My, how those Home Culturers and Literary Circlers did work to get
subscriptions for us. I never would have believed it, and how any of
them had time to cook their husbands' meals, or wash their kids' faces,
I don't see. Probably they didn't, for little things like keeping house
wouldn't matter when there was a contest on to see who had the most
brains.
Old Grandma Smedley claimed both clubs didn't have any brains or they
wouldn't be fussing with such things. "I calc'late," says she, "that I'm
the only woman in town that's got even common sense. If a woman wants
dumb foolishness in the family she don't have to do it herself. Her
husband's always ready." But what she said didn't matter; the contest
went on just the same.
The rules of the contest were that the money had to be paid right in
with a subscription before it counted, and the first thing Mark and us
fellows knew we had quite some considerable of a bank account. You get
forty-odd women hustling for subscriptions at a dollar and a quarter
apiece, and it don't take long to have the money mount up.
While the subscriptions were coming in we didn't forget the advertising,
you can bet. Mark figured out arguments for us to shoot at the
merchants, and they worked pretty good. Every week we carried more
advertising than we ever had before, just because we had convinced
business men how interested everybody was in the _Trumpet_ just now
while the contest was going on, and how everybody was reading it. The
business men could see that for themselves, because _they_ were reading
it, and their wives were reading it.
"Let's see," says Mark, "how much we _m-might_ make a year out of this
paper if this contest b-brought our subscription list up to f-fifteen
hunderd. The subscriptions would amount to eighteen hunderd and
seventy-f-five dollars. Then our regular advertisin' that we could
f-figger on here in Wicksville and the county'll fetch about
seventy-five dollars a week, or even up to a hunderd, if we're real
lucky. As soon as we git enough s-subscribers I'm goin' after some
out-of-town adver-tisin'. I see a lot of it in good country p-papers.
We'll git some of that, and our job work amounts to quite a bit the way
it's been comin' in. Looks to me like we ought to make this p-paper show
a profit of, anyhow, two thousand d-dollars a year, and maybe more."
"Countin' chickens before they're hatched," says I.
"We're hatchin' 'em fast," says he.
"Spragg may bust up the nest," says I, "and drive off the settin' hen."
"Spragg hain't got real d-dangerous _yet"_ says he, "but we'll have to
pay him some attention perty quick."
"Seems like we ought to get somethin' more to do to take up our time,"
says I. "We hain't busy enough. Nothin' to do but run a contest that's
close to bein' a civil war, and git adver-tisin' and write the news and
_git_ the news, and scare up advertisements, and tend to Spragg, and
monkey around with Rock's mix-up. If, maybe, we could buy a three-ring
circus and be all the acts, includin' the menagerie, and then have
school start up to give us somethin' to do daytimes, I guess we'd keep
from gettin' lonesome."
Mark grinned, and says he was going to get somebody to help Tecumseh
Androcles in the shop, but how that helped _us_ I didn't see.
Well, as I was saying, those women combed the town and country for
subscriptions, until it got so that anybody who hadn't subscribed for
the _Trumpet_ was as popular as a little girl coming to school with a
box of candy. All you had to do was to stand in front of the post-office
and mention that you hadn't subscribed for the paper yet, and right off
you'd be asked by one woman to go driving with her, and by another to
come to dinner, and by another if you wouldn't like a batch of her
raised biscuits. I dunno what a feller could have got out of not having
subscribed yet if he held out long enough, but I guess most of 'em got
their money's worth. For when you get a paper for a year, and two or
three invitations to dinner, and buggy rides, and auto rides, and fresh
pies sent over, and all that sort of thing, why, it would be a mean man
that wasn't satisfied.
Mark sat down at his desk and started writing letters. I guess he wrote
a dozen and put them in the envelopes and stamped them.
"Who's goin' to git all the mail?" I says.
"Diff'rent folks," says Mark, the way he always speaks when he intends
to keep something to himself. "I'm just writin' around to git a
l-l-little information."
"Thought you had all there was," says I.
"Keep cool, Binney," says he. "Your strong point hain't sarcasm. Let's
go out to see Rock."
We two went out and we expected maybe Rock would have something exciting
to tell us, but he didn't. It seems like nothing at all had happened. He
hadn't seen a thing of Pekoe, and hadn't heard him much.
"Funny," says Mark, "that you don't know anything about this Pekoe,
Rock, when it was him that b-brought you here."
"Not when you know how I've always lived," says Rock. "Why, I haven't
seen my father since I was a baby! I don't even remember what he looks
like. He wrote me once in a while, but his letters didn't tell much.
About all there was in them was that he would come home some day."
"You don't suppose this Pekoe is him, do you?"
"I _know_ he isn't," said Rock, as positive as could be.
"But your father sent him," says I.
"He didn't say," says Rock.
"What made you g-go off with him, then?"
"There wasn't anything else to do."
Well, we were stumped right there. It was a sure thing that this Pekoe
knew something we ought to know, but it looked like he might as well be
in China as where he was, for all the good it did us. It made Mark Tidd
mad.
"We're goin' to t-t-talk to Pekoe," says he, "and we're goin' to do it
right off."
"I'm willin'," says I, "but I hain't got any wings to fly up to his
window."
"And Jethro might not like to see a boy flying around the yard like a
bird, anyhow," said Rock, making the first thing that sounded like a
joke that I ever heard him try. It wasn't much of a joke when you come
to think of it, but it was encouraging.
"I wish Plunk and Tallow was here," says Mark.
"I'll git 'em," says I, and off I went, running as hard as I could. It
didn't take long to grab onto the fellows and hustle back. When we got
there Mark and Rock had their heads together like they were making up a
scheme.
"Plunk," says Mark, "you and Tallow are g-g-goin' to have a fight. A
noisy fight. You got to slam-bang into each other like all git out."
"G'wan!" says Tallow.
"He knows I kin lick him," says Plunk.
"If Mark Tidd wants any fightin' done he kin do it himself," says
Tallow.
Mark didn't say anything till Tallow was through spluttering. Then he
says: "Jest wait a m-minute till I tell you about it. I've got to talk
to this Pekoe. It hain't any easy job to do it, and it won't be possible
if you don't help. That's where the f-f-fight comes in. I want you to go
back by the barn and start a reg'lar rip-snortin' rumpus that can be
heard to Jericho. It'll attract Jethro right out of the house to see
what's goin' on. While he's gone Binney and I will sneak up-stairs.
Rock'll keep w-w-watch at the foot of the third-floor and make a noise
to warn us if Jethro's comin'. See? You hain't goin' to back down on me,
be you?"
"No," says Tallow, "but I wisht you'd find somethin' for me to do where
I wouldn't get all mussed up. Plunk gets too doggone int'rested when he
goes to fightin'. Seems like he don't know the difference between
foolin' and bein' in earnest."
"So much the better," says Mark. "It'll look real to Jethro."
"It'll look real to Plunk," says Tallow, short-like, but Plunk just
grinned. He sort of liked fights.
Tallow and Plunk went off to the other side of the house like Mark told
them. I wished I could have watched the row, because I'll bet it would
have been a bully scrap. The way the fellows looked when we saw them
again made me sure of it. Both of 'em looked as if they'd been in a
boiler explosion that had blown them into the middle of a cyclone mixed
up with an earthquake. It was just my luck.
Mark and Rock and I waited till we heard Plunk shout as loud as he
could, "You did say it, too. I heard you. What you mean talkin' about me
like that?"
Tallow yelled right back at him, "I calc'late I kin say what I want to,
and if you don't like it you can lump it."
"I've a notion," says Plunk, "to hit you so hard your head'll bust like
a bad egg."
"Hit ahead," says Tallow. "I dare you to. You dassent. You couldn't bust
an egg any-how--not if you _jumped_ on it. Looky here. Here's a chip on
my shoulder. You dassent knock it off. Jest touch it with your finger,
that's all. Jest brush it off, if you're lookin' to go to the hospital."
"I'll knock it off," says Plunk. "You bet I will. Have I got to chase
you all over the yard to do it? Huh! Jest gimme one _lick_ at you, and
that'll be all--just one good lick.... There goes your old chip."
_Spang!_ Tallow swatted at him, and in a second they were at it. Usually
when a fellow gets to fighting in earnest he's too busy with his fists
to have much time for hollering, but the way Tallow and Plunk yelled and
dared each other was a caution. I don't see how they managed it.
"Good kids," says Mark. "L-l-listen to 'em. That ought to fetch Jethro."
It did. In a minute out came Jethro to see what the racket was about,
and as soon as he came, the three of us slid in the side door. You bet
we were pretty spry about it. Rock knew the way, and he hustled some. We
stuck right to his heels. We almost jumped to the top of the first
flight of stairs, and would have jumped the next but our wind was
getting short. Rock stopped at the bottom of that flight.
"Cough," says Mark, "if Jethro comes this way."
"All right," panted Rock, and up we went.
All the doors on that floor were shut, but we knew Pekoe's door must be
on the left side of the hall and three or four doors from the back of
the house. Mark tried the fourth door, rapping on it three times soft,
and then three times again.
"Who's there?" says a voice.
"Are you Mr. Pekoe?" says Mark.
"Yes. Who are you?"
"Friends of Rock's. We haven't much time. Got Jethro out of the w-w-way
for a minute and sneaked up. We're helpin' Rock. There's some kind of a
mystery about him, and we're solvin' it. We got to know what _you_
know."
"Don't go too fast, young feller," says Pekoe. "I don't know you yet,
and I hain't talkin' to anybody that inquires. Maybe you was sent by the
feller that shut me up here."
"We weren't. Rock's with us. He's standin' at the f-f-foot of the
stairs, watchin'. It was us that s-s-shot at your window yesterday, and
it was me that t-t-talked deaf and dumb with you."
"Oh," says Pekoe. "What do you want to know? Why don't you let me out
first?"
"We can't," says Mark. "Why don't you get out?"
"I'm no sparrow," says Pekoe. "It's three stories down and them blinds
is nailed. I can't bust open the door. That Jethro didn't leave a thing
in the room I could use to bust it down. There hain't a chair or a bed
in here. Nothin' but a mattress and some quilts. What kin a feller do
with them?"
"Not much," says Mark. "And we can't do anythin' now. But we'll git you
out. Rock's the m-m-main consideration now. You f-fetched him here?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I got a letter from his father tellin' me to git him at the school he
was at and fetch him here."
"Why?"
"'Cause his father was down with some kind of sickness in Central
America and figgered he was goin' to die. The letter was two months old
when I got it. It jest said he was goin' to die, and to get his son and
take him to Henry Wigglesworth in Wicksville."
"What made his father send you?" Mark says.
"Because him and me was pals in lots of places, and because he knew he
could trust me to do what he asked. We been in a lot of pinches
together."
"Why was you to t-t-take Rock to Mr. Wigglesworth?"
"I dunno. Big Rock never told me."
"Is Rock's father's n-n-name Rock, too?"
"Yes."
"What else?"
"Rock Armitage," says Pekoe.
"Huh!" says Mark in a sort of disappointed tone. Then in a second he
says: "What made you come back again? And how did the Man With the Black
Gloves know you was comin' so as to l-l-lay for you?"
"I come back because--"
Just then Rock began to cough like the mischief, and we dassent stop,
but rushed right to the stairs. Rock looked up and motioned us back, and
we could hear Jethro coming up the stairs from the ground floor. Rock
hadn't signaled us quick enough so we could get down, and there we were,
caught on the top floor of that house without any chance I could see but
what we'd be caught by Jethro, and then there'd be a fine mess of fish.
But Mark he never stopped to think. He just grabbed my arm and hauled me
back along the hall. We stopped back from the stairs and heard Jethro
ask Rock what he was doing there, and Rock said he was just going to his
room for something. And then Jethro started up to the third floor.
Well, if he got to the top of those stairs he'd see us, for there wasn't
anything to hide us. Mark reached out quick and tried a door. It wasn't
locked, thank goodness, and he jerked it open and in we popped. It was a
stairway leading up to the attic or something, and you'd better believe
we went up some fast and considerable quiet.
"Huh!" I whispered when we were up there. "We're in a lovely boat now.
Four stories up."
"I dunno," says Mark. "It might be worse."
"Yes," says I, "we might be up _eight_ stories."
"Anyhow," says he, "we're in the h-h-house."
"Yes," says I, "and like to stay in it."