eggs Were Laid by Hardworking, Honest Hens
The Oldest Is Under Twenty-Four Hours
Buy Your Eggs Here—Don’t Go Elsewhere
Our Competitors’ Chickens Have Ague
Their Eggs Are Scrambled in the Shell
Mark started in to laugh and nudged me with his elbow.
“Laugh, you chump,” says he, “l-l-laugh.”
So I set in to laughing with all my might. Mr. Giddings looked at us and grinned.
“Perty good, eh?” says he.
“You bet,” says Mark, “but I hear tell Mr. Pawl’s goin’ to have even that sign beat.”
“He is, is he?” says Mr. Giddings. “How is he, I’d like to know? He better not start in on anythin’. What’s the leetle weasel up to now?”
“Advertisin’,” says Mark. “He’s goin’ to advertise such b-b-bargains as Wicksville ’ain’t ever seen before. I got wind of somethin’ else, too. I hear he’s goin’ to allude to his competitors in his advertisement, and sort of lambaste ’em and their goods.”
“He is, eh? When? How?”
“To-morrow, in the Wicksville Trumpet,” says Mark. “He’s g-g-goin’ to have a full-page ad., and I’ll bet he’ll say some mean things in it, too.”
“Think so?” says Mr. Giddings, eager-like. “Well, now, I’ll fool the little flea. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll have a page ad., too, and if he can offer better bargains than I do, or say more cuttin’ things, then I’ll go out of business. Paper comes out to-morrow, don’t it?”
“Yes,” says Mark. “Better have your page in the office this afternoon. It’ll have to be set up in a hurry.”
“You bet I will,” says Mr. Giddings, “and I’ll say things in it so hot your compositor’ll burn his fingers settin’ ’em in type.”
We went hustling back to the office and told Tecumseh Androcles Spat that he had a night’s work ahead of him that would come close to taxing even his ability.
“What is it?” says he.
“Two page ads.,” says Mark.
“Huh!” says Tecumseh Androcles. “I’ll have them ready. And they will not be mere ads. They will be works of art. I will bring to the setting of them all my skill and knowledge, to say nothing of the genius with which nature has endowed me. Young sirs, this town will see two page ads. such as it has never dreamed of.”
“Fine,” says Mark, and we went back into the office.
“I’ll bet,” says Mark, “that Tecumseh Androcles was right about one t-t-thing. Wicksville hain’t ever dreamed of two page advertisements like those’ll be.”
“I only hope,” says I, “that there won’t be no bloodshed.”
Mark grinned, happy-like. “Business is p-p-pickin’ up. Wonder how many page advertisements Spragg has p-p-picked up for the Eagle Center Clarion?”
CHAPTER V
Next day what Mark Tidd called the mended Wicksville Trumpet gave its first toot. It didn’t break our backs carrying to the post-office the copies we mailed to regular subscribers. The four of us boys could ’most have written out enough papers longhand to fix them up, but we did print five hundred copies altogether. The rest we were going to sell just like papers are sold in cities.
We sold them for three cents apiece, and every fellow had subscription blanks in his pocket so if anybody got so reckless as to want to subscribe we could catch him before he cooled off. You wouldn’t believe it, but before night we had raked in forty-six regular honest-to-goodness subscribers.
Folks was that interested! At first they bought our papers to see the joke, I guess, but pretty soon they were buying them because they wanted to read what was in them, and especial to read about Henry Wigglesworth and the two page advertisements from Pawl and Giddings.
The Eagle Center Clarion was on deck, too, giving away sample copies of the new Wicksville edition. But we had Spragg swamped. For every local he had we printed three, and three of the kind Wicksville folks like to read. He had only a dozen lines about Henry Wigglesworth, while we had two columns full of interesting things, and mystery, and Rock, and such like. It was the first time folks really got any clear idea of what had happened out there. At that, I guess they thought they had a clearer idea than they had. I know we editors would have given considerable to be better posted.
Ten minutes after he got his paper Mr. Pawl started out to lick Mr. Giddings. About that same minute Mr. Giddings started out to do things to Mr. Pawl, and they met in the square close to the town pump. Each of them had a Trumpet clutched in his fingers, and was waving it around like a battle flag. When they saw each other they both let out a bellow and rushed.
But neither of them was so war-like, when it came to doing regular fighting, as they were when nothing but yelling was necessary. When they got about eight feet apart they both stepped like somebody was standing up and hauling on the lines. They stopped so sudden it must have jarred them, and there they stood, shaking their fists at each other and waving their Trumpets.
Uncle Ike Bond, the ’bus driver, drew up his horses and craned his neck to listen.
“What’s trouble?” he called down.
“They’re squabblin’ about them advertisements,” said Jim Walker.
“Um! ... If I was them fellers I’d keep shet up about them ads. As I view it there was consid’able truth about both of ’em. Giddings he lets on Pawl is a skinflint and weighs his hand with every pound of butter; Pawl he gives it out that Giddings hain’t got but one honest hair in his head, and that one’s so loose at the root it’s clost to fallin’ out. I’ve dealt consid’able with both,” Uncle Ike went on, waggling his head, “and as I view it nobody hain’t been wronged.” He stopped a minute and squinted down at them.
“Be you honest figgerin’ on a fight?” he asked, “’cause if you be I’ll stop to watch, but if it hain’t nothin’ but a fist-shakin’ match I’ll move along. Hey?”
Both men looked sort of sheepish, and like they wished they was where they weren’t.
“Go on, Pawl,” said Uncle Ike, “step up and lam him one.”
Pawl backed off like the place he was standing was too hot for his feet.
“Um!” says Uncle Ike. “Well, you start it, Giddings. Somebody put a chip on Pawl’s shoulder. Giddings’ll knock it off.”
“I won’t have no chip on my shoulder,” says Pawl.
“I see somebody goin’ into my store,” says Giddings. “I got to hurry over there.”
“Both of you better hurry back,” says Uncle Ike. “I’m what you might call a man with experience and wisdom. For more years ’n I like to think about I’ve been a-drivin’ this ’bus, and the seat of a ’bus is the place to git experience. Nothin’ like it. Greatest teacher in the world. I calc’late there’s few things I hain’t capable of discussin’ if I was asked. I’m capable of offerin’ both of you belligerents advice right here and now, and this is it: You go on back to your stores and tend to business, which don’t mean puttin’ sand in the sugar, or sellin’ cold-storage eggs with a yarn that the hen is still cacklin’ that laid ’em. Jest try bein’ square with your customers, and with each other, if you kin go so far, and you won’t git made sich an idiotic spectacle of as you be now. Nobody’s profited by this here rumpus but Mark Tidd. Advertisin’! Huh! Now run along, you fellers, and advertise all over again, but advertise yourselves, and advertise honest. Try it once, and see if you don’t git a substantial profit out of it. Jest tell the plain truth in Mark’s paper, and stick to what you advertise. Bein’ as you’re who you are, ’tain’t reasonable to expect wonders of you, but you can give a sort of flickerin’ imitation of business men.... G’dap, bosses. Mooch along there.” And Uncle Ike rattled off up the street, contented with himself and almost tickled to death that he’d got a chance to jaw somebody.
As for us fellows, we went to selling papers as hard as we could, and would you believe it, before noon we were cleaned out. Yes, sir, we’d sold every single solitary one.
“Don’t get s-s-set up,” says Mark. “Tain’t goin’ to be as easy all the t-t-time. Folks is buyin’ to-day out of curiosity. Next week we’ll have harder sleddin’.”
“Bet we don’t,” says Plunk. “Bet it’ll be easier to run this old paper than it is to slide down-hill. I don’t see anythin’ hard about it.”
“Huh!” says Mark, and not another word.
Mark and I walked past the hotel, and there stood Spragg. He scowled at us over the top of one of our papers that he had paid three real cents for.
We went to selling papers as hard as we could, and before noon we were cleaned out
“Well,” says I, “what do you think of it?”
“Kid paper,” says he.
“Those page ads. are k-k-kid ads., ain’t they?” says Mark.
“Luck,” says Spragg. “I’ll have ’em next week.”
“Wigglesworth story was a kid story?” says Mark.
“Nothin’ to it,” says Spragg. “I’ve asked folks. I’m a newspaper man, and if there was a story I’d get it. It wouldn’t be you young ones.”
“You g-go on thinkin’ so,” says Mark. “We couldn’t ask anythin’ b-better.”
We went on, and when we were out of earshot Mark says: “That reminds me, I want to go up to Lawyer Jones. I w-w-want to know about Mr. Wigglesworth’s w-w-will. Folks’ll want to know in the next Trumpet, t-too.”
“All right,” says I. “I don’t mind sayin’ I’m a mite curious, myself.”
So up we went.
“Ah,” says Lawyer Jones, “what can I do for you, my young friends? Are you—ah—representing the press to-day?”
“Y-yes,” says Mark. “We came to find out if there was anything new to the Wigglesworth b-business. Or if you’d tell us about the w-w-will.”
“Nothing new,” says Lawyer Jones. “I can’t find out a thing about that boy, and he can’t tell me anything that will throw the least light on why he was in Henry Wigglesworth’s house. Seems he’s been kept alone most of his life—without folks, anyhow. Pretty well looked after, I guess, though. Been to one boarding-school after another ever since he can remember—cheap ones. Didn’t know who paid his bills. Lonely little customer. Not a coul in the world ever stood to him in the position of father or guardian.”
“Interestin’,” says Mark. “Who’s stayin’ there with the boy?”
“Mr. Wigglesworth’s man-of-all-work. Jethro’s his name.”
“What?” says Mark in a tone that made me jump.
“Jethro,” repeated Mr. Jones, sort of surprised. “Why?”
“Oh, nothin’,” says Mark. “Kind of a f-f-funny name.”
“About the will,” says Mr. Jones, “I guess there’s nothing to prevent me from reading it to you. It’s sort of queer, like everything else that has happened since Mr. Wigglesworth died. I don’t know just what to do.”
“Will it d-d-do any harm if we p-print it?” says Mark.
Mr. Jones hesitated a moment, like lawyers always do, just for effect, I guess, then he said, “Wa-al, I dunno’s it would do any harm.”
“And it’ll do a h-h-heap of good,” says Mark, with a grin. “There’s a lot of curiosity itchin’ f-f-folks that readin’ what that will says will c-cure.”
“And that sells newspapers,” says Lawyer Jones. “Well, I’m glad to help you all I can.” So he went to his safe and came back with the will. We could understand it, all right, though for the life of me I can’t see why it wasn’t written out plain without so many “whereases” and “theretofores” and “devises,” and such like.
Anyhow, the gist of it was that Henry Wigglesworth claimed his mind was as good as new and that this was his regular will, and no other one was worth a cent. Then he said his debts had to be paid, which they would have had to be, whether he said it or not, I guess. Then he “gave, devised, and bequeathed,” whatever that means, all the “rest, residue, and remainder” of his property to “any heir or heirs in direct line of descent from myself, if such exist or can be found.”
All that meant, Lawyer Jones explained, was that he wanted his property to go to his sons or daughters, or his grandsons or granddaughters or great-grandsons or great-granddaughters, if he had any.
Then the will said if nobody could find any of these direct heirs the property was to go to George Gardener Grover, only son of Mr. Wigglesworth’s only sister. And there you are.
“Um!” says Mark when Lawyer Jones was through. “’Tis f-f-funny, hain’t it? These heirs, now. Why didn’t he up and name ’em by n-name?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Lawyer Jones.
“He acts,” says I, “like he wasn’t sure whether he had any or not.”
Mark looked at me with a squint, his little eyes twinkling like everything. “Binney,” says he, “that’s a g-good shot. I’ll bet that’s it. Anyhow, we’ll m-make b’lieve it is till we find out different. Got to have s-somethin’ to start on.”
“To start what on?” says I.
“Why,” says he, “the job of f-f-findin’ these heirs, or of findin out there hain’t any.” Then he turned to Mr. Jones. “Mr. Wigglesworth must ’a’ had a son or daughter or s-somethin’,” says he, “or he wouldn’t be s-suspectin’ he had grandchildern or great-grandchildern.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said Mr. Jones.
“Ever hear of any?” says Mark.
“In the years Mr. Wigglesworth has been here,” said Mr. Jones, “he has never mentioned a relative to me. No, I never heard that he had a child or a wife. Somehow I had always supposed he was an old bachelor.”
“Gets queerer every minute,” says Mark.
“Well,” says I, “we can’t sit here figgerin’ about it. We got work to do.”
“Sometimes,” says Mark, “sittin’ and figgerin’ is the most valuable work there is.”
“Maybe sometimes,” says I, “but this hain’t one of ’em. We’ve got ink and paper to buy and Tecumseh Androcles Spat to feed, and rent, and a heap of things. And you said yourself we didn’t have any workin’ capital. Since we ran that bazaar I’ve had a heap of respect for workin’ capital.”
“Me too,” says Mark. “And there’s no chance of g-g-gettin’ more money from dad. Ma set her foot down hard. She says we can waste what was put into this paper, but she won’t see another cent go after it, and when ma says it like that there hain’t any use arguin’. We got to sink or swim all by ourselves.”
“Well,” says I, “I guess we made a profit on this week’s Trumpet, anyhow.”
“Yes,” says Mark, “but there’s other weeks a-comin’.”
We thanked Lawyer Jones and started to go.
“Come again,” says he. “If you get any libel suits on your hands I’ll take care of them for you at cost, so to speak. Glad to see you any time.”
When we were outside I says to Mark, “Now don’t go gettin’ all het up about this mystery. We got enough on our hands now. We can’t run a paper on nothin’ and find missin’ heirs and investigate mysterious liner advertisements put in the paper by men with black gloves, and a dozen other things. We got to settle down to this paper job.”
“Sure,” says Mark. “That’s what I’m doin’. Hain’t gettin’ news about the biggest thing a newspaper has to do?”
“No,” says I, “gettin’ money is.”
He grinned like he does sometimes when he’s ready to admit he’s getting the worst of an argument.
“Maybe you’re r-r-right, Binney,” says he, “and then again, maybe this heir-huntin’ and mystery-piercin’ will help to get that money. Never can tell.”
“I wouldn’t depend on it,” says I.
“I sha’n’t,” says he. “Come on to the office.”
Plunk and Tallow were there, and so was Tecumseh Androcles. He was standing up, making a speech to the fellows.
“Ah,” says he, when we came in, “here is the editor and another of the staff. I, Tecumseh Androcles Spat, wish to congratulate you on the first issue of the rejuvenated Trumpet. It was an achievement. On your part, you have filled the paper with pertinent reading-matter and with lucrative advertising. On my part, I have put it in type in such a manner as to cause favorable comment, even from the metropolitan press. I am proud to be associated with you. I hope the relation will long continue and that the progress of this deserving paper will be marked and rapid.”
“Good for you,” says Mark, “but one swallow don’t make a summer. Wait till we see what happens next week. See how many new subscribers we can gaffle on to, and how m-m-many advertisements we can get. Likewise, let’s not forget the job-printin’ end of it. Now, let’s buckle down f’r the n-n-next issue.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER VI
Next morning Mark and Tallow and Plunk and I were in the office just after the train from the city came in. A strange man came slamming through the door like he figured out his errand was pretty important and he was pretty important himself.
“Where’s the editor?” says he in about the same voice you might expect somebody to say, “Who stole my horse?”
“I’m h-him,” says Mark, and I could see his face sort of setting like it does when he thinks something unpleasant is going to happen and he’s got to use his wits.
“Huh!” says the man, looking him over. “There’s enough of you, hain’t there—except so far as age is concerned.”
Now, if there’s one thing Mark hates to be twitted about it’s his size; it riles him to have anybody make fun of it, and his little eyes began to get sharp and bright. “Look out, mister,” says I to myself. Mark didn’t say anything, though, except, “What can I d-do for you.”
“You can hand over the cash for that,” says the man, throwing a piece of paper down on the counter.
Mark picked it up and looked at it. You couldn’t tell by his face what he thought of it, though he read it pretty careful and then didn’t say anything for quite a spell.
“Well, my fat friend,” says the man, “what about it?”
Mark looked him over hard, and then says, “Mister, if you had as much manners as I’ve got flesh, you and me would get along b-b-better.”
“Don’t git fresh,” says the man.
“Look here,” says Mark, “this is my office. If you c-c-come in here like you ought to, actin’ d-decent, you’ll be treated the same. If you’ve got any b-business with me, act like a b-business man. If you can’t act that way—git out. There’s the d-door. I guess whatever b-business there is to do can be done with your boss.”
The man sort of eased off a trifle and acted a little more like he was a regular human being instead of a bear with a toothache.
“I was sent here to collect that bill,” says he.
“All right,” says Mark. “Now what about that bill? I don’t know anythin’ about it. So f-f-far as I know I don’t owe any bill. What m-makes you think I do?”
“It’s for paper,” says the man. “Paper sold to the Wicksville Trumpet more ’n three months ago, and it hain’t never been paid for. The boss he told me either to git the money or to shut up your shop for you. So which’ll it be?”
“N-neither for a minute,” says Mark. “Here you come rushin’ in here with a b-b-bill for eighty-seven dollars that I hain’t ever heard of. Before anythin’ else happens I want to know a l-little more about it.”
“There hain’t any more to know. You’ve had the paper, and we hain’t ever had the money.”
“But we don’t owe it,” says Tallow. “We just bought this paper a few days ago.”
“Well,” says the man, “you bought its bills with it, didn’t you?”
“Not if we could h-help it,” says Mark. “Now, mister, you come with me. We’ll f-f-find out.”
So all of us went to Lawyer Jones and told him the facts. He looked sorry and acted sorry, but he said there wasn’t anything to do but pay it. “It’s a shame,” say she, “and you’ve been swindled, but it can’t be helped. The old proprietor owed this money, and concealed the fact when you bought the paper. It isn’t honest, but the people who sold the paper aren’t to blame. The man who sold you the Trumpet is. According to law you’ll have to pay.”
“Um!” says Mark, tugging at his cheek like he always does when he’s thinking hard. “Eighty-seven d-d-dollars. Woosh!”
“We ’ain’t got it,” says I.
“Mister,” says Mark, “you see h-how it is. ’Tain’t our fault this bill isn’t paid. Seems to me like the l-l-least you could do would be to give us some more time.”
“It don’t rest with me,” says he. “I was sent here to git the money or to put you out of business. Them’s orders, and I’m a man that obeys his orders every time. You can bet on that.”
“Come b-back to the office,” says Mark.
We all went back there, and us four boys held a little meeting to see how much cash we had. Every cent we could scrape up in the world, and that included advertising bills that hadn’t been paid, was seventy-six dollars. We’d had to spend some for supplies and such.
“Will you t-t-take fifty dollars,” says Mark, “and wait for the rest?”
“I’ll take eighty-seven dollars,” says the man.
“F-fellers,” says Mark, “we’re eleven d-dollars shy. Looks like we got to pay. Tallow, you go out and collect in what’s owin’ us. Tell the f-f-folks why we got to have it. They’ll p-pay. The rest of us’ll get the eleven dollars. You, mister, sit down and wait half an hour.”
Out we went, and I says to Mark, “How we goin’ to git that eleven dollars?”
“I just got a s-scheme,” says he, “while that man was talkin’. It’s about Home-Comin’ Week. We’ll get out a s-special Home-Comin’ Edition. Get the idee?”
“I don’t,” says I.
“Here it is,” says he. “We’ll print a p-page full of pictures of our l-leadin’ citizens, with a little piece about each of ’em. The cuts of the photographs’ll cost about a dollar apiece, and we’ll charge ’em two dollars ’n’ a h-half to have ’em put in. That l-leaves a d-dollar ’n’ a half to cover the cost of paper and p-printin’. Be a nice profit in it.”
“You won’t git nobody,” says I.
“Binney,” says he, “you hain’t got any idee how many folks wants to see their picture in the p-paper. We’ll git a lot.”
“Go ahead,” says I, “but you’ll see.”
“Got the idee so’s you understand it?” says he to Plunk and me.
We told him we guessed so.
“Can you t-talk it?” says he.
“We can try,” says I.
“Then,” says he, “Tallow’ll take the right side of Main Street, Binney, you take the left side, and don’t miss anybody, clerks and all. I’ll kind of s-s-skirmish around.”
I went along and talked to four people, and every one of them said they didn’t want anything to do with it, just like I told Mark, so I went back to the corner pretty disgusted with the idea. I met Plunk there, and he was disgusted, too.
“Knew it wouldn’t work,” says he.
“Where’s Mark?” says I.
“He went that way,” says he, pointing.
“Let’s find him,” says I; so off we went.
Pretty soon we saw him come around the corner and go into the milkman’s yard.
“What’s he goin’ in there for?” Tallow says. “Can’t be figgerin’ on gettin’ anythin’ out of Ol’ Hans Richter.”
“Let’s find out,” says I, and we went along and followed Mark right back into Richter’s barn. Richter was standing in the barn door with a milk-pail over each arm, and Mark was talking to him. Just as we got there Old Hans says:
“Mein picture in your baber, eh? Ho! What for does Ol’ Hans want mit a picture in the baber?”
“It isn’t what you w-w-want,” says Mark, “it’s what the f-f-folks in town want. Why, Mr. Richter, this thing won’t be worth a cent if you ain’t in it! What kind of a p-page of prominent citizens of Wicksville would it b-be if you wasn’t there? No good. Folks ’u’d say, ‘Where’s Hans Richter? Where’s the man that’s been f-fetchin’ our milk for twenty year?’ That’s what they’d say. And folks comin’ from out of t-t-town would want to know what b-business we had printin’ other men’s pictures and leavin’ yours out. Why, Mr. Richter, we d-dassen’t leave you out!”
“You t’ink dot?”
“You bet I do. We just got to have you. You don’t think we want to have to print Jim Withers’s picture, do you? He hain’t been p-peddlin’ milk here more ’n two years.”
“Jim Withers, iss it? Ho! You print his picture in your baber if mine I do not give? Eh?”
“We’d have to, but we don’t want to.”
“By yimminy, you don’t haff to. Nein. Shall der people be cheated? Nein. Dey shall haff Hans Richter’s picture, and not any other. Jim Withers! Whoosh! He iss a no-goot milkman. How much you said dot vass?”
“Two d-dollars ’n’ a half,” says Mark.
Old Hans dug down into his back pocket and pulled out a leather bag, and I’m going to turn as black as a crow if he didn’t give Mark the money.
“Now,” says he, “I giff you dot picture, eh? Vun I got w’ich was took in mein vedding coat a year ago. Dot coat iss yet as goot as new, and fourt-one year old it iss. Ya. Fourt-one year.”
“Fine,” says Mark, and in a minute Old Hans gave him the picture and Mark turned around to where we were.
“How you comin’?” says he.
“Poor,” says I.
“How about you?” says Plunk.
“P-perty good,” says Mark. “I got four.”
“Four,” says I. “So quick! How’d you do it, and who be they?”
“Well, there’s Richter, and old man Meigs, our leadin’ veteran of the Civil War, and Grandad Jones, that crossed the plains in a p-prairie schooner, and Uncle Ike Bond.”
“I surrender,” says I. “If you kin git them old coots you kin git anybody. I’m through. Nobody’ll listen to me or Plunk. You sail in and git ’em.”
He grinned the way he does when he’s tickled with himself and when he knows folks are appreciating what a brainy kid he is.
“It’s easy,” says he. “Just m-make ’em feel how important they are. You f-fellows go and see what news you can p-pick up. I’ll git in these pictures.”
And I’ll be kicked hard if he didn’t. In an hour he came to the office with ten photographs and twenty-two dollars and a half. He handed over to the collector man what was due him, for Tallow had got in most of the collections, and had enough left to pay for the cuts of the photographs. The man signed a receipt for the money and went away, looking like he was disappointed.
“Well,” says Mark, “we s-s-scrambled out of that hole, didn’t we? But we got to do some harder s-scramblin’ now. I’m goin’ after more photographs.”
He took most of the day at it, and when night come around how many do you think he’d grabbed on to? Forty-one. Yes, sir. And he had the cash money for every one of them. That left us with just exactly ninety-one dollars and a half in the treasury, and so we were really some better off than we had been before the collector came around.
“Fiddlesticks!” says Tallow. “Wisht the collector hadn’t showed up. We’d almost be rich.”
“If he hadn’t s-s-showed up,” says Mark, “we wouldn’t have thought up this s-scheme. It’s havin’ to do things that makes folks do their best. Bein’ necessary is one of the best things can happen to a f-f-fellow.”
Wasn’t that just like him! And you’ll notice he didn’t grab all the credit himself, though, goodness knows, he was entitled to it. No, sir, he says, “we” thought up the scheme. He was the real kind of a kid to do anything with, because he kept you feeling good. All the time you knew he was the one that was thinking up things and doing them. All we did was trail around and help. But just the same, he made us feel we had as much to do with it as he did. I expect we worked all the harder because of that. Do you know, I shouldn’t wonder if that was a pretty good way for all folks that has other folks working for them to act. The working folks would work harder and take more pleasure in it. I expect Mark had it all figured out that way.
CHAPTER VII
After supper we met at the office, though I’m bound to say I wasn’t tickled to death with the prospect of what was ahead.
“Mark,” says I, “here we’re goin’ out to Center Line Bridge to meddle with somethin’ that don’t concern us. It ’u’d serve us right if this Man With the Black Gloves caught us and gave us the larrupin’ of our lives.”
“’Tis our b-business,” says Mark. “Anythin’ that’s suspicious is the business of a newspaper man. There’s news in it.... And b-besides I figger it’s our duty to do.”
When Mark Tidd starts talking about duty you might as well lay down and roll over. You couldn’t change his mind with a ton of giant powder.
“Duty?” says I. “How?”
“Well,” says he, “as citizens. Maybe these f-fellers are plannin’ somethin’ that ought to be stopped, and there hain’t anybody to stop it but us, b-because nobody else suspects ’em.”
“All right,” says I. “I expect I can run as fast as any of you.”
“Besides,” says Mark, “the man the Man With the Black Gloves is g-goin’ to meet is named Jethro.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” I says.
“Heaps,” says Mark, and then shut up like a clam. That’s the way with him. Sometimes he gets it into his head to be mysterious and to keep his notions shut up under his hat. Well, when he does you might as well forget them, for he’s as close-mouthed as a bulldog with a tramp’s pants in his teeth.
“Come on, then,” says I, “let’s get it over.”
It was a half-hour’s walk to the bridge, but before we got within a quarter of a mile of it Mark halted us.
“We can’t go bangin’ up t-t-there with a brass b-band,” says he. “There wouldn’t be any meetin’. We got to come the Indian.”
“Crawl a quarter of a mile through witch-hazel and swamp on our bellies, I expect,” says I.
“There hain’t any law compellin’ you to come, Binney,” says Mark, “but I f-figgered you wouldn’t want to miss anythin’.”
“I don’t,” says I, “not even a good lickin’, which most likely we’ll git. You hain’t got any idea, Mark,” says I, “how I love a good lickin’.”
He laughed and says, “Say, Binney, anybody’d think you was a million years old. Hain’t there any f-f-fun in you? Here’s a reg’lar game to p-play that beats any game you can think up, and we can add to it by p-pretendin’.” He was the greatest fellow for pretending I ever saw, and when he was at it he almost had you believing that what he made believe was so.
“Go on,” says I, “start up your game. I’ll be taggin’ right on behind.”
“All right,” says he. “Us four kids are the f-f-faithful followers of a young Duke. This young Duke has disappeared, and we kind of figger his enemy, the Knight With the Black Gauntlets, has captured him and is holdin’ him for r-ransom. See? But we don’t know where. But our scouts tell us the Knight With the Black Gauntlets is close to our castle and we set out to watch him to see if we can’t rescue the Duke—and here we be. We know our enemy’s ahead somewheres, and we want to git clost to him to watch him and overhear what he s-says, if he says anythin’. Most likely the Duke will make us all knights if we rescue him, and I’ve always sort of hankered to be a knight.”
“Me too,” says Plunk. “Them knights sure had a circus, ridin’ around with lances and bustin’ up tournaments and lickin’ everybody they met by slammin’ ’em over the head with an iron mallet or pokin’ ’em off a horse with a lance. That there Richard Cur the Lion was the best one, eh? Say, Mark, what did they call him Cur the Lion for? Curs and lions hain’t got much in common.”
“’Tain’t Cur,” says Mark, “though it does s-sound like it. You spell it C-o-e-u-r. The whole thing means ‘of the Lion Heart.’”
“Fine,” says Plunk. “That’s a bully name.”
“If you want a name,” says I, “I’ll give you one.”
“What?” says he.
“Plunk of the Wooden Head,” says I, because I was sort of disgusted.
“And I’ll g-give you one,” says Mark. “It’s Binney of the Complainin’ Tongue.”
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say, and I might have known better, in the first place, than to go fooling with a scheme of Mark’s and making fun of it. So I shut up and was glad to.
“Now,” says Mark, “I f-figger that Knight’ll stop clost to the bridge that crosses the river dividin’ his lands from ourn. Maybe there’ll be a m-messenger a-waitin’ there for him. It’s our business to hear what’s said, because a word may be d-dropped that’ll show us where he’s imprisoned our master, the Duke.”
“How’ll we manage it?” says Tallow.
“Divide up,” says Mark. “You two men-at-arms, Tallow and Plunk, sneak over and come to the b-bridge from the left side of the road. There’s thick alders growin’ right there and you can scrooch down in ’em. Binney and I will t-tackle the job from the right. Then, if one p-party’s discovered and s-slain, the other party’s got a chance to come through alive and rescue the Duke.”
“Huh!” says I. “I know which party I hope gits slain, if anybody does, and I hain’t one of it.”
We started off then, Mark and I going to the right, and Tallow and Plunk cutting off through the woods to the left.
“We want to get there g-good and early,” says Mark, “so as to get all p-placed and settled before the Knight with the Black Gauntlets comes.”
“All right,” says I. “Maybe I can’t think as fast as you can, but I can make my legs go faster.”
So off we went, for a while going as fast as we could plug, then, when we were getting so near that a man on the bridge might hear us, Mark made me stop hurrying and crawl.
“Maybe they got g-guards out,” says he, “and we can’t take any chances.”
So we crawled the rest of the way, dodging from one tree to another and getting mud on our knees and tearing holes in our pants. But it was fun. I was beginning to get excited myself, and I believe I really got to worrying about the young Duke that was held a captive. Yes, sir, I felt pretty bad about the hole he had got himself into, and says to Mark I hoped they gave him enough to eat and treated him decent.
That’s how persuading Mark is. He really gets you to think things are happening that he’s only pretending about.
Anyhow, we got to the bridge, or rather so close to it we could look it over careful and see if anybody was there. But not a soul was in sight.
“’Tain’t safe,” says Mark, “even if it looks l-like it was. They may be in ambush along the road. We got to f-find out.”
We kept on crawling until we were sure nobody was on our side of the bridge anywheres. Then Mark made us wade the river, which was only about up to our knees in spots, to be sure nobody was hid on the other side. It would have been fine if there hadn’t been a hole there and if I hadn’t stepped in it. But I did, and fell down and floundered around and let out a yell.
“Hey!” Mark whispered. “Shut up! Want to git a l-lance through your stummick?”
“Don’t expect a feller to drownd without makin’ a noise, do you?” says I. “I notice you didn’t fall into any holes.”
“No,” says he, with a grin. “I had you walk first so if there was one you’d sort of warn me of it.”
“Which I done,” says I, feeling pretty chilly and not what you could call comfortable.
“You’ve been wet before,” says he, “and it didn’t hurt you.”
“Probably,” says I, “it won’t hurt me this time, but that hain’t no reason I should be happy about it.”
We didn’t say any more until we’d scouted out the other side of the bridge and found that none of the Knight’s men were hidden there.
“Now,” says Mark, “we want to hide ourselves so’s we can overhear what they s-s-say. Let’s f-find a good place.”
It was an old wooden bridge, and when you looked up at it from below you made up your mind that it had better be fixed some time before long, for you could see through cracks and splits and broken boards right up to the sky.
“What’s the matter,” says I, “with hidin’ down under the bridge, right at the end? Nobody’ll look there, and we can sit on the bank in the mud and be comfortable. I love to sit in the mud,” says I.
“Good idee,” says Mark. “Fine idee. We can hear p-plain, and not one chance in a hunderd of bein’ seen.”
Under we got and settled there as comfortable as was possible. I don’t know if you ever sat in black mud under an old bridge with your clothes dripping and the evening chilly, but if you did, and got any fun out of it, why then, you are better at enjoying yourself than I am. My teeth got to chattering.
“Keep s-still,” says Mark.
“You’ll have to hold my jaw if you want me to,” says I. “The cold makes it wiggle and rattle my teeth.”
“Stuff your cap in your mouth,” says he, which I did. Oh, it was a pleasant party, what with chewing on an old cap and all that!
“Wonder if Tallow and Plunk are on deck,” says I.
“Sure,” says he; “you can always d-d-depend on them.”
“Meanin’,” says I, and feeling sort of peevish, “that you can’t depend on me.”
“You n-notice,” says he, “that I picked you to come with me, don’t you?”
That made me feel pretty good, like praise always does make a fellow, even if he don’t deserve it, and after that the cold wasn’t so chilly nor my clothes so clammy on my back.
After about half an hour, which seemed like a week, we heard a horse coming. It stopped at the end of the bridge and a man got out. He whistled, but nobody answered, and the man started to pacing up and down from one end of the bridge to the other. Then in another ten minutes up came another rig, and a man got out of it.
“I been waitin’ for you,” says the first man.
“Huh!” says the second, and we recognized him as the Man With the Black Gloves, or the Knight With the Black Gauntlets, like he was promoted to be to-night.
“Well?” he says in a minute.
“Everythin’s all right,” said the first man. “Rock don’t remember nothin’ he hadn’t ought to, ’cause I’ve questioned him mighty close. Nobody’s been sneakin’ around to see him, though a lot of Jakes have drove by to stare at him since them kids had that piece in the paper.”
“Wigglesworth didn’t leave any writing?” says the Knight.
“Huh!” says the second man, and we recognized him as the man with the black gloves
“Not what you’d call writin’. Though he might. Acted toward the last like he was suspicious of me. Didn’t let on nothin’ to me, and kept to himself. One night he was writin’ in the library, but what he wrote I dunno. Maybe it was letters. He didn’t leave anythin’ around. That is, except a puzzle or somethin’ he wrote out for Rock.”
“Puzzle,” says the Knight.
“Yes,” says the first man, “puzzle, or else he’d gone crazy.”
“What become of it?”
“Rock’s got it.”
“Thought I said to grab every bit of writing you could get your hands on.”
“This didn’t amount to nothin’,” said the man.
“You aren’t on the job to think, but to do what you’re told.”
“Well, I done it,” says the man; “anyhow I made a copy of it, and give the old man’s writin’ to the kid.”
“Let’s have it,” says the Knight.
He read it, or I guess that’s what he was doing, because he was still awhile. Then he grunted, disgusted-like.
“No sense to it,” says he.
“Not a mite,” says the other man.
“But there may be,” says the Knight.
“Shucks!” says the man.
“Wigglesworth was queer—and suspicious. Look how he acted toward the boy. Maybe he made a writing. Seems like he must have. Didn’t tell anybody, so far as I can find out. That’s certain, I guess. But he must have written. Must have. And we’ve got to find it. Never can tell when a writing will pop up just when it will send you higher than a kite.”
“I’ve looked till my eyes is wore out.”
“Look some more,” says the Knight.
“Where’s Pekoe?”
“Nobody knows. Gone off to South America or India or the North Pole again, likely. He won’t bother us.”
“May some day.”
“Don’t believe he knows enough about things. If he had he’d hung around.”
And right there Tallow Martin let out a sneeze. I knew it was Tallow, because there ain’t a man, woman, child, horse, cow, or mule in Wicksville that could enter a sneezing match with him and even get second prize. Tallow would get all the prizes if there was a dozen.
“What’s that?” says the Knight.
“Sneeze,” says the other man.
“Somebody’s around here—listening,” says the Knight. “It came from that way. Quick! After them.”
Off they went, tearing into the bushes, and we could hear Plunk and Tallow get up and flounder away. Mark was disgusted.
“Tallow,” says he, “ought to train his nose to be quiet, or sell it to a lighthouse for a foghorn. Now the fat’s in the f-f-fire.”
“They’ll never catch those kids,” says I.
“Not likely to,” says he, “but they’ll be on their guard now. They know somebody was listenin’—and if somebody was l-listenin’ it means somebody was suspicious of ’em.”
“Looks that way,” says I, “but what do we suspect ’em of?”
“I don’t know,” says he, “but it’s somethin’ to do with Mr. Wigglesworth and that kid.”
“Sure,” says I, “but let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s make tracks while they’re gone.”
“Can’t leave Plunk and Tallow,” says he. “Maybe they n-n-need help.”
That was Mark all over. He’d stick to you like a corn-plaster, and he wouldn’t quit sticking till he’d got you out of any fix you were in. Of course I couldn’t go off, either, and not know what had happened, so we climbed out of the mud and started into the woods after the men.
We didn’t go far, though, before we heard them coming back, and laid down behind some bushes till they were past. They didn’t have any captives, so we knew the kids were safe.
“Well,” says Mark, when it was safe to move along again, “we know one thing. We know where our master, the Duke, is imprisoned.”
“Oh,” says I, “do we?”
“Yes,” says he, “he’s shut up in Castle Wigglesworth, and they won’t l-let him use his own name, but call him Rock. The next thing on our program is to t-t-try to get a chance to talk to him and l-look over the lay of the land.”
We went on back to the printing-office as quick as we could, and Plunk and Tallow were there looking pretty scratched up and dilapidated, and frightened a little, I guess. Mark didn’t say a word about Tallow’s sneezing, though Tallow looked pretty guilty. But Mark knew Tallow didn’t do it on purpose, and he never lit into a fellow much, anyhow. If you did something that was wooden-headed he might look at you so you’d wish the floor would open up and let you through, but that would be all. Oh, he was a bully fellow to go into things with, all right.
“Now,” says he, “we b-better get to bed. To-morrow Binney and I are goin’ to Wigglesworth Castle to t-try to see the Duke and to get a squint at that p-puzzle paper he’s got. Maybe there’s somethin’ important in it. Bet there is.”
And we all headed for home.
CHAPTER VIII
“What’s in the box?” says I to Mark Tidd next morning, when we had started out toward what he was still calling Castle Wigglesworth.
“Did you f-f-fetch a lunch?” says he.
“No,” says I.
“Didn’t think you would,” says he, “so I f-fetched enough for two.”
I looked at the box. Honest, it reminded me more of a piano box than anything else; anyhow, of a good-sized packing-case.
“Is that full?” says I.
“Couldn’t git in another crumb,” says he.
“How long you plannin’ to stay?”
“Home ’fore supper.”
“And that’s just lunch!” says I.
“Nothin’ but a s-snack,” says he. “Didn’t put in a thing but six pieces of apple p-p-pie and eight ham sandriches and a few fried-cakes, and three-four bananas, and a l-little hunk of cake, and some f-f-fried chicken, and a h-hunk of bread in case we didn’t have enough sandriches, and some b-butter—”
“And a barrel of flour,” says I, “and a crate of eggs, and a crock of baked beans, and a side of bacon—”
“Huh!” says he. “I guess there won’t be much l-left.”
“I wonder,” says I, “if they let our Duke go prancin’ around outdoors, or do they keep him shut up in a dongeon?”
“Can’t never tell about this crowd,” says Mark. “They’re l-liable to do ’most anythin’. I calc’late, though, he’ll be let out some, with a strong guard.”
“If the guard’s around, how’ll we git to talk to him?”
“That’s what we got to f-find out,” says he.
We got to where we could see Mr. Wigglesworth’s house—the castle, I should say—along about nine o’clock. It was a big place with porches and lots of windows and curlicues and gables and wings, and such like. I can’t ever see what one old man ever did with all of it. It was in the middle of a whopping yard that was beginning to look run down. The grass hadn’t been cut as often as it ought to have been, and things was beginning to grow up in the gravel walk. In a month more it would look like one of those houses where nobody lives.
There was a hedge all along the front higher than my head, but when we had crept up close I poked my head through and had a good look. It was a funny kind of a place. Sort of a menagerie, only the animals weren’t alive. There were some deer and a big dog and a cat and a lion—all made out of stone or something.
“Huh!” says I. “If I was goin’ to keep pets I’ll bet they’d be the kind I could teach tricks to. What good ’s a stone dog, I’d like to know.”
“It’s art,” says Mark.
“Oh,” says I, “it is, eh? I thought art was daubin’ paint on a piece of cloth, and then puttin’ a gold frame around it.”
“Anythin’s art,” says Mark, “that hain’t good for nothin’ but to look at.”
“Then,” says I, “I hain’t art.”
“No,” says Mark, “but you come m-mighty clost to it.”
“Where d’you s’pose the Duke is?” says I, changing the subject because I couldn’t see any use talking about art any more. I wasn’t interested in art. “I don’t see no guards,” says I, “and I don’t see the Duke.”
But just then a kid came around the corner of the house. He was just an ordinary-looking kid, though it didn’t seem like he was enjoying himself very much. He sat down alongside the stone dog and propped his head up in his hands and stared at the ground.
“L-lonesome,” says Mark, sympathetic-like.
“Let’s go in and play with him,” says I.
“Sure,” says Mark, sarcastic, “and s-spill the whole mess of beans. What would the Knight With the Black Gauntlets do if he saw us playin’ with that Duke, eh? He wouldn’t suspect any thin’, would he?”
“Let’s git him over here, then,” says I.
“Charm him over l-like a snake does a bird,” says Mark.
But the Duke saved us trouble by getting up and walking over toward the hedge and then following the hedge around toward us. When he was right opposite us Mark whistled low and cautious. The Duke stopped and looked.
“We’re r-right here behind the hedge,” says Mark. “Don’t act like you was t-t-talkin’ to anybody. Come and sit down with your back ag’in’ that l-little mountain-ash tree.”
The boy did like Mark said, acting sort of surprised, but not frightened a bit. I guess he had pretty good nerve, because I figger I’d be some scared to have a voice I couldn’t see, and wasn’t expecting, and didn’t know anything about, go ordering me around.
“Be you Rock?” asked Mark.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I’m Mark Tidd, and Binney Jenks is with me. We came out to talk to you.”
“You better not let Jethro see you,” says Rock. “What do you want of me?”
“First,” says Mark, “we want to git acquainted. And when we’re acquainted and you git so you can trust us, then we want to see if there hain’t s-somethin’ we can do to help you.”
“I don’t know that I need any help,” says Rock, stiff-like.
“If you don’t,” says Mark, “you’re the f-first feller I ever see that didn’t. For instance, Rock, wouldn’t you l-like to be helped to know what you’re here at Wigglesworth’s for? Eh? Don’t suppose that’s been worryin’ you any. From what you say Jethro don’t want f-folks talkin’ to you. Wouldn’t you like to know why? Do you know the Man With the Black Gloves? And did you know him and Jethro met on Center Line Bridge l-last night and t-talked you over? Why d’you s’pose they did that?”
“Where do you come in?” says Rock.
“Well,” says Mark, “there’s a number of r-reasons for my comin’ in. First, I’m in the newspaper b-business, and I want the news. Second, I kind of like m-monkeyin’ around with mysteries. It’s got to be a habit with me.”
“Hum!” says Rock, and sat quiet a spell, sort of thinking it over. Pretty soon he says: “Well, it can’t do any harm if it doesn’t do any good. I”—his voice sort of wabbled for a second and I hoped he wasn’t going to blubber—“I’ve been mighty lonesome—almost always.”
“That’s p-perty rotten, hain’t it?” says Mark.
“You’d think so,” says Rock, “if you hadn’t ever had any folks at all that you knew about, and had lived with folks that kept you just because somebody paid your board, and had been sent off to schools where the fellows thought you were queer because you didn’t know anything about yourself and never made friends with you.”
“I’ll b-bet I would,” says Mark in a way he has when he’s sorry for anybody. Somehow he manages to make you feel some better right off. “And we—there’s f-four of us—would like to be friends with you if you’ll let us. Honest. And we’d l-like to help you out. We ain’t just s-stickin’ our noses into your business out of curiosity.”
“I wish I could get a look at you,” says Rock, sort of dubious.
Mark chuckled and nudged me. You could see he liked Rock saying that, and afterward he said to me that right there he made up his mind the strange boy was all right. “He ain’t anybody’s fool,” says he, “and if you go trustin’ anybody before you get a good l-look into his eyes, why, then you’ll run a fine chance of bein’ a fool.”
He says to Rock, “Come out and take a l-look, then.”
“I dassent,” says Rock. “Jethro’s watchin’ me all the time, and he ordered me not to go outside the hedge nor to speak to any one.”
“I b’lieve in orders bein’ obeyed when somebody gives ’em that’s got the right to,” says Mark, “but this Jethro hain’t no more right to be b-bossin’ you than I have, which hain’t any at all.”
“I know that,” says Rock, “but if he catches me there won’t be any fun in it.”
“We’ll fix it so’s he won’t catch you,” says Mark. “Wait a minute till I think.”
He studied over it a minute, and then says to Rock: “Hain’t there an arbor back there a c-couple of hunderd feet?”
“Yes,” says Rock.
“Does it back right against the hedge?” says Mark.
Rock looked careful and said it did.
“Good,” says Mark. “You sort of l-loaf back there slow and like you didn’t have anythin’ in mind. We’ll crawl up along the hedge and b-burrow through. ’Tain’t likely we’ll be seen in there.”
“All right,” says Rock, and off he went. Mark watched to see how he did it, and nodded like he was satisfied. “Look,” says he to me. “That kid’s got b-brains.”
Rock did act fine, and not a bit like he had anything on his mind. He just sort of wandered around, but every little bit he managed to get nearer to the arbor. Then he stooped and picked up a stone out of the driveway in front of the house and chucked it at the arbor. Like anybody would, he stopped to see where the stone hit, and then he walked over there slow and poked around the arbor like he was sort of curious to see how it was built.
“Come on,” says Mark, and we snaked it on our stummicks till we was right back of the arbor. I poked my head through, and then wiggled through myself. It wasn’t so easy for Mark, because a hole that would do for me wouldn’t be big enough for one of his legs, but he made it at last, considerable scratched and het up. Then he whistled soft.
In a minute Rock came mooching in, but he didn’t come right in. He stopped in the door and looked at it. It wasn’t a door, but just a sort of open arch, and he shook the side to see if it was strong, and turned around and looked all over the yard. Then he moved back in as slow as molasses, until he figgered it was safe to quit acting and look us over.
“Hello!” says he.
“I’m Mark Tidd,” says Mark, “and this is Binney Jenks.”
Rock didn’t say anything, but just eyed Mark steady, and then me; finally he stuck out his hand and says, “I like your looks.”
“Fine,” says Mark, “then everybody’s satisfied. I kind of like my looks myself. There’s enough of ’em.” Mark would joke about his being fat himself, but if anybody else went to trying it they wanted to look out. “There’s this about us,” says Mark, “we may not be able to do you any good, but it’s s-s-sure we can’t do you any harm.”
“Whether you do me good or harm,” says Rock, “I’m goin’ to tie to you. Just,” says he, “for the sake of bein’ able to say to myself that I’ve got some friends.”
“Bully for you,” says Mark. “Now l-let’s get to business. What’s your whole name?”
“Roscoe Beaumont,” says he.
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“Where was you b-born?”
“I don’t know?”
“What was your f-f-father’s first name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was your m-mother’s name before she was married?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who brought you to Mr. Wigglesworth’s?”
“A man by the name of Pekoe.”
“What?” says Mark.
“Pekoe,” says Rock, and then I remembered that the Man With the Black Gloves had mentioned this Pekoe on the bridge.
“Who is Pekoe?”
“I don’t know,” says Rock.
“How did he happen to f-fetch you here?”
“He came to the school where I was and said my father had told him to come after me the first chance he got and take me to Henry Wigglesworth in Wicksville, Michigan, but he says that was several years ago, and this was the first time he’d been in my part of the United States since then. He said my father was dead, and that he died down in South America.”
“Oh,” says Mark. “I guess your mother must ’a’ died a long time ago”
“When I was a baby,” says Rock.
“And t-t-that’s all you know about yourself?”
“Every single word.”
“Don’t know why you was to be f-f-fetched to Mr. Wigglesworth?”
“No.”
“What did Mr. Wigglesworth say when you came?”
“Nothin’. Pekoe he left me outside and went to the house. He was gone half an hour and came back and said I was to go in. Pekoe went on out of the gate and I went in. Jethro met me and fixed up a room for me. I didn’t see Mr. Wigglesworth for a couple of days. He never came out of his room. Guess he was perty sick then. One night when he thought I was asleep he came into my room with a light turned down, and looked at me. I pretended I was asleep, but I managed to get a look at him just the same. He didn’t say a word, but just looked funny—queer. He shook his head and then nodded as much as to say that something was so. After that he went out. I never saw him again.”
“What did you do with the p-p-puzzle he wrote for you the night before he d-died?”
Rock looked sort of surprised that Mark knew about it, but didn’t ask any questions. “I got it in my pocket,” says he. “It don’t mean anythin’. I guess he must have been out of his head.”
“Maybe,” says Mark. “Can’t tell. Mind lettin’ me see it?”
Rock pulled it out and handed it over.
“Huh!” says he. “This d-d-don’t make much sense.”
“I can’t see it makes any,” says Rock.
“If it’s what it may be,” says Mark, “it would take work to f-figger sense out of it. Can I keep it?”
“Yes,” says Rock. “Do you think it really is anything?”
“Lemme study it first. Let’s see, it says, ‘Where pussy looks she walks. Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six. Stop ninety degrees in the shade. In. Down. Across. What color is a brick? Investigate. Believe what tells the truth.’ Some muddle, hain’t it?”
“Clean out of his head when he wrote it,” says I.
“Suppose,” says Mark, “you knew you was d-dyin’, and there was a m-message you wanted to l-leave, and you knew the only man around was ag’in’ you, and you dassent trust him, and you was sick and a leetle queer. Suppose you just had to leave a m-message that nobody could see sense to, but that had sense in it if it was studied out. Then what? Eh? Maybe,” says Mark, waggling his head—“maybe you’d think up a p-p-puzzle like this.”
“Do you think it’s a—what d’you call ’em-a cryptogram?”
“I think,” says Mark, “that there’s a chance of it.”
“What’s a cryptogram?” says I.
“A cipher message,” says Mark.
“Oh,” says I. “Like havin’ each letter in the alphabet a number or some kind of a mark?”
“Yes,” says Mark, “only this hain’t that kind—if it is one.”
“What kind is it?”
“It’s one where the words and letters mean just what they are, but where you have to study out what they tell you to do.”
“Clear as mud,” says I.
“’Tain’t what you’d call plain as p-p-print,” says Mark, “but I’ll study over it.” He shoved it into his inside pocket. “We better be gettin’ along, Rock. We’ll come as often to see you as we can. You come here every day, and maybe we’ll be here or leave a m-message. We’ll l-leave it under that stone. If you have any word for us, why, you leave a note under the stone. Eh?”
“All right,” says Rock. “I hope you’ll come often.”
“We will,” says Mark, “and we’ll keep you posted. You open your ears and eyes and don’t miss anythin’.”
“You bet,” says Rock. “Somehow you got me irit’rested, and sort of lookin’ ahead. I haven’t ever had anything to look ahead to before.”
“Maybe you haven’t now,” says Mark, “so don’t get your heart set on it too much.”
“Good-by,” says Rock. “Look out,” he whispered, sudden. “I see Jethro comin’.”
In about two jerks of a lamb’s tail we were through the hedge and out of sight. Rock sauntered out of the arbor as if nothing had happened, and we saw Jethro stop and talk to him with a scowl. Then we hurried back to town.
CHAPTER IX
During the next few days we were pretty busy getting ready for the next issue of the Trumpet, so we didn’t get to see Rock, and Mark didn’t have a minute to study out that puzzle about the cat and what color is a brick and all that. Things didn’t go along as smooth this time as they did before. Mark said it was because the novelty had worn off. We got some advertising, but there weren’t any full pages, and we didn’t get in half a dozen subscriptions, so that when the paper was printed we were just about out of money again.
Our paper, printed with patent insides, as they call them, had to be paid for at the express office before we could get it, and Tecumseh Androcles Spat had had to buy a new pair of pants on account of some trouble with a dog while he was out walking one evening, and ink cost money. You haven’t any idea what a lot it takes to print a paper.
Well, we got it out all right, and then started to sell it. But this time Spragg was right on hand with his Eagle Center Clarion, and had kids selling it just like we sold the Trumpet, only he sold his paper for three cents, while we had to get five or bust.
And this time he had more Wicksville news, though we still beat him there. But folks will buy cheap even if what they’re getting isn’t so good as what costs a little more. The result of the whole thing was that we got left with a hundred papers on our hands, and that was pretty bad. It was Spragg that did it.
When we knew just how we’d come out we had a meeting in the office to see what to do about it.
“If we could only git rid of Spragg,” says Tallow.
“Yes,” says I, “he’s messin’ up the whole show.”
“S-sounds easy,” says Mark. “How’d you goat it?”
We looked at one another but nobody had any ideas.
“Might sick a dog on him,” says I.
“We might get out an Eagle Center edition of the Trumpet,” says Plunk.
Well, there was an idea and we talked it over, but it wasn’t long before we saw that wouldn’t do. We had our hands full now without monkeying with Eagle Center.
“If,” says I, “we could only fix it so’s folks here didn’t want anything to do with Eagle Center—”
“Binney,” says Mark, “there is an idee. Start a t-town row. Get folks here to hatin’ Eagle Center. Make a sort of war, eh? Fine. Now,” says he with a grin, “all we got to do is f-figger out how to do it.”
“If that Eagle Center paper would only talk mean about Wicksville,” says I.
“It won’t,” says Mark; “they’re after Wicksville b-business.”
He sat back and pulled at his ear like he does when he’s thinking hard, and whistled a little, and reached for his jack-knife and whittled some.
Pretty soon he whacked his leg and says he’s got it.
“Well?” says I.
“We’ll go to Eagle Center,” says he, “and interview a b-b-bunch of folks, and sort of get ’em to talk about Wicksville. Bet we can f-fix it so’s they make fun of this town. Then,” says he, “there’s that old b-business of the trolley line from the city, which might go through here and m-might go through Eagle Center. What made me think of that was that a s-surveyor got off’n the train to-day, and I asked him what he was up to, and he says he was goin’ over the right of way that was laid out a couple of years ago.”
“Um!” says I. “Sounds promisin’.”
“We’ll t-try it,” says Mark. “Binney, you and I will go over in the m-mornin’.”
So next morning over we went.
I never saw anything so easy. Mark says that folks would rather make fun of somebody or something, whether they’ve got any reason for doing it or not, than to work and make money, and I guess he’s right.
As soon as we began talking about Wicksville they up and sailed into it like they had been waiting for the chance for years. Of course we helped things along by bragging a little and by making a few comparisons that didn’t favor Eagle Center any. But it didn’t take much urging. Why, we could have got enough interviews to fill the paper twice, and any one of them, when they stood out in print, was enough to make the whole population of Wicksville take off its coats and roll up its shirt-sleeves and start right over to give Eagle Center a walloping.
When we had all we wanted we started back for home, and planned out how we’d use it, and the way we planned was the one that would do the most good, you bet.
“Now,” says Mark, “if we just had some sure news about that t-trolley line.”
“We hain’t,” says I.
“No,” says he, “but if Plunk and Tallow’ll git out and tag around after that s-surveyor we’ll git some. Just hang around him and ask questions, but don’t l-let on you’re newspaper men. Just be kids.”
So off they went.
They found out that surveyors were going over both routes—the one through Wicksville and the one through Eagle Center. It seems like the company was keeping pretty quiet about the whole thing, but from what Plunk and Tallow could gather, it was pretty sure the trolley line was going through some place.
Well, there was big news, and if Spragg didn’t get hold of it it would be bigger than ever.
We set right to work getting things in shape for the next paper, and called in Tecumseh Androcles Spat to tell him all about it and get him to fix up the paper so it would look exciting. He got the idea right away.
“Will Tecumseh A. Spat dress up this paper? You may take it, young gentlemen, from an authority, that he will. It is an opportunity. This town shall see what a paper with a real story in it should look like. We will hammer them in the eyes with type. We will make our pages leap out to meet them. Ah, this is an occasion such as delights the heart of a compositor and make-up man. I revel in it. Trust me, gentlemen, and you shall not be disappointed.”
And we weren’t. All we had to do was write the stuff and give it to Tecumseh. Why, he hardly took time to eat or sleep! He was that tickled with himself he almost busted out of his clothes, and we had to keep going hard or he’d have run right away from us.
It was two days before we got the stories all written—the trolley line and what Eagle Center thought of Wicksville. Then we did a little advertising of our own. Mark wrote the signs.
The first one, printed in big type and tacked up in front of our office, went like this:
WICKSVILLE INSULTED
Never were such things said about a town without
blood being shed.
Has Wicksville any pride?
You bet it has pride.
READ ABOUT IT IN THE NEXT WICKSVILLE “TRUMPET”
Every word printed was actually uttered.
What will you do about it?
Then we printed about twenty little signs that said:
Where is Wicksville’s civic pride?
Will it stand by to be insulted?
Read the insults in the Wicksville Trumpet.
That night we put these all up, and the next morning the town was talking. I’ll bet twenty folks stopped in the office to ask what it was about, but mum was the word with us. We wouldn’t peep.
“It’s so,” says Mark Tidd. “Every w-w-word of it. This town’s been insulted like no town was ever insulted before. It’s a shame and somethin’ ought to be done about it. The Board of Trade ought to do somethin’.”
“But who insulted us?”
“The whole thing’s in the n-n-next p-paper,” says Mark, getting sort of excited and stuttering like everything. “Wait till the paper comes out.”
“We want to know now,” says the man.
“Well,” says Mark, “I’m sorry, but it hain’t possible to accommodate you. This is a newspaper. It’s p-printed to give news. That’s what we have to sell, and we can’t give it away any more than the grocer would give you a p-p-pound of cheese.”
“I’ll pay you for it,” says the man. “Your paper costs a nickel. Well, there’s your nickel. Now give me the news.”
“No,” says Mark, “that wouldn’t be f-f-fair. Other folks have to wait till their paper comes, and so will you.” And that was the end of it, though the man kept on asking, and so did other folks.
By the time Thursday got around the town was pretty much worked up. You haven’t any idea how much folks think of their town till something happens, and then up in the air they go. Well, Wicksville was up in the air, you can bet, and it looked like it was up there to stay. Some folks was for having a public meeting about it, but others pointed out it was foolish to have a public meeting till you knew what you were going to have it about.
Other folks said, though, that as long as you knew your town had been insulted, what was the difference how it was insulted or who did it? Something ought to be done. Of course we didn’t do a thing to stop people from feeling that way, either.
At last the Trumpet went to press, and she was a dandy. Across the front page was a big head-line:
WICKSVILLE INSULTED BY EAGLE CENTER
Then, side by side, we printed interviews, heading each one appropriately. Mr. Wiggamore, the justice of the peace at Eagle Center, said every time a loafer came into his court the first question he asked him was, did he come from Wicksville. That was pretty good for a send-off, letting on that Wicksville folks were loafers, but he went farther than that. He said when he had to drive through the country he would go out of his way five miles before he would drive through our town, because our streets were so rotten they weren’t fit to drive cattle over, let alone a horse and buggy. We knew that would rile the folks, because we do take pride in our streets.
Next came Mr. Smart, the grocer. He said he wouldn’t do business in Wicksville except on a cash basis. That he’d never seen a man from Wicksville he’d trust with a red-hot stove. And he said the town looked like somebody passing in the night had dropped it by accident and forgotten it. Also he said that the man that dropped it was probably mighty glad of it.
Then came Mr. Pilkins, town clerk, and he gave his opinion that Wicksville was the worst-looking, most run-down, dilapidated, out-at-heel village in Michigan. He said it was a shame; that the rest of the towns in the country ought to take up a collection to help Wicksville folks paint their houses. He said it was his experience that Wicksville folks were ashamed of where they lived, and didn’t let on unless they were cornered, and he said that when they thought they’d be believed they always let on they came from Eagle Center.
Mr. Stoddy said that Wicksville didn’t have enterprise enough to keep the hogs out of Main Street. Now that was a lie if there ever was one, and it made me kind of mad myself. He said the best men in our town were the women, and that so fax’s he could see there wasn’t any reason for keeping up such a town at all unless it was that no other town wanted such a lot of folks to live in it.
Well, those are just samples. The men that said them were more than nine-tenths joking, all right, but when you saw what they said right in cold type it looked pretty bad. Whee! but it looked bad.
Then, right on top of those insults, and a lot more, we printed another big head-line:
SHALL EAGLE CENTER STEAL OUR TROLLEY LINE?
Then we printed the story about the trolley line, and what was going on. And we more than hinted that if Eagle Center got a chance it would do something underhanded to influence the line to go that way. And we pointed out the benefits of the line to Wicksville, and what money it would bring to town, and all that. My! it was a screamer.
Then, inside, we printed an editorial by Mark Tidd, which asked our folks if they wanted anything to do with a town that thought about us the way Eagle Center did. He asked if we wanted to trade with them, or visit with them. He wanted to know why the Board of Trade didn’t meet and fix up to boycott Eagle Center, and he ended up by demanding why something wasn’t done at once to see to it Wicksville got that trolley line for itself.
You wouldn’t believe it, but we ran out of papers before they’d had time to dry, and had to turn to and print some more. Yes, sir, we printed a whole hundred extra, and sold every one of them. Wherever you looked was a man reading the paper, maybe out loud to a crowd. It was funny. Men stood shaking their fists and scowling and making speeches and tearing around like they was crazy. There was some talk of organizing a party to go over to Eagle Center to dare them to fight, but this was overruled.
Anyhow, everybody was mad, and when Spragg, of the Eagle Center Clarion, came out of the hotel and sent his boys to sell papers, the crowd took after him and chased him up to his room, and he didn’t dare come down until the town marshal went home and put on his star and then escorted him to the train. Spragg never waited to see what became of his papers, but just went away from there as fast as he could.
I don’t believe he was exactly clear why the folks was so turned against him, but he soon found out, all right.
Well, there was a mass meeting, and our folks adopted resolutions paying their respects to Eagle Center and to everybody that lived in it, and they vowed they wouldn’t have any dealings with the town or anybody in it. They appointed committees and everything.
Mark and the rest of us were at the meeting, and we got busy getting subscriptions. Civic pride was the tune we played.
“Here,” says Mark, “is a paper all our own. It’s a b-b-better paper than Eagle Center’s. Yet you f-folks let an Eagle Center man come in here and sell that paper of his, and you r-refuse to buy ours. Now’s the time to show them. If you mean what you say, why, cut out that Eagle Center paper and dig down for a dollar ’n’ a quarter to subscribe for your own.”
That was the way he talked, and the rest of us took a leaf out of his book. And it got results, too. That night we took more than fifty subscriptions. Which was pretty good. We thought it had disposed forever of the Eagle Center Clarion, but it hadn’t. Anyhow, it hadn’t disposed of Mr. Spragg, who seemed to have got a grudge against us. He wasn’t much of a newspaper man, but as an enemy he did pretty well, so we found out before we were through with him.
CHAPTER X
“We’ve been sort of neglectin’ Rock,” says I to Mark Tidd, that evening.
“We have been perty b-busy,” says he, “but we better go out to see him to-morrow.”
“Fine,” says I. “I liked his looks.”
“Man With the Black Gloves is in t-town,” says Mark.
“When did you see him?” says I.
“He drove in a couple of hours ago.”
“Hum!” says I. “He’s comin’ for somethin’.”
“Yes,” says Mark, and wrinkled his fat face all up like he was puzzled. “D’you know,” says he, “that we don’t even know his n-n-name?”
“That’s right,” says I.
“Nor where he hails from.”
“Correct,” says I.
“Let’s see what we kin find out,” says he.
So we went off to the hotel and asked questions, but we didn’t find out anything. Seems like the man never stayed there overnight and didn’t register. Nobody we could find had ever spoken to him, and nobody had ever seen him before a week or so ago. He just was and that’s all we could find out about him.
“T-try the livery stable,” says Mark.
“What for?” says I.
“See if anybody there recognizes his horse,” says Mark, impatient-like.
Now there was a real idea, and I wished I’d thought of it myself, but I didn’t. It took Mark for that. When he missed thinking of a thing it was a pretty foggy day, I tell you.
Over at the livery we didn’t get much satisfaction.
“He hain’t never drove in with the same horse twict,” says the barn-man. “Sometimes it’s a gray, and sometimes it’s a bay, and last time it was a black.”
“Didn’t recognize any of ’em?” says Mark.
“Nary,” says the man.
And there we were, no better off than we’d been before. If those horses had come from anywheres within ten or fifteen miles of Wicksville that barn-man would have known them, so all we learned was that the Man With the Black Gloves must have come farther than that.
“If we could only trace those horses,” says Mark.
“Which way did he come from?” says I.
“Good for you, Binney,” says Mark. “That’ll help some, if we can f-f-find out.”
We asked around and found out the man drove in from the west. But there was quite a lot of country west of us, as Mark pointed out, reaching right out to the Pacific Ocean, which was a little matter of a couple of thousand miles.
“’Tain’t likely he drove from the Pacific,” says I, “and ’tain’t likely he drove more ’n twenty-five or thirty mile.”
“No,” says he, “’tain’t.... We might as well give that up for to-night. I expect Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves are havin’ a m-m-meetin’ somewheres.”
“How about that puzzle?” says I. “The one about where the cat looks and what color is a brick, and all that stuff.”
“I hain’t l-looked at it,” says he. “Let’s see what we can make of it.”
He took it out of his pocket and we went to his house and sat down by a lamp.
“‘Where pussy looks she walks,’ it goes,” says Mark. “‘Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six. Stop. Ninety degrees in the shade. In. Down. Across. What color is a brick? Investigate. Believe what tells the truth.’ There she is,” says he. “If you can see any sense to it, Binney, you’ve got me beat.”
“Let’s take it by chunks,” says I. “That first sentence, now. ‘Where pussy looks she walks.’ What’s there to that? Anything?”
“Huh!” says he. “Huh!” And then he went to tugging at his ear and scowling. “If we knew what pussy he was talkin’ about we might have some idee.”
“But we don’t,” says I.
“Binney,” says he, sober as a judge, but with a twinkle in his little eyes, “I calc’late you’re right for once, though how you come to manage it I don’t know. We sure don’t know what cat’s bein’ d-d-discussed.”
“Where she looks she walks,” I says. “Oh, rats! it’s crazy!”
“If,” says Mark, “it means anythin’ at all, it’s givin’ a direction. See? If Mr. Wigglesworth left a message and this is it, why, maybe, just for instance, he’d hid somethin’. Eh? And if he hid somethin’, why, he wanted somebody to f-f-find it, but he wanted that s-somebody to be the right p-person.”
“Yes,” says I, “but who’s the right person?”
“Rock,” says he.
“How d’you know?” says I.
“B-because,” says he, “it was Rock he gave the p-puzzle to.”
“All right so far,” says I. “But let’s git back to pussy and what’s she’s lookin’ at. Most likely it’s a bird. Cats is gen’rally lookin’ at birds.”
“This cat wouldn’t be,” says he. “It would be l-lookin’ somewhere definite, and it would keep l-lookin’. What would be the use sayin’ it at all if the cat wouldn’t still be lookin’ where Mr. Wigglesworth wanted it to when we found her?”
“None,” says I, “which makes the whole thing look crazier ’n ever. A cat don’t set around eyin’ one spot permanent, even if it’s a mouse-hole. Cats move around,” says I, “and hain’t to be depended on.”
“I’ll bet you this cat is,” says he.
“You’ve got some notion about it,” says I.
“Not much of one,” says he, “but I’m guessin’, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Wigglesworth wanted somebody to find the cat and s-start there and go to walkin’ where p-p-pussy looked. See? That would give the direction to go. Go where she looked. If she l-looked south, walk south. If she l-looked north, walk north.”
“So far so good,” says I. “Go on.”
“The next looks easy. ‘Stop,’ it says. Well, ‘stop’ means to quit w-walkin’, don’t it?”
“Yes,” says I, “but you’re leavin’ out some-thin’.”
“What?” says he.
“Why,” says I, “the ‘Thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six.’”
“To be sure,” says he. He thought some more, and so did I.
“Maybe,” says I, “them figures means letters of the alphabet. A would be 1, and B would be 2, and so on. Let’s try it.”
We did, but nothing came of it. It didn’t make a word of sense.
“’Tain’t that,” says Mark, “but I’ll tell you what I b-b-b’lieve it is.”
“What?” says I.
“Feet,” says he.
“Whose feet?” says I.
“Feet,” says he, sharp-like. “Measure. Twelve-inch feet.”
“Oh,” says I.
“Yes,” says he, his cheeks flushing a little and his eyes getting all shiny with excitement. “That must be it. It means to start where the cat is and walk where she looks thirty and twenty and ten and forty-six feet. How many’s t-that?”
“Thirty and twenty’s fifty, and ten is sixty and forty-six is a hunderd and six,” says I.
“Good enough,” says he. “We’re so far in no time at all. We f-find pussy, makin’ sure we got the right pussy, and we take note of where she’s l-lookin’ and we walk that way a hunderd and six f-feet.... Then what do we do?” says he, with a grin.