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[Illustration: “GO FOR BATTEN. I’M RIGHT HERE, AND I’LL LOOK AFTER
BILL”]
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MARK TIDD
HIS ADVENTURES AND STRATEGIES
BY
CLARENCE B. KELLAND
ILLUSTRATED BY
W. W. CLARKE
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
“GO FOR BATTEN. I’M RIGHT HERE, AND I’LL LOOK AFTER BILL”
PLUNK AND ME WAS GOOD AND MAD
THERE, CROUCHING ON THE BROW, WAS THE FIGURE OF A MAN
“FELLERS, THE GUARD’S GOT LOOSE, AND HE’S WAITIN’ FOR US TO COME
DOWN”
“JUST RUNG TWICE RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE”
SAMMY GRUNTED WHEN HE GOT THE FULL WEIGHT OF IT
HE LET OUT A YELL AS LOUD AS A LOCOMOTIVE WHISTLE
“YOU GIT RIGHT OUT OF HERE! G-G-GIT!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARK TIDD
CHAPTER I
My name is Martin—James Briggs Martin—but almost everybody calls me
Tallow, because once when I was younger I saw old Uncle Ike Bond
rubbing tallow on his boots to shine them, and then hurried home and
fixed mine up with the stub of a candle and went to school. I guess
it couldn’t have smelled very good, for everybody seemed to notice
it, even teacher, and she asked me what in the world I’d been
getting into. After that all the boys called me Tallow, and always
will, I guess.
I tell you about me first only because I’m writing this account of
what happened. Mark Tidd is really the fellow I’m writing about, and
Mark’s father and mother, and the engine Mr. Tidd was inventing out
in his barn, and some other folks who will be told about in their
places. I helped some; so did Plunk Smalley and Binney Jenks, but
Mark Tidd did most of it. Mark Tidd sounds like a short name,
doesn’t it? But it isn’t short at all, for it’s merely what’s left
of Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, which was what he was
christened, mostly out of Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_, a big book that Mr. Tidd was so fond of reading that he
never read much of anything else except the papers.
Mark Tidd was the last of us four boys to move to Wicksville. I
was born there, and so was Plunk Smalley, but Binney Jenks moved
over from Sunfield when he was five. Mark he didn’t come to town
until a little over a year ago, and Plunk and me saw him get off
the train at the depot. I guess the car must have been glad when
he did get off, for he looked like he almost filled it up. Yes,
sir, when he came out of the door he had to _squeeze_ to get
through. He was the fattest boy I ever saw, or ever expect to see,
and the funniest-looking. His head was round and ’most as big as a
pretty good-sized pumpkin, and his cheeks were so fat they almost
covered up his eyes. The rest of him was as round as his face, and
Plunk said one of his legs was as big as all six of Plunk’s and
Binney’s and mine put together. I guess it was bigger. When Plunk
and me saw him we just rolled over and kicked up our legs and
hollered.
“I hope he’s goin’ to live in Wicksville,” says Plunk, “’cause we
won’t care then if a circus _never_ comes.”
A fat boy like that is a good thing to have in a town, so when
things sort of slow down you can always go and have fun with him. At
any rate, that was what we thought then. It seemed to us that Marcus
Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd was a ready-made joke put right into our
hands for us to fool with, but afterward we changed our minds
considerable.
Mark’s father and mother got off the train after him, and his father
said something to him we couldn’t hear. Mark waddled across the
platform to where Uncle Ike Bond’s bus stood waiting, and Plunk and
me listened to hear what he would say.
“D-d-do you c-carry p-p-p-passengers in that b-bus?” Yes, sir, he
said it just like that!
Well, Plunk he looked at me and I looked at him, and he soaked me in
the ribs and I smashed his hat down over his eyes, we were so
tickled. If we had been going to plan a funny kid we couldn’t have
done half so well. We’d have forgot something sure. But nothing was
forgot in Mark Tidd, even to the stutter.
Old Uncle Ike looked down off his seat at Mark, and his eyes popped
out like he couldn’t believe what they saw. He waited a minute
before he said anything, sort of planning in his mind what he was
going to say, I guess. That was a way Uncle Ike had, and then he
usually said something queer. This time he says:
“Passengers? What? Me carry passengers? No. I’ve just got this bus
backed up here to stiddy the depot platform. The railroad comp’ny
pays me to do it.”
Mark Tidd he looked solemn at Uncle Ike, and Uncle Ike looked solemn
at him. Then Mark says, respectful and not impertinent:
“If I was to sit here and hold down the p-p-platform could you drive
my folks? I could keep it from m-m-movin’ much.”
Uncle Ike blinked. “Son,” says he, “climb aboard, if this here
rattletrap looks safe to you, and fetch along your folks. We’ll
leave the platform stand without hitchin’ for wunst.”
At that me and Plunk turned to look at the fat boy’s father and
mother. Mr. Tidd was a long man, upward of six foot, I guess, and
not very wide. His shoulders kind of sloped like his head was too
heavy for them, and his head was so big that it was no wonder. His
hair was getting gray in front of his ears where it showed under his
hat, and he had blue eyes and thin cheeks and a sort of far-off,
pleasant expression, like he was thinking of something nice a long
ways away. He was leaning against a corner of the station reading
out of a big book and paying no attention to anybody. Afterward I
found out the book was Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_, and that he
always carried it around with him to read in a little when he got a
spare minute.
Mrs. Tidd wasn’t that kind of person at all. As soon as Plunk and me
looked at her we knew she could make bully pies, and wouldn’t get
mad if her fat boy was to sneak into the pantry and cut a slice out
of one of them in the middle of the afternoon. You could tell she
was patient and good-natured, but, all the same, she wasn’t the kind
you could fool. If you came home with your hair wet it wouldn’t do
any good to tell her somebody threw a pail of water on it. She was
looking around to see what she could see, and I bet she didn’t miss
much.
The fat boy he motioned to her to come to the bus, and she spoke to
her husband. He looked up sort of vague, nodded his head, and came
poking across the platform, holding his book in front of him and
reading away as though he hadn’t a minute to spare, and clean forgot
all about the valise he’d set down beside him.
“Jeffrey,” says Mrs. Tidd, “you’ve forgot your satchel.”
He shut his book, but kept his finger in the place, and looked all
around him. Pretty soon he saw the satchel and nodded his head at
it. “So I have,” he says, “so I have,” and went back to get it.
Then all of them got into Uncle Ike’s bus, and he stirred up his
horses who had been standing ’most asleep, with heads drooping, and
they went rattling and banging up the street. When Uncle Ike’s bus
got started you could hear it half a mile. I guess it was all loose,
for it sounded like a hail-storm beating down on a tin roof.
“Wonder where they’re goin’?” says Plunk.
“You got to do more’n wonder if you’re goin’ to find out,” I says,
and started trotting after the bus. It wasn’t hard to keep it in
sight, because Uncle Ike’s horses got tired every little while and
came to a walk.
They stopped at the old Juniper house that had been standing vacant
for six months, ever since old man Juniper went to Chicago to live
with his daughter Susy’s oldest girl that had married a man with a
hardware store there. The yard was full of boxes and packing-cases
and furniture all done up with burlap and rope.
“They’re goin’ to _live_ here,” Plunk yells; and I was as glad as he
was. The benefits of having a stuttering fat boy living near you
aren’t to be sneezed at by anybody.
We found a shady place across the street and watched to see what
would happen. It’s always interesting to watch other folks work,
especially if what they’re doing is _hard_ work, and I guess
carrying furniture and trunks and boxes is about as hard as
anything.
Mrs. Tidd was ready for work before anybody else. She came to the
door with a big apron on and a cloth tied around her hair, and the
way she sailed into things was a caution. It seemed like she jumped
right into the middle of that mess, and in a minute things were
flying. Mr. Tidd came next with his book under his arm and stood in
the stoop looking sort of puzzled. Mrs. Tidd straightened up, and
then sat down on a packing-box.
“Jeffrey Tidd,” she said, not sharp and angry, but kind of patient
and rebuking, “go right back into the house and take those clothes
off. I knew if I didn’t stay right by you you’d get mixed up
somehow. Will you tell me why in the world you changed from your
second-best clothes to that Sunday black suit to move furniture?”
Mr. Tidd he looked pretty foolish and felt of his pants as though he
couldn’t believe they were his best ones.
“That does beat all,” he said. “It does beat all creation, Libby. I
wonder how these clothes come to be on me?”
“If you didn’t have ’em on under your others, which ain’t
impossible, you must have changed into ’em.”
“My best suit!” he said to himself, shaking his head like you’ve
seen the elephant do at the circus, first to one side and then to
the other. “My best clothes!”
“Maybe I’d better come along and see you get into the right ones
this time,” Mrs. Tidd suggested.
“I guess you don’t need to, Libby. I’ll take these off and hang ’em
in the closet, and I’ll hang my second-best ones up, too. Then I’ll
put on what’s left. That way I can’t go wrong.” He went off into the
house, and Mrs. Tidd flew at the piles of stuff again.
Pretty soon the fat boy came around the side of the house with a
quarter of a cherry pie in his hand and the juice dripping down
faster than he could suck it off.
“Marcus,” his mother called, “take holt of this bundle of bed-slats
and carry ’em up to the front room.”
Mark he grabbed them with one hand and hunched them up under his arm
so that one end dragged on the ground, walking off slow and eating
pie as he went. It took him quite a while to get back. I could see
him look across the street at Plunk and me as he came down the
steps. He stopped a minute, sort of thinking.
After a while Mr. Tidd came back again.
“Put the _Decline and Fall_ down somewheres so you can use both
hands, Jeffrey,” his wife says. And he did it as meek and obedient
as could be. Between them they carried a hair-cloth sofa in after
she had told Mark to fetch along some medium-sized boxes.
Mark stooped over one, and we could hear him grunt.
“Hello, Skinny,” Plunk yells. “Git your back into it and h’ist.
That’s the way to lift.”
The fat boy straightened up and looked at us quite a while. Then he
sat down on the box and called, “I bet the two of you can’t l-l-lift
it.”
“I’ll bet,” says Plunk, “we _kin_ lift it. I’ll bet we kin carry it
from here to the standpipe and back without lettin’ her down wunst.”
“Braggin’ don’t carry no b-boxes.”
The way he said it sort of made me mad. “Come on, Plunk,” I says;
“lets show this here hippopotamus whether we kin carry it or not.”
And we went running across the street.
“Where d’you want it put?” I says.
“No use you tryin’. You couldn’t g-git it up.”
“Git holt,” I says to Plunk. “Now, Mister What’s-your-name, where’s
it go?”
“Up-stairs in the hall; but you b-b-better not try. It’s too heavy
for you.”
Plunk and me took that box up-stairs a-flying and ran down again.
“There,” I says. “Now kin we carry it?”
He stuck up what there was to his nose. “One ain’t nothin’. I
carried the hull twelve out when we was movin’ in fifteen
mum-minutes.”
“If you did,” I says, “Plunk and me can carry ’em in in twelve.”
He just laughed.
“Doggone it,” I says, “we’ll show you, you’re so smart.”
“Can’t d-d-do it.”
“You ain’t the only kid that can carry things,” Plunk says, with a
scowl.
Mark he pulled out a little silver watch and held it in his hand.
“Twelve m-minutes, was it? Can’t do it. I’ll keep time.”
Well, Plunk and me went at those boxes like sixty, and the way we
ran them up-stairs was a terror to cats. When the last one was up we
were panting and sweating and most tuckered out. Mark looked off his
watch when we came out with a sort of surprised expression. “You
kids is stronger than I figgered. You did it in eleven minutes and a
half.”
“Sure,” I says.
“But them boxes wasn’t very heavy. You can’t carry that big box, by
j-jimminy!”
Plunk and me was good and mad, and if anybody’d seen the way we
hustled that big box in they wouldn’t have believed their eyes.
“That’s perty good,” says Mark. “Wouldn’t thought it of you kids.
Must be stronger here in Wicksville than over to Peckstown where I
come from.” He stopped a minute. “I can’t lift that big
rockin’-c-c-chair myself.”
“Huh!” snorted Plunk. “That’s a easy one.” And in we wrastled with
the chair.
We weren’t going to have any strange kid think we weren’t up to all
_he_ was, so we stayed right there all the afternoon, and I guess we
proved pretty conclusively we could carry. And that wasn’t all: we
proved we could _last_. I bet we carried two-thirds of the Tidds’
furniture in. When it was all done we sat down on the fence to pant
and rest. Mark’s mother called him.
“I got to go to s-s-s-supper,” he says. “Come again when you feel
s-s-strong.” And then he went into the house.
Plunk and me sat still quite a while. I began to think about it and
think about it, and I could see Plunk was thinking, too. In about
fifteen minutes I looked over at him and he looked over at me.
[Illustration: PLUNK AND ME WAS GOOD AND MAD]
“How many things did that fat kid carry in?” I says.
“I didn’t see him carry anythin’.”
“Neither did I.”
We thought quite a spell more. Then I said to Plunk, “I guess maybe
we better not do too much braggin’ about how much an’ how long we
kin carry.”
He grinned kind of sickly. “This here Mark Tidd,” he says, “ain’t
nobody’s fool—leastways, not on Mondays, which is to-day.”
When we got better acquainted with Mark Tidd he read a book called
_Tom Sawyer_ to us. I guess he got his idea of making us work out of
that; he was always taking schemes out of books.