MARK TIDD, MANUFACTURER

Books by

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Mark Tidd in Egypt

Mark Tidd in Italy

Mark Tidd

Mark Tidd in the Backwoods

Mark Tidd in Business

Mark Tidd’s Citadel

Mark Tidd, Editor

Mark Tidd, Manufacturer

Catty Atkins, Bandmaster

Catty Atkins

Catty Atkins, Riverman

Catty Atkins, Sailorman

Catty Atkins, Financier

HARPER & BROTHERS

Established 1817

THE HAND CAME CLOSER AND CLOSER

MARK TIDD MANUFACTURER

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

AUTHOR OF

“MARK TIDD” “MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS”

“MARK TIDD’S CITADEL” “MARK TIDD, EDITOR” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

Mark Tidd, Manufacturer

Printed in the United States of America

ILLUSTRATIONS

[The Hand Came Closer and Closer]

[“If You’ll Look Where I’m Pointin’ You’ll See a Door. It Leads Outside”]

[“I’ll Bet He Thought the Whole Bunch of His Ribs Was Plumb Caved In”]

[“You Won’t Never Get Our Dam Till We Say So”]

MARK TIDD, MANUFACTURER

CHAPTER I

Binney Jenks, Tallow Martin, and I were sitting on Mark Tidd’s front porch, waiting for him to get through supper. Maybe you’ve got an idea that didn’t take any patience, but you want to change your mind pretty quick. Eating supper wasn’t any two-second job with Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd. You can bet it wasn’t. He didn’t just grab a bite and run like us fellows do, but he sat down to the table with his stummick about six inches away from the edge of it, and kept on eating till he touched.

He knew we were waiting for him, but that didn’t make a bit of difference. If General Grant and the Emperor Napoleon were hanging around waiting for him to come out and play tag with them, he’d have eaten just as much and not a mite faster. When you weigh as much as he does I calc’late it takes more to keep you going, just like it takes more wood to run a big stove than it does a little one. It didn’t take him much more than an hour to get his stummick filled up this time, and out he waddled, looking kind of pleased and peaceful, with his hand resting gentle on his belt.

“Um!...” says he.

“Hope you didn’t hustle out before you got plenty,” says I.

He looked at me out of his little eyes that had to sort of peer over the tops of his dumpling cheeks. “Plunk,” says he, “if you d-d-do everythin’ in your l-life as thorough as I eat, folks is goin’ to admire you consid’able. I started in with vegetable soup at six o’clock, and I don’t recall neglectin’ a dish from that to apple pie. Two pieces of apple pie,” says he.

“It’s lucky,” says Binney, “that your pa’s rich. If he wasn’t he couldn’t afford to keep you. A poor fam’ly would have to drown you in a pail of water like folks does kittens they can’t figger to take care of.”

“Take a kind of big pail of water,” said Tallow. “Guess they’d need the village standpipe.”

“How’s your pa and ma?” says I.

“Oh,” says Mark, “Ma she’s b-b-busy, as usual. Just a-hustlin’ from git-up to go-to bed. Claims she’s p-plumb tired out, but the tireder she gets the harder she works. She just sent Dad out to put over the kittle while she cleared the table.”

“Did he do it?” says I.

Mark grinned. “When I l-looked through the kitchen door,” says he, “Dad he’d gone and set the dust-pan careful on the stove, and was settin’ in front of the stove, a-holdin’ the kittle in his lap and restin’ a volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall on top of it. You could ’a’ hollered fire and he wouldn’t budge.”

That was Mr. Tidd all over. He was one of these inventor folks, and that dreamy and absent-minded you wouldn’t believe it. Always a-thinking about something besides what he ought to be thinking about, and always getting into trouble with Mrs. Tidd—and forever reading the Decline and Fall. There’s eight volumes of it, and I’ll bet he can recite it word for word. Yes, sir, if Mrs. Tidd was to send him to the store for a pound of tea, as like as not he would come home bringin’ a knife-sharpener or a box of cough-drops or a sick dog. Mrs. Tidd always figgered on sendin’ him at least twice for anything—and then, ’most generally, she had to send one of us boys to git it, after all. And he was rich. Made so much money out of inventin’ a turbine engine that he’s got a bank full of it. But you’d never think it. Why, him and Mrs. Tidd lives just like they did when he didn’t have two dollars to his name. He dresses just the same, and she won’t even keep a hired girl. Fine folks, I can tell you, and us fellows think a heap of them.

“Well,” says Mark, “what’ll we d-do this evenin’?”

Before anybody could answer a man came through the gate and sort of shuffled up the walk toward the porch. He was nigh seven foot high and he wore enough whiskers to stop a mattress—the kind of whiskers that grow out every which way and waves around frantic when the wind blows. They made his head look as if it was about as big around as a bushel basket—but from there down you couldn’t hardly see him at all. He had a sort of look like a pumpkin lantern bein’ carried on the end of a long pole.

“Here’s Silas Doolittle Bugg,” says I.

We didn’t say anything till he got up to the steps. Then, all of a sudden, he seemed to see us and stopped and reached for a handful of them whiskers. Sort of gathered together all he could in one grab and jerked ’em like he aimed to haul ’em out by the roots.

“Howdy!” says he.

“Howdy!” says we.

He kind of leaned over like he was breaking in two in the middle and pointed a finger nigh six inches long right in Mark’s face. “You’re the Tidd boy,” he says, in a voice like shooting off a giant firecracker. He didn’t speak; he exploded!

There wasn’t any use in Mark’s trying to deny it. Nobody would have believed him, so he says he was the Tidd boy.

“Pa home?” says Silas.

“Yes, sir,” says Mark.

“I come to see him,” says Silas, exploding it again. But then the queerest thing happened to his voice. It sort of faded away. It got littler and littler. “But,” he says, turning around on his heels, “I don’t calc’late I’ll wait. I guess I’ll be goin’. Somehow it don’t seem’s though I needed to see him to amount to anythin’. I guess maybe he druther not see me.... Say, young feller, how’s he feelin’ to-night? Savage or jest so-so?”

“I don’t call to m-m-mind a time when Dad was s-savage,” says Mark.

“You figger I better see him, then,” says Silas.

“I don’t f-figger he’ll harm you none.”

Silas gives out a big sigh that came all the way from his shoes. “I’m plumb scairt,” says he.

“I’ll call him,” says Mark.

“No. No. Whoa there, boy. Hold on a minnit. Lemme git ready first. Seems like I got to brace myself for this meetin’. Sure he’s feelin’ mild and gentle?”

“As a lamb,” says Mark.

“Wisht I could git a peek at him before I tackle him,” says Silas.

“Just walk around and look through the kitchen window,” says Mark.

Silas stood still a minute, and then he tip-toed around the house, and we saw him put his nose against the window and stand there, staring in. In a couple of jiffies he was back again.

“Looks stern and kind of war-like,” he says.

“Dad never bit nobody,” says Mark.

“You calc’late it’s safe for me to see him?”

“Course,” says Mark.

“Well,” says Silas, letting off another of those big sighs, “I guess it’s got to be did. Hain’t no way of puttin’ it off; but, gosh! how I dread it!”

Mark got up and went in to call his father. In a minute he was back with Mr. Tidd, who had his thumb in the Decline and Fall and was blinking peaceful and looking as gentle and serene as a ten-year-old rabbit-hound. When Silas saw him coming he was like to have taken to his heels, and he fidgeted and moved from one foot to the other and twisted his fingers like he was trying to braid them, and breathed hard. You would have thought he was going to run into a tribe of massacreeing Injuns.

Mr. Tidd stood on the top step and peered down at Silas with those mild eyes of his, and nodded, and says, “It’s Silas, hain’t it?”

“Yes,” says Silas, with all the explosion gone out of his voice. “How you feelin’, Mr. Tidd? Be you patient and long-sufferin’ to-night, or be you kind of riled about somethin’? ’Cause if you be I kin come back to-morrow.”

“I calc’late I feel perty peaceful, Silas. Wouldn’t you say I was feelin’ peaceful, Marcus Aurelius?”

“I’d call you so,” says Mark.

“You’ll need to be,” says Silas, “when I break it to you.”

“Oh,” says Mr. Tidd, kind of vague, “you got somethin’ to break to me?”

“You ought to know what,” says Silas.

Mr. Tidd waggled his head and opened his book and shut it again, and scratched his leg. “Calc’late somebody must be sick,” says he.

“’Tain’t that,” says Silas.

“I hain’t much good at guessin’, Silas.... Say, Silas, set a minute and listen to this here passage out of Gibbon. I was just a-readin’ it over. You’ll find it jam full of pleasure and profit.” He leaned against a post and opened up the book, but Silas spoke up, anxious-like, and says:

“I don’t calc’late I got any heart to listen to readin’, Mr. Tidd, and neither will you have when I git around to breakin’ it to you.”

“No?” says Mr. Tidd. “Well, then, Silas, admittin’ you got somethin’ to break, why don’t you up and break it?”

“Seems like I hain’t got the courage. I was hopin’ maybe you’d guess.”

“I’m willin’ to try,” says Mr. Tidd, in that gentle voice of his. “I’ll guess maybe the house is on fire.”

“What house?” says Silas, sort of taken by surprise.

“Why,” says Mr. Tidd, as mild as could be, “this house.”

Silas looked up at the roof and craned his neck to peer around to the side. “This house,” says he, all flabbergasted. “Say, if you think this house is on fire, why hain’t you doin’ somethin’ about it?”

“Well,” said Mr. Tidd, “what would you advise doin’?”

“Yellin’,” says Silas.

“I hain’t much on yellin’,” says Mr. Tidd.

“If my house was on fire I’d calc’late to make some racket,” says Silas.

“But I don’t know this house is on fire. I jest guessed it was.”

“Hain’t you goin’ to find out?”

“Why,” says Mr. Tidd, “if it’s on fire we’ll find out quick enough, won’t we?”

Maybe you think Mr. Tidd was joking with Silas Doolittle Bugg, but he wasn’t. That was his way. He’d have acted just that way if the house really was on fire, and probably he’d have stopped the fire company on the lawn to read to them out of the Decline and Fall if the roof was blazing.

“Well, I swan!” says Silas.

“Hain’t that what you wanted to break to me, Silas?” Mr. Tidd says.

“No,” says Silas; “it was somethin’ else.”

“Oh!” says Mr. Tidd. “Want me to guess ag’in?”

“’Twouldn’t do no good,” says Silas, drooping with discouragement. “You wouldn’t guess right.”

“Maybe so,” says Mr. Tidd.

“It’s about me,” says Silas.

“You?” says Mr. Tidd.

“Me and you.”

“Oh, you and me? I want to know!”

“Don’t you remember?” says Silas.

“I hain’t certain,” says Mr. Tidd, scratching his leg again. “Don’t seem to remember anythin’.”

“Money,” says Silas.

“Oh, money?” Mr. Tidd says, as vague as a cloud of fog.

“Lots of money,” says Silas.

“Do tell,” says Mr. Tidd.

“And my mill.”

“Oh,” says Mr. Tidd. “It’s your mill that’s on fire?”

“My mill hain’t afire. Nothin’s afire. You hain’t standin’ there tellin’ me you plumb clean forgot?”

“I hain’t forgot exactly, Silas, but it don’t seem like I remember clear. You might sort of give me a hint.”

“Promissory note,” says Silas.

“Promissory note, eh? What about it, Silas? Um!... I’ve heard of promissory notes. Gibbon he don’t mention ’em, but I’ve heard tell of ’em somewheres. Now where was it? Lemme see.... Promissory note....”

“I give you one.”

“Much obleeged,” says Mr. Tidd. “What’ll I do with it?”

“Say, you look here, Mr. Tidd. A promissory note means I promise to pay you money.”

“To be sure,” says Mr. Tidd. “It’s kind of you. But I don’t calc’late to need money.”

“That’s it,” says Silas. “You hain’t goin’ to git none.”

“No?” says Mr. Tidd. “Hain’t I?”

“Not a penny,” says Silas. “Not that I owe you.”

“Well.... Well....” said Mr. Tidd.

“You lent me money when I needed it to start up my mill,” said Silas.

“So I did,” says Mr. Tidd. “Seems like I remember somethin’ about it. You was goin’ to pay it back or somethin’. That was it, wasn’t it?”

“That’s the idee,” says Silas, “and that’s what I come to break to you. I was mighty nervous about comin’, but it had to be did. I jest can’t pay that money, Mr. Tidd. I’m plumb busted. The mill’s plumb busted. I can’t make no money out of her, and so I can’t pay you none. I come to tell you all you kin do is to take the mill.”

“I don’t want no mills,” said Mr. Tidd.

“You got to take it,” says Silas.

“I got to?”

“Sure as shootin’. It was your security, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?” says Mr. Tidd. “Well, I swan to man!”

“So,” says Silas, “I come to tell you and to turn that there property over to you. It’s the best I kin do. I calc’late to be honest, but somehow I can’t figger to make money. I kin lose money. You hain’t no idee how skilful I be at losin’ money.... The mill’s yourn and that’s all there is to it.”

“Well, hain’t that the beatin’est!” says Mr. Tidd. “Me ownin’ a mill! Whatever’ll I do with a mill, Silas?”

“I dunno. Run it, maybe. Sell it, maybe.”

Mark Tidd he got up slow, his eyes puckered and looking as bright as buttons. “Say, pa,” says he, “invite Mr. Bugg to set. I got an idee.”

“He’s always gettin’ idees,” said Mr. Tidd to Silas. “What’s the idee this time, Marcus Aurelius?”

“Why,” says Mark, “it l-looks like Mr. Bugg was busted!”

“I be,” says Silas.

“Because,” says Mark, “he hain’t a b-b-business man.”

“Right,” says Silas. “Right as could be. I kin work, but I can’t figger.”

“I kin f-f-figger,” says Mark. “Here’s my notion. Mr. Bugg owes you m-money he can’t pay. Well, there’s the mill, and mills is built to m-make money with. Money kin be made with this m-m-mill.”

“Maybe,” says Silas.

“Course it can,” says Mark. “Now, vacation’s here, and we hain’t got nothin’ to do. You take over Mr. Bugg’s mill, Dad, and the boys and me will run it. Git the idee? We’ll make money out of it and pay you back, and then, when we git her to goin’ and makin’ lots of money, we’ll turn her back to Silas ag’in. Kind of receivers, like they have when folks go bankrupt. How’s that, Dad?”

“Don’t see no harm in it,” said Mr. Tidd.

“How about you, Mr. Bugg?”

“Anythin’ suits me,” says Silas.

“You’ll keep on workin’,” says Mark, “and helpin’ to look after the manufacturin’. We’ll look after the b-business end, and help with the m-m-manufacturin’ end, too. Eh? How’s that?”

“First class,” says Silas.

“We’ll start in to-morrow,” says Mark. “You fellows be on hand. Whistle she b-blows at seven. We’ll git down and f-f-figger things out and then we’ll start to work. We hain’t never run a mill,” he says, all enthusiastic and worked up.

“No,” says I, “we hain’t, nor a circus, nor a airyplane, nor a merry-go-round.”

“But we kin,” says he.

That was Mark Tidd all over. We kin, he says, and that was what he meant. Folks did run mills and make money, and if they could, why, he could, too. He was that confident in himself that he made you confident in him, too. And another thing, when he started in on a job he’d stick to it. Nothing would discourage him, and if there was any way of pulling it off he would do it, and you could bet your last dollar on it.

“All right,” says he, “that’s s-s-settled. We’ll see you at s-s-seven, Mr. Bugg.”

“Well,” said Silas, slow and kind of groping around in his mind, “if this don’t beat all! It does beat all. Sufferin’ codfish! I swan to man!”

He turned around quick and began to shuffle off, muttering to himself and grabbing handfuls of his whiskers. The last we saw of him he had both his hands grabbed into them and he was pulling like all-git-out. Those whiskers must have been rooted in tight.

“Better git to bed,” says Mark. “To-morrow’s goin’ to be a b-b-busy day.”

CHAPTER II

We were all down at the mill before seven o’clock. It wasn’t much of a mill, but when I stood there looking at it, and figuring that I was going to help run it, why, it looked bigger than the Capitol at Washington, and pretty gorgeous, too. Somehow the feeling that you’re interested in a thing always makes it look bigger and better. I guess that’s why a boy always gets the notion that his dog is better than anybody else’s dog, no matter what kind of a dog it really is. I was downright proud of that mill, and I could tell by the way Mark Tidd stood and looked at it, with his head cocked on one side, that he was proud of it, too.

It was all painted red, and was right on the edge of the river, with a mill-race running underneath it. It didn’t run with an engine, but with water-power, and the power came from a dam that ran across the river. I didn’t think much about that dam just then, nor about water-power, but before we got through with things I did a heap of thinking about them, and so did Mark Tidd. Up till then a river didn’t mean anything to me but a thing to fish in or swim in, but before I was many months older I discovered that rivers weren’t invented just for kids to monkey with, nor yet to make a home for fish. They have business, just like anybody else, and they’re valuable just like any other business, getting more valuable the more business they can do.

We went into the mill. The floor was all littered up with sawdust, and chunks of wood, and machinery, and belts, and saws, and holes in the floor. It seemed like there was almost as much hole as there was floor, and you had to pick your way or down you’d go. I didn’t know much about machinery nor what the machines were for, but Mark, he’d hung around there some, and he knew. He was one of them kind that’s always finding out. Always asking questions and bothering folks for no reason but that he’s got an itch to know things and has to be scratching it constant. I’ll admit it pays sometimes. You never know when a mess of information is coming in handy.

“L-let’s see,” says Mark, “you got two back-knife lathes and three novelty lathes.”

“Yep,” says Silas Doolittle Bugg, exploding his voice like a blast of dynamite.

“And a planer, and a swing-off saw, and a circular-saw mill.”

“Yep,” says Silas. “What’s t-t-that thing?” says Mark, pointing off into a corner where a dusty, rusty, busted-up looking thing was setting.

“Dowel-machine,” says Silas. “Bought her to an auction. Never knowed jest why. Fetched her back and stuck her there, and she hain’t been moved since.”

“What’s dowels?” says I.

“Little pegs like,” says Silas.

“Um!...” says Mark. “What you been makin’ m-most?”

“Drumsticks,” exploded Silas, “and dumb-bells and tenpins and chair-rounds.”

“Which made the most money for you?”

“You hain’t askin’ it right,” said Silas. “What you want to say is which lost the most money for me?”

“All right,” says Mark. “Which?”

“I dunno,” says Silas, grabbing into his beard and yanking it off to one side.

“Let’s go into the office,” says Mark.

“Never calc’lated to have much office,” says Silas. “That there room was built for one, but seems like I never had no need for it. I jest wandered around.”

“Oh!” says Mark. “Who kept the books?”

“Books?” says Silas. “Oh yes, books. To be sure—books.”

“Yes, ledgers and journals and such like.”

“Never had one.”

“How ever did you manage to git along?”

“Hain’t I been a-tellin’ you I didn’t git along? I busted.”

“But how did you run without books?”

“Why,” says Silas, “if I owed a feller he sent me a bill, and if I had any money I paid him. If a feller owed me I calc’lated he’d pay me some day, if he was honest, and I kep’ sort of track of that on these here pieces of wood. Whenever I sold a man an order I put it down here, and if he didn’t pay after a while I guessed maybe he didn’t figger to pay, so I chucked the hunk of board over into the office room. There’s quite some boards in there.”

“Didn’t you send out invoices?”

“Invoices? Didn’t calc’late to. Used to set down and write a letter once in a while askin’ for money.”

“I’m s’prised,” says Mark, his voice not getting a bit sarcastic, but his eyes looking that way considerable—“I’m s’prised you went busted.”

“I hain’t,” says Silas. “I always went busted. Seems like goin’ busted was a habit of mine.”

“Have any cost system?”

“What’s one of them?” says Silas, looking around bewildered—like as if he expected one to come up and lick his hand. “Never seen one around here!”

“A cost system is the way you find out how much it costs you to manufacture—how much it c-c-costs to make a hundred d-drumsticks or a h-hundred dumb-bells and sich. Didn’t you know that?”

“Course not,” said Silas. “What’s the difference, anyhow?”

“How could you f-f-figger your sellin’ prices?”

“Mostly I took what was offered.”

“Um!...” says Mark, and for a minute he looked clean discouraged.

“What did your l-l-logs cost you?”

“I figgered to pay twelve dollars a thousand.”

“How much did it cost to h-h-handle ’em?”

“How should I know?”

Mark waggled his head like he didn’t feel very comfortable inside of it. “Course you don’t know what the l-labor cost on each article?”

“Now you look here, Mark Tidd, I hain’t no ’cyclopedy. How ever you think I was goin’ to know them things?”

“Know how many drumsticks you got out of a thousand f-foot of timber?”

“Never counted.”

“Near as I can g-gather,” says Mark, “the main thing you know about this b-b-business is that it’s busted.”

“Calc’late you’re right,” says Silas.

“Men work by the piece or by the d-day?”

“Some of both,” says Silas.

It looked pretty close to hopeless. I didn’t understand exactly what Mark was getting at all the time, but I sensed some of it, and it looked to me like we was grabbing holt of about as big a muddle as anybody ever saw.

“Could we start up this mill to-morrow?” Mark asked.

“Calc’late we could—if we could git the help and if nothin’ else didn’t prevent.”

“Have you got l-logs?”

Silas pointed out of the window to the log-yard, and anybody could see he did have logs, quite a consid’able stack of them.

“Paid for?” says Mark.

“Mostly,” says Silas.

“Why didn’t you turn ’em into m-m-money, then?”

“The faster I manufactured ’em the faster I went busted,” says Silas, “so I jest up and quit.”

“Who do you owe m-money to besides Pa?” Mark wanted to know.

“Not many. You see I kep’ usin’ the money I borrowed off him to pay other folks.”

“That’s a help, anyhow,” Mark says. “How many logs do you use a d-day?”

“Some days more, some days less.”

“Got any orders on h-hand? For drumsticks and dumb-bells and s-s-sich?”

“Not to speak of,” says Silas.

“That’s good, too,” says Mark. “It lets us take a f-f-fresh start. Who you been sellin’ to?”

Silas told him the names of several concerns, and Mark wrote them down in a little book.

“Now,” says he to Silas, “you stir around and get a crew here to start up to-morrow. We’re a-goin’ to manufacture, and we got to manufacture before I kin do any f-f-figgerin’. Maybe there’s experts could figger costs without startin’ to manufacture, but I’m dummed if I kin. We’ll run a week or so and then we’ll start to f-f-figger.”

“Jest as you say,” Silas roared, like a boiler was busting, and out he went, grabbing at his whiskers and hanging on like they were some kind of a balloon that carried him through the air. The rest of his long, lank body kind of trailed behind like the tail of a kite.

“Now,” says Mark, “l-let’s start in.”

“How?” says I.

“Gittin’ ready. I studied some bookkeepin’ in school this year, and I guess Clem Brush down to the bank will give me some p-pointers. I’ll git him to help buy a set of books. I want you fellers should hustle around here and sort things over, and make a list of everything in the m-m-mill. And while you’re doin’ it you might clean up some. Never seen sich a dirty mill. Looks like Silas never cleaned any sawdust out of here from the day he started to run. As full of sawdust as an ice-house. Two of you go at that—Plunk and Binney. Tallow, you go to the office and see if you can’t m-m-make it look more l-like an office and less like the place where a boiler exploded.... If you kin f-f-find a stock-room, take an inventory of it.”

Off he went down-town, and we set to work with shovels and brooms and paper and pencils. Looks like a fellow gits more ease and quiet and comfort out of a lead-pencil than he does out of a shovel. Binney was willing to do all the listing if I’d do all the cleaning; and I was willing to wear my brain out with inventory if he’d crack his back shoveling sawdust. When we saw neither of us was going to give in, we made the best of it and divided up. Tallow didn’t have anything to double up while he was working in the office; shovel up was his job, and we guyed him some.

I was cleaning up around the saw-carriage when I looked up and saw a man standing there, looking at me kind of surprised, like the sight of me actually at work was more ’n he could bear. I couldn’t see why he should feel that way, because I never seen him before, and, anyhow, I wasn’t any lazier ’n Tallow and Binney, though they hid it easier.

The man wore one of them stovepipe hats, and he had a cane, and there was a sparklish stone in his necktie, and he had things over his shoes that were kind of gray and had buttons on ’em—spats, Mark said they were. I calc’late he had on brand-new pants, because the crease wasn’t wore out of them, and a kind of a perty vest, and one of them coats like the minister wears Sundays. He wasn’t big, and he wasn’t little. He wasn’t what you’d call terrible old—maybe forty—and he wasn’t fat or lean. Just one of them in-between sort of men. He wore a little stubby mustache that looked like he could take it off and use it for a tooth-brush if it was loose, and he had two eyes, one on each side of his nose. His nose wasn’t much to speak of, just a reg’lar nose—the kind you can blow, but not very loud. That reminds me: did you ever hear Uncle Ike Bond blow his nose? Well, lemme tell you you missed something. When Uncle Ike hauls out that red bandana of his and grabs a-hold of his nose with it and lets her go, you’d think the train was whistling for a crossing. Wow! I’ve seen him scare horses so they ’most jumped out of their harness. Why, when Uncle Ike drove the bus to somebody’s house he never got out to ring the bell—he just blowed his nose. Sometimes, if he was in a hurry, he blowed it when he was a block away, and the folks would be all out and ready, standing waiting for him when he got there. Once there was a motion before the selectmen to hire Uncle Ike to be the fire department, so’s they could use his nose for the fire whistle, but somehow it never went through.

This man here didn’t blow his nose at all. He just stood there looking at me a minute, and then he picked his way over, taking a lot of pains not to get any dust onto his pants; and when he got clost he says:

“Where is the proprietor?”

“Of what?” says I.

“This mill,” says he.

“Depends,” says I, “on who you mean by proprietor. I’m dummed if I know jest who is holdin’ down that job. There’s things in favor of sev’ral folks. Now there’s Silas Doolittle Bugg; some might claim he owns it. Then there’s Mr. Tidd; some might say he was the feller. Then there’s Mark Tidd; he comes in somewheres, but I’m blessed if I know just where.”

“Where are they?”

“Different places,” says I. “Was there anything I could do for you?”

“Answer questions so I’ll know what you’re talking about,” says he.

Well, that made me mad. From that minute I took a dislike to the man, and I never got over it. I guess I wouldn’t be letting go of any secret if I was to say that the longer I knew him the less I liked him.

“Mister,” says I, not smarty, but just firm and business-like, the way Mark says you should always be, “I’m one of the fellers that’s runnin’ this mill. If you got any business here you kin state it to me. If you hain’t got any business here, why, I’m sort of busy dustin’ off the furniture. Now, what kin I do for you?”

“I want to find the owner.”

“I’ve explained about the owner.”

“Who is in charge, then? Who is running this business?”

“Mark Tidd,” says I.

“Well, I got something out of you at last,” says he. “But it was like mining for it. Do you always keep what valuable information you have sunk as deep as this?”

“We make drumsticks and dumb-bells and tenpins and chair-rounds,” says I. “Do you want to buy any?”

“No,” says he.

“Be you a travelin’-man? What you got to sell?”

“I’m not a salesman,” says he.

“What be you, then?” says I.

“Nothing that would interest you, young man. Where will I find this Mr. Tidd?”

“Mark Tidd?”

“Yes,” says he.

“You’ll find him here,” says I, “pervidin’ you wait long enough. This is about the only place I know of where he’ll be. I calc’late to see him amblin’ in perty soon.”

“I’ll wait,” says he. “Where’s the office?”

“If you’d call it an office,” says I, “it’s through that door.”

He walked over and jerked open the door. One look inside give him a plentiful sufficiency. You couldn’t see for dust and cobwebs and chunks and dirt that Tallow was stirring around like he was one of these whirlwinds. The air was plumb full of rubbish. I bet Tallow was having a bully time. The man shut the door quick and backed off.

“Is that the office?” says he.

“Sich as it is,” said I.

“Where can I wait?” says he.

“Pick out a place yourself,” says I.

He walked around disgusted-like, looking for a place to sit down, but he didn’t seem to get suited. There wasn’t a place that would have agreed with them pants of his. He didn’t hanker to git dirt on ’em, and I wasn’t dusting off anything for him just then.

I was sorry for him if he was tired, because he didn’t have but two choices—to stand up or sit and git his new pants all grime. He stood.

In about half an hour in come Mark Tidd with his arms full of whopping-big books. He dumped them on the saw-carriage and stood and panted, looking around.

“How’s it c-c-comin’?” says he.

“Two in a hill,” says I. “Got a visitor.”

Mark looked at the man and then at me. “Who’s he?”

“Dunno,” says I, “and I hain’t got no ache to find out.”

“What’s he w-want?”

“To see you,” says I.

Mark walked over toward him and says, “Was you l-lookin’ for me, mister?”

“I’m waiting for Mr. Tidd. Mr. Mark Tidd, I believe was the name.”

“That’s me.”

“You! That boy told me Mark Tidd was in charge of this mill.”

“He’s f-f-famous for tellin’ the truth,” says Mark.

“But you’re nothing but a kid.”

“Uh-huh,” says Mark, sort of squinting his eyes like he does sometimes when somebody says something he doesn’t cotton to, “but I’m boss, just the same. What kin I d-d-do for you?”

“This is business,” says the man. “I want to do business with somebody who can do business.”

“You might t-try me,” says Mark, as calm and gentle as a kitten. “I’m the best in that line we got. If you got business to do with this m-m-mill, I calc’late you got to do it with me.”

“Huh!” says the man.

“I’m p-p-perty busy,” says Mark. “If you got somethin’ you want to say you better git to the p-p-p’int.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Very well,” said he; “I’ll get to the point. I represent the Middle-West Power Company. We own water-powers all over this state and other states. We have one below on this river and a couple above. You have a small power here that doesn’t amount to a great deal, but we’ll be willing to take it off your hands. Your dam is going to pieces and will need expensive repairs. I take it you own this dam and site?”