“First thing we got to think of,” says Mark, “is how we’re g-g-goin’ to
git the money to p-pay off the men Saturday night.”
“How much’ll it be?” says I.
“Depends on how many men Silas Doolittle hires. Looks to me like f-five
or six men ought to run this mill. That would mean about a hunderd
dollars.”
“Huh!” says I. “Might as well make it a million. Where be we goin’ to
look for a hunderd dollars?”
“Wisht I knew,” says Mark, “but we got to have it.”
“Then we better git a wiggle on us.”
“We’ll w-w-wiggle all right,” says he, “but we won’t start till we see
somethin’ to wiggle about. Jest wigglin’ won’t git any money. Thing to
do is to set and figger out some possible way, and then make it work.”
“Good!” says I. “You set and figger and we’ll go on cleanin’ up the
mill. I notice every time there’s any hard work to do you got somethin’
you have to set down and think about.”
“Well,” says he, “if I got any help thinkin’ out of you I wouldn’t have
to stick to it so constant. You’re a heap better cleaner, Plunk, than
you be thinker. Somebody might pay you to clean, but the feller that
paid you to think would be advertisin’ for a r-r-room in the
l-lunatic-asylum.”
“Shucks!” says I, which was the best thing I could think of just at that
minute. It wasn’t such a good remark either, when you come to think of
it. I might have figgered out something a heap sharper and more cutting
if I’d been given time, but I wasn’t. It’s funny what smart retorts you
can think of two or three days after you need them. But Mark always
managed to think of them right off. Seemed like he had a bundle of them
on hand ready to shoot off whenever he wanted one.
Well, we went ahead cleaning up that mill, and, to give Mark what credit
is due, he came around and gave us some hints how to lift some of the
heavier things. By night we’d made quite some difference in the looks of
things.
“Anyhow,” says Mark, “we got r-r-room to m-manufacture now, whether we
ever git to m-manufacturin’ or not. I hope Silas Doolittle gits enough
men.”
Along came Silas about four o’clock, looking sort of discouraged. He
slumped down on the saw-carriage and lopped his head like he was a
wilted poppy, and let out a groan.
“Stummick-ache?” says Tallow.
“Naw,” boomed Silas.
“What then?” says Mark.
“Them men,” says Silas.
“What about ’em?”
“They’ll come to work,” says Silas. “I seen all of them, but they got
together and made up one of them unions or somethin’. Yes, sir, that’s
what they done. Seems like they was afraid maybe they wouldn’t git paid.
I argued with them and sassed them till my tongue was blistered, but
’twan’t no good. Best I could git out of ’em was that they’d work by the
day and git paid every night. If they git paid the first night they’ll
work the second day, if they git paid the second night they’ll work the
third day, and so on. But no pay—no work.”
“Um!” says Mark. “How many of ’em?”
“Nine,” says Silas.
“What wages?”
“Mostly two dollars a day.”
“Some more?”
“A couple gits two and a quarter, and one, the sawyer, he gits two
seventy-five.”
“Twenty dollars’ll do it. Now, Silas, if you was g-goin’ to raise twenty
dollars to-morrow, how’d you go at it?”
“Me?” says Silas. “Me go at it? Woosh! How’d I go at whittlin’ out a
locomotive engine with a penknife? Tell me that. Twenty dollars in a
day! Say, young feller, there hain’t twenty dollars in Wicksville.”
“There’s enough m-money,” says Mark. “The t-trouble is to git it.”
“If that’s all that’s standin’ in our way,” says I, “just the trouble of
gittin’ it, I don’t see no cause to worry.” I was a little sarcastic
because it looked to me like we was busted before we started.
Mark he looked at me kind of squintin’, but didn’t say a word. Pretty
soon he says to Silas: “We got to-night and till the whistle blows
to-morrow n-n-night.... And only twenty dollars to raise.”
“That’s all,” says I. “Might’s well be twenty million.”
That sort of riled Mark and he turned around and says to me, “I’ll b-bet
you I git that twenty before f-f-four o’clock to-morrow.”
“What’ll you bet?” says I.
He figgered a minute. “If I win,” says he, “you take your baby
s-s-sister’s doll and carriage and wheel it around town for an hour
Saturday n-night singin’ ‘Bye, Baby Buntin’’ to it. If you win, I walk
around town an hour Saturday night with a card on my b-b-back sayin’
whatever you want to p-print on it.”
I might have known better, but I was sort of riled, and before I got
time to do any thinking I up and told him it was a bet. And right there
I begun to get sorry. If there’s one thing in the world Mark Tidd hates
it’s to be made ridiculous. He just can’t bear to have folks poke fun at
him. I ought to have known he had some kind of an idea or he wouldn’t
have made a bet like that. Anyhow, I’d let myself in for it, and there
wasn’t any getting out.
“I’ll start thinkin’ up what to print on that card,” says I.
He just grinned and turned to Silas Doolittle. “You tell those m-men,”
he says, “that they kin have their money as s-soon as the whistle blows
to-morrow night.”
“Have you got it?” I says, suspicious in a minute.
“No,” says he.
“Know where you kin git it?”
“No,” says he.
“Then,” says I to Silas, “I wouldn’t go makin’ any positive promises to
nobody.”
Mark went off to the room he was going to use for an office, and sat
down on a wabbly chair that was in it. I could see him through the door.
He sat there pinching his fat cheek like he always does when he has
something to puzzle out. He didn’t whittle. If he had started in to
whittle I’d have felt more cheerful, for when he starts to figger and
whittle, then you can make up your mind he’s having a hard time.
Whittling with him is a sort of last resort. He don’t do it unless
everything else fails. Pretty soon he came out and says to Silas:
“There’s a cart and horse b-b’longin’ to this mill, hain’t there?”
“Yes,” says Silas.
“Better have it here at s-seven in the m-mornin’,” says he. “You kin
drive a horse, Tallow?”
“Yes,” says Tallow, “I calc’late to be consid’able of a driver.”
“I’ll take a chance on your d-d-drivin’,” says he. “It’s your loadin’
ability that’s worryin’ me—but you’ll have Binney to help you. Wouldn’t
be fair to set Plunk on the job helpin’ me win a bet ag’in’ him.”
“What’s the idee?” says I.
“Never you mind,” he says. Then he motioned Silas to a window and
pointed out. “How many cords you figger’s in that pile of slabs and
strips?”
“Hain’t no idee. Maybe ten, maybe fifteen. Shouldn’t be s’prised if
there was more.”
“What you been accustomed to d-d-doin’ with your slabs?”
“Nothin’,” says Silas. “Gen’ally when the spring flood comes they git
washed down the river. Good thing. Sort of cleans up the place.”
“Uh-huh,” says Mark, and out he goes. It was half past four then, but
before five he was back with Jim Root, that runs the wood-and-coal yard.
I saw him and Jim looking at the slab-pile and went down to see what it
was about.
“How much you figger’s there?” Jim says.
“Nigh twenty-five cord,” says Mark.
“Maybe so. Don’t look to me like more’n fifteen.”
“What’s wood fetchin’?” says Mark.
“I’m gittin’ two’n’ a half. Split I’m gittin’ three.”
“That there’s good s-s-sound wood,” says Mark. “Best of the log. Beech
and birch and m-maple.”
“So I see,” says Jim.
“What’s it worth to you s-s-split, sawed, and delivered in your yard?”
“Hum!... Slabs hain’t so good as chunks.”
“Better for the kitchen stove,” says Mark.
“I might give you a dollar a cord.”
“And I might split her and saw her and p-peddle it for two dollars. That
would be cuttin’ your price f-fifty cents to a dollar. Eh? I calc’late
f-folks would rather have slabs off of me for that than chunk wood from
you for two and a half and three.”
“You couldn’t work it,” says Jim.
“I got a horse and cart, and I got a buzz-saw up there, and two fellers
with nothin’ much else to do. And we figger on havin’ quite consid’able
quantity of slabs right along. Be kind of disturbin’ to the wood-market
if I was to p-peddle ’em.”
“Might be,” says Jim. “I’ll give you a dollar’n’ a quarter.”
“Sorry I give you the t-t-trouble of walkin’ down here for nothin’,”
says Mark, and he turned away and came toward the mill.
“Hey, there!” yelled Jim. “Don’t be in sich a doggone rush. What you
askin’?”
Mark came back. “You guess there’s f-f-fifteen cord there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m figgerin’ there’s more. Now, Mr. Root, I tell you what I’ll do.
I’ll call it f-f-fifteen cord and let you have the lot for two dollars,
sawed and split and delivered in your yard—but there’s a condition. Cash
in advance to-morrow m-m-mornin’. That’ll give you a p-p-profit of fifty
cents to a dollar a cord, which is perty good, hain’t it? And I’ll
contract to d-deliver all the slabs we cut at the price so’s you’ll have
control of all our wood. It’ll keep me off the market.”
“Tell you what I’ll do,” says Jim. “I’ll give you twenty-five for that
pile delivered like you say—cash in advance.”
“Nope,” says Mark, “thirty or n-nothin’.”
“Nothin’, then,” says Jim.
“All right,” says Mark. “Good-by.” He walked off again, and so did Jim
Root, but before Jim got to the road he turned and came back, and he was
pulling a wallet out of his back pocket.
“Hey!” says he, “here’s your thirty!”
“Much obliged,” says Mark, and he turned around and winked at me. “You
want to be down-town Saturday night, Mr. Root. Plunk here is goin’ to
t-t-try to amuse the folks for an hour or so. I figger he’ll be
all-fired funny to watch.”
“When it comes to a dicker,” says Jim, “I take off my hat to you....
You’ll start to deliverin’ to-morrow?”
“First thing,” says Mark.
We went up-stairs, and I can tell you I felt pretty foolish. I could see
me traipsing around town Saturday night, with the band playing in the
square, with my sister’s doll and cab, and I could come pretty close to
seeing every kid in town tagging after me, making a bunch of remarks
that wouldn’t do me no good to hear. I could have kicked myself in the
stummick if I could have reached it with my toe. But it all did some
good, I expect. It learned me a lesson, and that was not to go making
bets with Mark Tidd. I might have knowed he had something ready to shoot
off, and he wasn’t the kind of feller to take any chances on being made
a fool of in public.
“I don’t calc’late,” says he, after a while, “that you got to worry your
b-b-brain makin’ up somethin’ smart to put on that card, Plunk.”
“Looks that way,” I says, as short as I could.
Mark went over to Silas Doolittle, who was still sitting on the
saw-carriage, and showed the roll of bills to him. “You can t-t-tell
your men we’ll pay off prompt to-morrow night,” he says.
“But how about day after to-morrow?” says I.
“We got t-ten dollars toward that, hain’t we?”
“Looks so,” says I.
“And we’ll git the rest,” says he.
“I hain’t makin’ any bets,” says I, and he grinned.
“How’d you git that money?” says Silas Doolittle.
“Slabs,” says Mark.
“What slabs?”
“Down in the yard. The ones you been l-l-lettin’ the flood carry off.”
“You got _money_ for ’em?”
“You bet you!” says Mark.
“Well, I swan!” says Silas. “If that hain’t the beat of anythin’.”
“I read somewheres,” says Mark, “that it’s the concern that makes money
out of what other concerns wastes that gits ahead. Maybe, Mr. Bugg,
you’d ’a’ made more money with this mill if you’d ’a’ watched out for
the little things. Why, I know a mill that burns its sawdust and slabs
for fuel, not havin’ water-power, but they don’t waste their ashes. No,
sir. Them wood ashes is good for fertilizer, and they sell every
spoonful of ’em for a quarter or more a bushel. Paid the engineer’s
wages with ashes. That’s how to git ahead in the manufacturin’
b-b-business.”
“I swan!” says Silas again, and sat there waggling his head and looking
at Mark like Mark was some kind of a five-legged elephant with pink
ears. “I swan!” he says, after a minute, and then he got up and walked
out, still waggling his head like a dog with a bee in its ear.
“Anyhow,” says I, “we hain’t got any more slabs to sell.”
“Correct,” says Mark. “Guess I’ll look over Silas’s bookkeepin’.”
He went over to the pile of board ends that Silas had used to figger on,
and began studying ’em careful.
“I wisht,” says he, “that Silas was able to make head or tail to these.
I’ll bet there’s quite consid’able money owin’ to this mill.”
“What you goin’ to do about it?” says I.
“I’m goin’ to set down all the n-n-names I kin find here, and the
amounts, and try to collect ’em all. Them that’s paid won’t pay ag’in,
but them that hain’t paid will mostly be willin’ to, I expect.... Silas
Doolittle was what you might call a slap-up man of business.”