I'll bet you've forgotten all about Spragg, the Eagle Center _Clarion_
man. If you have, you want to remember him again, for the time was
coming fast when he would be right on hand like a case of mumps. Not
that mumps are generally on hand. When I had them they reached from one
ear right around to the other, and Mark Tidd didn't have half so much
face as I did.
Well, one day about the time the contest was getting nicely started up I
saw Spragg in town. He'd waited till things cooled down, and was there
at the hotel, nosing around just as if nothing had happened.
"Howdy-do, Mr. Spragg!" says I, with my face as sober as a judge. "Hope
you're feelin' well and gittin' all the exercise you need."
"I'm feelin' well," says he, "but I'm short of exercise. I'll git it,
though, and don't you lose sight of that. You kids think you're pretty
smart, but my name's spelled S-p-r-a-g-g, see?"
"No," says I, not seeing at all. What did _that_ have to do with it, I
wondered; but, just for luck, I thought I'd josh him a little. "I
thought your name was spelled M-u-d. Looked like that awhile back."
"Go on," says he. "Keep heapin' it up. Perty soon I'll have enough
ag'in' you boys to make it worth my while to git even. And when I set
out to git even I do it with a plane," says he.
"Reg'lar carpenter, hain't you? I didn't know but a man with a name
spelled like yours would even things off with a butter-knife, or maybe a
nursin'-bottle."
"You better move away from here," says he, "before I lose my temper."
"Huh!" says I, moving off where I'd have a good start if he came after
me. "Folks that loses their temper in Wicksville gen'ally gits all the
help they want findin' it ag'in."
"Go ahead," says he; "get all the laugh you can out of it now. In
another day or two you'll be laughin' crossways of your mouth. What
would you smart newspaper kids say to a daily in Wicksville, eh? Reg'lar
city daily. Guess that would sort of put the lid on that old weekly of
yours, wouldn't it? Spragg is my name. Begins with a capital S, remember
that."
I wasn't going to let on to him that what he said worried me, so I said
to him: "You'd have to be spryer 'n you be now to git out a daily. The
way you move around I guess a monthly's about _your_ speed."
He made a move after me and I scooted down the street to tell Mark. He
wasn't in, though, and Tallow said he and Plunk had gone out to see Rock
at the farm.
"When he comes back," says I, "he'll have all the rock he wants, and it
looks to me like it would be rock bottom. We're goin' to be up against a
daily paper here."
An hour after in comes Mark and Plunk.
"B-been studyin' the yard there at Rock's," says he, "and I c-c-can't
make head nor tail to that message of Mr. Wigglesworth's. Found the cat,
all right, and w-w-walked where she l-looked. M-measured off a hunderd
and six feet, but there we come to n-ninety degrees in the shade.
Stumped us. Found the shade, all right, but it wasn't ninety degrees.
Held a t-thermometer, and it wasn't but sixty-seven."
"It's goin' to be ninety degrees in the shade of this office," says I.
"Spragg's back and is goin' to start a daily to run us out of business."
"How d'you know?" says he.
"Spragg says so," I told him.
"Hum!" says he. "I sort of d-doubt it. Spragg don't look like he had
money enough or gumption enough."
"Maybe somebody's backin' him," says I.
"Might be," says he. "Guess I b-b-better look into it."
So he and I went out together, leaving Plunk and Tallow to mind the
office.
"A d-daily," says he, "would have hard sleddin' here. Don't b'lieve it
would make a go. But while Spragg was t-tryin' it he might hurt us a
lot. Two newspapers in a little town l-like this can't m-make money."
"Neither can one," says I. "Anyhow we hain't got rich. Might as well be
two as one, so far's I can see."
"The _Trumpet's_ goin' to pay," says he, and he shut his jaw tight, like
he does when he's made up his mind to do something or bust. "Spragg or
no Spragg, we're goin' to make a reg'lar paper of the _Trumpet_--and git
money out of it. Don't go gittin' limp in the s-s-spine," he says.
It don't take long in Wicksville to find out what's going on, because
there isn't much going on, anyhow, and as soon as something turns up and
one man hears of it, why, he can't rest or eat till he's run all over
peddling it to everybody he sees. And every man _he_ tells has to start
out the same way, so in a half-hour from the time a thing starts almost
everybody in town is out looking for somebody to tell it to. That's what
makes it so hard to run a newspaper. Everybody knows everything he reads
in the paper as soon as the editor does. I guess about the only reason
folks subscribe to the _Trumpet_ at all is to see if their own name is
mentioned, or to say to somebody else: "Huh! There hain't never no news
in this paper. I knew every doggone thing printed in it two days before
the paper come out."
Well, that's why it wasn't hard for us to find out that Spragg really
was planning to start a daily paper in town, nor to figger out that he
didn't have much money to start it with himself. He was trying to start
what he called a co-operative paper. Co-operative means that one man
gets a lot of other men to put their money into a thing with the idea
that they'll all get some good out of it, whereas nobody gets anything
but the fellow that starts it.
Spragg's notion was to put in a little money himself and to have the
merchants and business folks in town put in the rest. His argument was
that there was money in running a newspaper, and the money was made out
of the advertising. So, if the men that put in the advertisements and
paid money for them owned the newspaper themselves, why, they would just
be paying the money to themselves, and the subscribers would pay the
cost of getting out the paper. So the advertisers would be getting their
advertisements practically for nothing. It sounded dangerous to me.
I guess it worried Mark some, too, for if merchants could get their
advertising in a daily practically without costing them a cent, what
would they spend any money in the _Trumpet_ for?
Spragg was just talking the thing up, but he was talking a lot, and it
looked like he had the business men interested. Where Spragg came in was
that he was to be the editor and have a salary and a share of the
profits.
Mark went and sat down on my steps and began to whittle like he always
does when he's got a puzzle on his mind. He whittled and whittled and
didn't say a word for an hour. Then he looked at me out of his twinkling
little eyes that you could hardly see over his fat cheeks and says:
"I guess Spragg's idee is to get these f-f-fellers all into the paper.
They'll p-put their money in to start it, and p-perty soon they'll see
that their advertisements hain't free. Not by a big s-sight. And p-perty
soon they'll get disgusted and along Spragg'll come and buy their shares
of the paper dirt cheap. He f-f-figgers to come out at the other end
with a daily p-paper that didn't cost him hardly anything. And then
he'll be where he can m-make some money."
"Yes," says I, "because by that time, with all the stores not givin' us
any advertisements, we'll be busted."
"That," says he, "is how Spragg f-f-figgers it. But," says he, "I figger
it some d-different."
"How do you figger it?" says I.
"I f-f-figger," says he, stuttering like a gas engine just starting up
on a cold morning, "that he hain't ever g-goin' to start any paper at
all, and that we're goin' to keep all the business we've got, and that
Mr. Spragg'll wisht he never heard of Wicksville or of the _Trumpet_ or
of us."
"Sounds good," says I, "and I've seen you pull out of a lot of deep
holes, but this one looks to me like it would be too much for you. I
guess this time, Mark, you're up against it hard."
"Binney," says he, "if Spragg b-beats us then you can p-paint a sign
sayin' 'idiot' and pin it on my b-back, and I'll wear it a month."
You notice he said "us." That was just like him always. He wasn't what
you'd call modest, but he was square with us other fellows that didn't
think as quick and as shrewd as he did. We all got the credit for what
was done if he could fix it that way. But I don't believe many folks
were fooled by it. They knew Mark Tidd and they knew us.
"You can always catch f-f-folks with a scheme," says he, "that makes 'em
think they're gettin' somethin' for n-nothin'. But," he says, "I hain't
ever seen anybody git somethin' without pay in' about what it was
worth."
"Yes," says I, "if you coop a watermelon out of Deacon Burgess's garden,
why, you pay for it by tearin' your pants on his barb-wire fence, or by
gittin' the stummick ache."
"That's about the idee," says he.
"What you goin' to do first?" I says.
"Haven't f-figgered it out yet," says he. Then he went to talking about
the contest.
"How many subscriptions have we got in?" says he.
"Lemme see," says I, "this is the third day it's been goin' and
yesterday we had seventy. Tallow said we got in twenty-six this morning.
That makes ninety-six."
"Huh!" says he. "They hain't got warmed up yet. But we'll get 'em good
perty soon. They'll start comin' strong."
We walked down the street and in front of the post-office was a crowd
standing around a couple of men that was arguing so you could have heard
them in the next township. Mark and I ran over to see what was going on,
because newspaper men always ought to be right where things are
happening. We edged into the crowd and found out it was Mr. Strubber and
Mr. Bobbin, and they was quarreling about how smart their wives was.
"Huh!" says Strubber. "Your wife wouldn't never have dared to git into a
contest with my wife if she hadn't been forced. She was cornered and
dassen't back down."
"Strubber," says Bobbin, "I hain't denyin' your wife has her p'ints.
There's ways where she can beat my wife all holler. Why, when it comes
to takin' the broom and chasin' her husband around the house Mrs. Bobbin
wouldn't even tackle the job at all. She knows without tryin' that Mrs.
Strubber kin beat her good and plenty there."
"You mean," hollered Strubber, "that my wife chases me with a broom? You
dast say that? Why, you miserable little swiggle-legged, goggle-eyed,
slumgullion, Mrs. Strubber's as gentle as a lamb! Yes, sir, she's all
brain, that's what she is. If you was to take Mrs. Strubber's brain out
and lay it on top of that thing _your_ wife calls a brain, it 'u'd be
like coverin' a pea with a bushel basket."
"Sure!" says Bobbin. "It's big all right, but you're right when you
compare it to a bushel basket. It's as thin and empty as any bushel
basket in Michigan."
Strubber pretended to look at Bobbin careful, and then he laughed out
loud. "Folks tells me," says he, "that you really eat the stuff Mrs.
Bobbin cooks."
"You bet I do," says Bobbin.
"Lookin' at you," says Strubber, "I'm prepared to admit it. Nothin' else
would make you look that way. I always wondered what made you sich a
peeked, ornery, yaller-complected, funny-lookin' little runt like you
be. You must 'a' had a tough constitution when you got married, or you
wouldn't never have survived all these years--if what you _be_ can be
called survivin'. As for me, I guess I'd rather not 'a' survived at all
as to be what that cookin' has made of you."
"Huh!" says Bobbin. "I hain't no tub of lard like _you_ be. What I git
is good wholesome food that makes muscles and brain. You get fed on
sloppy stuff to fatten you. You know what we feed hogs, don't you, eh?
Gather it up out of pails at folks' back doors. It fats up the hogs,
too. Well, Mrs. Strubber, she uses that same method on you."
"Be you comparin' my wife's cookin' to _swill_?" yelled Strubber,
wabbling all over like a bowl of jelly he was that mad.
"Not comparin'," says Bobbin. "And what goes for Mrs. Strubber goes for
all the rest of them Lit'ry Circle wimmin."
"Eh? What's that?" bellowed another man from the crowd. "I want you
should know _my_ wife b'longs to that Lit'ry Circle, and the finest
wimmin in town does. Wimmin b'longs to that that would be ashamed to be
one of them Home Culturers. Why, nobody b'longs to the Home Culturers
but folks the Lit'ry Circle wimmin wouldn't have nothin' to do with."
"Is that _so_?" another fellow shouted, and began working close to the
row. "My wife's a Home Culturer, and if you think I'll stand by to let a
spindle-shanked, knock-kneed, bald-headed, squint-eyed wampus like you
say sich things, why, you're mighty badly mistook. Listen here. 'Tain't
doin' no good to stand here fightin' about our wives. There's a contest
on to see which ones is the best. I don't need no contest to tell _me_.
But us men better shut up and let the contest go ahead. Then you Lit'ry
Circle fellers will have to hunt your holes. Why, doggone you, them Home
Culturers will git two subscriptions to your one. Hear _me_. And when it
comes to cookin' and gittin' up a meal of vittles--well, jest wait,
that's all I got to say."
He turned around and began to push out of the crowd, and so did the
other men. I guess they judged they was gettin' perty close to a fight,
and that jest talking wouldn't answer the purpose much longer. I notice
that men is willing to stand and rave and tear and talk jest so long as
it hain't likely to go any farther. But the minute things begins to look
like business, and spectators is all keyed up to see a fight, why, the
talking stops and the folks that started it all begins to disappear
fast. Mostly a man that talks won't fight, and a man that fights keeps
his mouth tight shut.
Mark and I went along toward the office.
"L-l-looks to me," says he, grinning like all git out, "as if f-folks
was beginnin' to git a bit het up over the contest."
"Yes," says I. "I hope both sides don't turn to and get het up at us. If
they do," says I, "the South Pole is about the only place we'll be safe,
and maybe not there."
"I don't care," says he, "as long as it gits us s-s-subscriptions."
Which was just exactly like him. Results was what counted.