You can imagine that Jim Henry and Mary had a good deal of fun over my
experience with Lot and his tribe. They joked me about it consider’ble.
But I didn’t mind. My foot was all right again, or nearly so, and the
extension to the store had been finished and was workin’ out fine. We
moved the mail room way back and that give us lots of room on the main
floor, and Mary had a nice clean place, with plenty of air and light,
new sortin’ table, new desks, and all that. As for business, we done
more that summer than we had previous and it kept up surprisin’ well
through the winter. I was happy and satisfied and Jacobs seemed to be.
But he wa’n’t. It took a whole lot to satisfy him and, by the time
another spring reached us and the cottages begun to open I could see
that he was gettin’ fidgety. One mornin’ he come back from a cruise
amongst the cottagers—he always handled their trade himself—and I could
see that he was about ready to bile over.
"Well," says I, "what’s weighin’ on your mind now? Or is it your
stomach? I’m willin’ to bet that I’m two pound heftier than I was afore
I ate them hot biscuits at our boardin’ house this mornin’; and you got
away with three more’n I did. Has your ballast shifted, or what?"
He shook his head.
"Skipper," says he, "we’re ruined by foreign cheap labor."
"You’re right," says I. "I heard that that Dutch cook used to work in a
cement factory, and them biscuits prove it."
"Nothin’ doin’," he says. "My noon lunch for two years was ’Draw one
with a plate of sinkers’; and when it comes to warm dough, I’m an
immune. That Poquit House cook could practice on me for a week and never
dent my nickel-steel digestion. No. What I’m full of just now is
embroidery."
I looked at him.
"See here, Jim Henry," says I, "you’ve got me a mile offshore in a fog.
Unless you’ve swallowed your napkin, I don’t see—"
"There! There!" he interrupted. "It’s nothin’ I’ve swallowed, I tell
you! It’s somethin’ I’ve seen that I _can’t_ swallow. I can’t swallow
those tan-faced, hook-nosed lace peddlers. It’s only spring, yet they
are thicker round here already than lumps of saleratus in those biscuit
we’ve been talkin’ about. They’re separatin’ perfectly good easy marks
from money that belongs to us, and I’m gettin’ mad. My Turkish blood’s
risin’, and there’s likely to be another Armenian massacre in this
neighborhood pretty soon."
I understood what he meant then. Every summer for the last year or two
the Cape has been sufferin’ from a plague of fellers peddlin’ handmade
lace, and embroidery, and such. They’re all shades of color except
white, and they talk all sorts of languages except plain United States;
but, no matter what they look like or how they jabber, every last one of
them claims to be an Armenian, and to have his hand satchel solid full
of native-made tidies, and tablecloths, and the like of that. I never
run across the Armenian flag on any of my v’yages, but if it ain’t a
doily, then it ought to be.
And the prices they charge! Whew! A white man would blush every time he
named one; but these fellers, bein’ all complexions, from light tan
Oxford to dark rubber boot, are born to blush unseen, and can charge
four dollars for a crocheted necktie and never crack, spot, nor fade.
Jim Henry was some on high prices himself; likewise, he considered the
summer cottagers and the hotel folks as more or less our special
property. Therefore, you can understand how this Armenian competition
riled and disturbed him. And, as it turned out, that very mornin’ he’d
gone to call on Mrs. Burke Smythe, who was one of the Ostable Store’s
best and most well-off customers, and found her ankle-deep in lamp mats
and centerpieces which an Armenian specimen was diggin’ out of a couple
of suit cases. And she’d told him that she couldn’t pay our bill for
another month ’count of havin’ spent all her "household allowance" on
the "loveliest set of embroidered dress and waist patterns" and such
that ever was. There was the dress pattern. Didn’t he think it was a
"dear"?
Well, Jim Henry give in to the "dear" part—she’d paid sixty-four dollars
for it—and come away disgusted. These peddlers was takin’ the coin right
out of our mouths, he vowed. What was we goin’ to do about it?
"Keep our mouths shut, I guess," says I. "I can’t see anything else."
But that wouldn’t do for him. He went away growlin’, and for the next
couple of days he hardly said a word. I knew he was hatchin’ some scheme
or other, and I took care not to scare him off the nest. The third
mornin’, he came off himself, fetchin’ his brood with him.
"Skipper," says he, joyful, "I believe I’ve got it. I believe I’ve got
the idea that’ll put those Armenians in the discard. You listen to me."
I listened, and what he’d hatched was somethin’ like this: We—that is,
the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes, and Fancy Goods
Store"—would sell embroidery and crocheted plunder, and run the peddlers
out of business. We’d open a tidy department on our own hook. What did I
think of that?
Well, I didn’t think much of it, and I told him so.
"Don’t believe we can do it," says I.
"Why not?" says he. "We can charge as much as they can, and that seems
to be the main thing."
"That ain’t it," I told him. "We can’t get the stuff to sell. Plenty of
machine made, but the summer folks won’t have that, cheap or high. What
they wake up nights and cry for is the genuine, hand-manufactured
article; and, unless you buy it off the peddlers themselves—which would
be unprofitable, to say the least—_I_ don’t see where you’re goin’ to
get it. Besides, if you could get it, sellin’ it in a store wouldn’t do.
’Tain’t romantic and foolish enough. Take this Burke Smythe woman," says
I; "she’s a fair sample. She could have got just as nice, pretty dress
patterns out of a fashion magazine, or—"
"Great snakes!" he broke in. "You don’t think ’twas a _paper_ pattern
she paid sixty-four dollars for, do you?"
"Never mind what ’twas," I says, dignified; "’twould be all the same,
paper or sheet iron. She wouldn’t care for it at all if she’d bought it
in a store. There’s nothin’ mysterious or romantic in that. But here
comes one of these liver-complected, black-haired fellers, lookin’ for
all the world like a pirate, and whispers in her ear he’s got somethin’
in that carpetbag of his that nobody else has got, and that’ll make Mrs.
General Jupiter Jones, or some other of the Smythe bosom friends, look
like a last summer’s scarecrow. And, as a favor to her, he ain’t showed
it to Mrs. Jupiter—which is most likely a lie, but never mind—and he’ll
sell it to her at a sixty-four-dollar sacrifice, because—"
"Hold on!" he interrupts. "Cut it out! Break away! Don’t you s’pose I’ve
thought of that? Your old Uncle James Henry Jacobs, doctor of sick
businesses, wa’n’t born yesterday by about thirty-eight years. I ain’t
figgerin’ to handle Armenian stuff. See here, Skipper. What makes the
summer bunch so crazy to get hold of old clocks, and old chains, and
antique junk generally?"
"Well," says I, "for one thing, ’cause they _are_ antiques. For another,
because they come from right here on the Cape, and—"
"That’s it," he sings out. "And that’s enough. Well, there’s plenty of
handmade embroideries and laces, not to mention lamp mats and bed
quilts, made right here on the Cape, too. Last fall, the county fair had
a buildin’ solid full of ’em. This is my plan. Do stop your Doubtin’
Thomas act, and listen."
The plan was sort of simple but complicated. Fust off, him and me was to
see all the old ladies and young girls in Ostable and the surroundin’
country, and get ’em to agree to sell their handmade knittin’ to us. If
they wouldn’t sell to us direct, then we’d sell it for them on
commission. We’d fit up a room in the loft over the store, advertise it
as the "Colonial Curio Shop" or the "Pilgrim Mothers’ Exchange," or some
such ridiculous or mysterious name, stock it full of the truck the
widows and orphans had been knittin’ or tattin’ all winter, drop a hint
to the summer folks—and then set back and take the money.
"It’ll go, I tell you," he says, enthusiastic. "It’s a sure winner. Just
say the word, Skipper, and we’ll start fittin’ up the loft to-morrow
mornin’."
"Well," says I, pretty doubtful, "if you’re so sure, Jim, I—"
"Sure!" he broke in. "Why wouldn’t I be sure? There’s only one kind of
people that can get ahead of me in a business deal—and they don’t hail
from Armenia. Skipper, here’s where we hand our peddlin’ friends theirs,
and then some."
Next mornin’ he took the spare horse and started out. When he got back
that night, he had the bottom of the wagon covered with bundles of
knittin’ and handmade contraptions, and he made proclamations that he
hadn’t begun to cover the available territory. He’d seen I don’t know
how many single females and widows who had the fancywork and crochetin’
habit; and they sold him everything they had in stock, and promised
more.
"They take to it like a duck to water," says he, joyful. "They’re all
down on the peddlers, and they’re goin’ to pitch in and supply the home
market. In another week you can’t pass two houses in this town without
hearin’ the merry click of the needle. To-morrow I canvass Denboro and
Bayport, and the next day I tackle Harniss. By Monday we’ll be ready to
fit up the loft."
And, sure enough, he was right. The amount of stuff he fetched back in
that wagon was surprisin’. How the female population of Ostable County
could have turned out all that embroidery and found time to cook meals
and sweep, let alone make calls and talk about their neighbors, beat me
a mile. But when he told me what he paid for the collection I begun to
understand. However, I didn’t say nothin’. 'Twa’n’t until he commenced
to rig up the room over the store that I spoke my thoughts.
"Why, Jim Henry!" I says. "What are you thinkin’ of? Puttin’ panelin’ on
those walls! And paperin’ with that expensive paper! It must have cost
land knows how much a roll. And, for the dear land sakes, what are those
carpenters cuttin’ that hole in the upper deck for?"
"For stairs, of course," says he. "Think the customers are goin’ to fly
up there? Don’t bother me, Skipper, I’m busy."
"Stairs!" I sings out. "Why, there’s stairs already. What’s the matter
with the steps leadin’ aloft from the back room? _We’ve_ used them ever
since we’ve been here, and—"
"S-shh! S-shh!" says he, resigned but impatient. "Cap’n, your business
instinct is all right in some things, like—like—well, I can’t think what
just now, but never mind. You’re a good feller, but you’re too apt to
cal’late by last year’s almanac. You ain’t as up to date as you might
be. Do you suppose Her Majesty Burke Smythe, and the rest of the Royal
Family we’re settin’ this trap for, will take the trouble to hunt up
that back room, and fall over egg cases and kerosene barrels to find the
ladder to that loft? And climb the ladder after they find it? No, no!
We’ll have a flight of stairs right from the main part of this store,
where they can’t help seein’ ’em. And there’ll be old-fashioned rag mats
on the landin’s, and brass candlesticks with candles in ’em at night,
and—"
"Candles!" says I. "Well; that is the final piece of lunacy! Why, I
could light those stairs like a glory with kerosene lamps while a body
was tryin’ to get _sight_ of ’em with a candle! I never heard such
nonsense."
But ’twas no use. What we must do was make that loft "quaint," and
old-fashioned, and the like of that. I didn’t understand—and so on.
"All right," says I, "maybe I don’t; but I do understand this: Judgin’
by the amount of hard cash you’ve spent for lace tuckers and doilies,
and the bill them stairs and panelin’s and candlesticks’ll come to, I
don’t see a profit on the Pilgrim Curio Mothers’ Exchange in ten year
big enough to cover a five-cent piece."
He’d risk the profit. Besides, there was another reason for the stairs,
and such. To get to ’em all, the rich folks would have to go right
through the store; and if they didn’t buy anything upstairs they would
down, sure and sartin. He was figgerin’ on catchin’ the transient trade,
the automobile trade; and all around the foot of the stairs we’d have
temptin’ lunches put up and set out, and bottles of ginger ale and boxes
of cigars, and so forth, and so on. He preached for half an hour,
windin’ up with:
"Anyhow, Skipper, if the curio shop should lose money—which it won’t—it
will bring customers to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes,
and Fancy Goods Store, which is the main thing; that and keepin’ the
coin in the United States instead of shippin’ it to Armenia. The
embroideries and laces are by-products, as you might say; and if a plant
comes out even on its by-products, it’s a payin’ proposition."
He had me there. I didn’t know a by-product from a salt herrin’; so I
shut up.
The "Old Colony Women’s Exchange and Curio Room," which was the name he
finally picked out, opened at the end of a fortni’t. Jacobs had
advertised it in the papers, and put signs for miles up and down the
main roads, let alone tellin’ every well-off summer woman within
reachin’ distance. And, almost from the very start, it done well. The
loft was crowded ’most every afternoon; and sometimes there’d be as many
as three automobiles anchored alongside our main platform.
At the end of the fust month, the Exchange had cleared—cleared, mind
you—over two hundred dollars; and Jim Henry was crowin’ over me like a
Shanghai rooster over a bantam. He’d had another happy thought, and had
added "antiques" to the stock in the loft; and the prices he got for
lame chairs and rheumatic tables was somethin’ scandalous. But it wa’n’t
all joy. There was two things that troubled him.
One of the things was that the supply of knittin’ and fancywork was
givin’ out. Likewise the "antiques." Of course, there was some on hand.
Aunt Susannah Cahoon’s yeller and black mittens, ear lappets, and
tippets hadn’t sold, and wa’n’t likely to; and Abinadab Saint’s
alabaster whale-oil lamp with the crack in it, that his Great-uncle
Peleg brought home from sea, hadn’t been grabbed to any extent. But
these were the exceptions. ’Most all the good stuff had gone; and,
though Jacobs had raked the county with a fine-tooth comb, as you might
say, the reg’lar dealers from Boston had raked it ahead of him, and
there wa’n’t any "antiques" left.
There was several reasons for the shortage in fancywork. One was that
the knitters and tatters couldn’t turn it out fast enough; and,
moreover, the season for church fairs was settin’ in, and the heft of
the females, bein’ reg’lar members in good standin’, _had_ to tack ship
and go to helpin’ their meetin’-houses. So our stock was gettin’ low,
and Jim Henry was worried.
The other thing that worried him was that we couldn’t get the right kind
of help to sell the stuff. He couldn’t tend to it himself, bein’ too
busy otherwise. Mary had the post-office department on her hands. The
clerk and the delivery boys wa’n’t fitted for the job at all; and, as
for me, I couldn’t sell a blue sugar bowl without a cover for seven
dollars and take the money. I knew the one that bought it was perfectly
satisfied, but I couldn’t do it; I ain’t built that way.
"It’s no use, Jim Henry," says I. "I may be foolish, but I have ideas
about some things; and it’s my notion that sartin kinds of folks are
fitted by nature for sartin kinds of things. Now, Cape Codders they’re
fitted for seafarin’, and such; and New Yorkers and Chicagoers, like
you, are fitted for stock-brokin’ and storekeepin’; and Italians for
hand organs, and diggin’ streets, and singin’ in opera. And when it
comes to sellin’ secondhand stuff or keepin’ a pawnshop, there’s—"
"Rubbish!" he snaps. "A while ago, you’d have said that the embroidery
trade was cornered by the Armenians. We’ve proved that’s a fairy tale,
ain’t we? I’ve got some ideas myself. I know the kind of person I want
to run that Exchange, and, sooner or later, I’ll find him—or her.
Meantime, we’ll have to do the best we can; and I’ll take it as a favor
if you’ll let up on the hammer exercise."
I wa’n’t sure what he meant by the "hammer exercise"; but ’twas plain
enough that them "by-products" was a sore subject, and that he was
worried.
However, he wa’n’t the only worried lace dealer in the neighborhood. The
Old Colony Exchange had made good in one direction, anyhow. It had
knocked the embroidery peddlin’ business higher’n a kite. Where there
used to be a dozen suitcase luggers paradin’ through the town, now you
scarcely sighted one; and that one looked pretty sick and discouraged.
The home market had smashed foreign competition for the time bein’; that
much was pretty sure. But our stock kept gettin’ lower and lower, and
the auto crowds begun to go by now instead of stoppin’. And the few that
did stop hardly ever bought anything unless Jim Henry himself was there
to hypnotize ’em into it.
One mornin’ I came to the store pretty late, and found our clerk talkin’
to a dark-complected chap with curly hair and a suitcase. I didn’t shove
my bows into the talk; but, when ’twas over, I asked the clerk what the
critter wanted. He laughed.
"Oh, he’s the last survivor of the peddlin’ crew," he says. "He ain’t
sold a thing, and he’s goin’ back to Boston right off. I told him he
might as well. He asked a lot of questions about the Exchange, and I
took him upstairs and showed him around."
"You did?" says I. "What for?"
"Oh, just to let him see what he was up against, that’s all. He was a
pretty decent feller—some of them Armenians ain’t so bad—and I pitied
him. He was awful discouraged. He’d heard Mr. Jacobs had been tryin’ to
hire a salesman for up there; and he hinted that he’d kind of like the
job."
"Did, hey?" says I. "Well, it’s a good thing for you and him that Mr.
Jacobs didn’t catch you. He’d sooner have a snake on the premises than
one of them peddlers. What else did he say? Anything?"
Why, yes. It developed that he’d said a good deal. Asked where we got
our stuff, and so on. I judged ’twas a providence that I come in when I
did, or that clerk would have told every last word he knew. I didn’t say
anything to Jim Henry. No use frettin’ him unnecessary.
Three days after that the Injun showed up. I don’t know as you know it,
but there are a few Injuns left on the Cape—half-breeds, or
three-quarters, they are mostly; and they live up around Cohasset
Narrows, or off in the woods in those latitudes. This one was an old
feller, black-haired, of course, and kind of fleshy, with a hook nose
and skin the color of gingerbread. I heard talk upstairs in the
Exchange; and, when I went aloft, I found him and Jim Henry settin’
among the by-products, and as confidential as a couple of rats in a
schooner’s hold. Soon as Jacobs seen me, he sung out for me to heave
alongside.
"Look at that, Cap’n Zeb," he says. "What do you think of that?"
I took what he handed me, and looked at it. 'Twas a piece of handmade
lace—a centerpiece, I believe they call it—and ’twas mighty well done.
"Think of it?" says I. "Well, I ain’t much of a judge, but I’d call it a
pretty slick article. Who made it?"
The old black-haired chap answered.
"My sister," he says. "She make ’em. Make 'em plenty."
"Bully for her!" says I. "She’s the lady we’ve been lookin’ for. Maybe
she make some more; hey?"
He grinned; and Jacobs mentioned for me to clear out; so I done it. He
and old Gingerbread Face stayed aloft in that Exchange for upward of an
hour; and, when they came down, Jim Henry went with him as fur as the
door. When the stranger had gone, Jim turns to me and stuck out his
hand.
"Skipper," says he, grinnin’ like a punkin lantern, "shake! I’ve got
it."
"What have you got?" I asked. I was a little mite provoked at bein’ sent
below so unceremonious. "What have you got—Asiatic cholery? Thought you
wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with Armenians."
"Armenians be hanged!" says he. "That’s no Armenian. He’s an Indian, a
full-blooded Indian, or pretty near it. And his family is about the only
full-bloods left. There’s a colony of them up the Cape a ways; and it
seems that they pick berries in the summer, and put in their winters
turnin’ out stuff like that centerpiece. He heard about the Exchange,
and he’s come way down here to see if we bought such things. I told him
we bought ’em with bells on, and he’ll be back here to-morrow with
another load."
Sure enough, he was, load and all; and ’twould have astonished you to
see what fust-class fancywork his sister and the rest of the squaws
turned out. Jacobs bought the whole lot, and ordered more; said he’d
take all the tribe could scare up; and old Gingerbread—his American
name, so he said, was Rose, Solomon Rose—went away happy. When I found
what Jim Henry had paid him for the plunder, I didn’t blame Rose for
bein’ joyful.
But Jacobs didn’t care. He was all excitement and hurrah again. He had a
new addition made to the Exchange sign. ’Twas "The Old Colony Women’s
Exchange, Curio Room, and Indian Exhibit" now; and inside of two days
the Burke Smythes and their friends was callin’ reg’lar, the auto
parties was rollin’ up to the door, and the money was rollin’ in. Injun
embroidery was somethin’ new; and the summer gang snapped at it like
bullfrogs at a red rag.
Then that partner of mine was seized violent with another rush of ideas
to the head. I’m blessed if he didn’t hire old Rose—the "Last of the
Mohicans," he called him, among other ridiculous and outlandish names—to
spend his days in that Injun Exchange loft. Paid him ten dollars a week,
he did, just to set there and look the part. ’Twas a sinful waste of
money, ’cordin’ to my notion; but Jim Henry shut me up like a
huntin’-case watch—with a snap.
"Who said he could sell?" he wanted to know. "I didn’t, did I? I don’t
know that he can’t—he’s shrewd enough when it comes to sellin’ us the
stuff he brings with him; but if he don’t sell a fifty-cent article—"
"Which he won’t," I interrupted; "for there’s nothin’ less than
two-seventy-five _in_ the robbers’ den, and you know it. How you have
the face to charge—"
"Will you be quiet?" he wanted to know. "As I say, whether he sells or
not, he’s wuth his wages twice over. Can’t you understand? Just oblige
me by rubbin’ your brains with scourin’ soap or somethin’, and _try_ to
understand. All the auto bunch ain’t lambs; some of them—the males
especially—are a fairly cagey collection; and there’s been doubts
expressed concernin’ the genuineness of our Injun exhibit. But with old
Uncas—with the Last of the Mohicans himself right on deck as a livin’
guarantee, why, we could sell clam-shells as small change from Sittin’
Bull’s wampum belt, and never raise a sacrilegious question even from a
Unitarian freethinker. It’s a cinch."
"See here, Jim Henry," says I, "if this thing’s a fraud, I won’t have
anything to do with it."
"Neither will I," says he, emphatic. "Frauds don’t pay, not in the long
run. But grandmother’s genuine antiques and the A-number-one, Simon-pure
embroideries of the noble red man—or woman—pay, and don’t you forget
it."
They did pay; and old Mohican himself was a payin’ investment, too, in
spite of my doubts and Jeremiah prophesyin’. He made a ten-strike with
every female that hit that loft. They said he was so "quaint," and
"odd," and "pathetic." Mrs. Burke Smythe vowed there was somethin’ "big"
and "great" about him—meanin’ his nose or his boots, I presume
likely—and, somehow or other, though he didn’t look like a salesman, he
sold. And every week or so he’d take a day off and go back home, to
return with a fresh supply of tidies, and lace, and gimcracks. I changed
my mind about Injuns. I see right off that all the yarns I’d read about
’em was lies. They didn’t murder nor scalp their enemies—they smothered
’em with lamp mats.
And ’twa’n’t fancywork alone that the Rose critter fetched back from
these home v’yages of his. He struck an "antique" vein somewheres in the
reservation; and not a week went by that he didn’t resurrect an old
bedstead or a table or a spinnin’ wheel or somethin’, and fetched ’em
down in an old wagon towed by an old white horse. The "children of the
forest"—which was another of Jim Henry’s names for the Injuns and
half-breeds—didn’t give up these things for nothin’; far from it. We had
to pay as much as if they was made of solid silver; but we sold ’em at
gold prices, so that part was all right.
And every other day Jacobs would ask me what I thought of "by-products"
now. As for Armenian competition, it was dead. There wa’n’t any.
Well, three more weeks drifted along, and the summer season was ’most
over. Then, one Tuesday mornin’, old Rose, the Mohican, didn’t show up.
He’d gone away on Friday cal’latin’ to be back Monday with a fresh lot
of "antiques" and centerpieces; but he wa’n’t. And Tuesday and Wednesday
passed, and he didn’t come. Jim Henry was awful worried. We needed more
stock, and we needed our Injun curio; and nothin’ would do but I must
turn myself into a relief expedition and hunt him up.
"Somethin’s happened, sure," says Jacobs. "He’s never missed his time
afore. Those fellers pride themselves on keepin’ their word—you read
Cooper, if you don’t believe it—and he’s sick or dead; one or the
other."
"Dead nothin’!" says I. "He’s too tough to kill, and nothin’ would make
him sick but soap and water, which ain’t one of his bad habits by a
consider’ble sight. However, if it’ll make you any easier, I’ll take the
mornin’ train and locate him if I can."
"Go ahead," says he. "I’d do it myself, but I can’t leave just now. Go
ahead, Skipper, and don’t come back till you’ve got him, or found out
why he isn’t on hand."
So I took the mornin’ train and set out to locate the noble red man.