JERRY TODD
AND THE
OAK ISLAND TREASURE
BY
LEO EDWARDS
Author of
THE JERRY TODD BOOKS, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
BERT SALG
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS : : NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America
JERRY TODD SAYS:
What you will particularly like about this book, I believe, is our
money-making canal-boat show. We fixed up Dad’s old clay scow swell,
with a stage and audience seats and everything. We even had a sort of
“orchestra.” Oh, boy! The way that old merry-go-round hand organ
gurgled out its tunes when we twisted its tail! And the fun we had!
Scoop was the magician, advertised in the Tutter newspaper as the Great
Kermann. Red was the ticket agent. Peg and I were officers of the show
company and stage hands.
It was plain to us that we were going to make a wad of money giving
black art shows. A million dollars, Scoop said, in fun. Peg said
steadily that he would be satisfied with the price of a new bicycle. He
got the bicycle, all right. But when you have read this story of fun
and money-making and hidden mystery to its exciting final climax, you
will say that he earned what he got ... all of us, for that matter.
There is a new kind of ghost in this story. The Stricker gang, our
enemy, tried jealously to break up our show, but the “friendly ghost”
helped us out. Was it a real ghost? Or was it some unknown man playing
ghost? We didn’t know.
Buried treasure, a lonely island, alternately cloaked in the blackest
darkness and the brightest moonlight, a mysterious piano leg, a
crazy-acting, talkative piano tuner—these are a few of the unusual high
lights in an adventure story more exciting, I think, than my two
earlier books, JERRY TODD AND THE WHISPERING MUMMY (Book No. 1) and
JERRY TODD AND THE ROSE-COLORED CAT (Book No. 2); and as mysteriously
bewildering as my later books, JERRY TODD AND THE WALTZING HEN (Book
No. 4) and JERRY TODD AND THE TALKING FROG (Book No. 5).
Having read this story, treat yourself to some more hilarious fun with
the “Whispering Mummy” book, a detective story that probably a million
boys have laughed over. Mummy itch! Ever have it? We did.
In my “Rose-colored Cat” book we have our trials with a “feline rest
farm”—a sort of sanitarium for wealthy people’s cats. There is oodles
of fun and a hundred and fifty crazy cats in this book, and a peculiar
mystery of six vanished pink pearls.
In the “Waltzing Hen” book you’ll meet old Cap’n Tinkertop and his
hilarious dancing leg. A funny old coot! Why does the hen waltz? What
is the secret of the yellow man and the frisky white doorknob?
Rip-roaring reading here.
In my “Talking Frog” book we help a boy pal save a peculiar invention
of his father’s from thieving hands. What is the shabby old soap
peddler searching for, night after night, in the vanished miser’s old
mill? What does “ten and ten” mean? You’ll search breathlessly for the
answers to these and other riddles if you once get this gripping
fun-mystery-adventure book into your hands.
Your friend,
Jerry Todd.
OUR CHATTER-BOX
The earlier editions of this book did not contain a “Chatter-Box.” But
so popular has this department become (I started it with my sixteenth
book) that my publisher asked me to prepare a brief “Chatter-Box” for
all of my early books.
The boys and girls who read my books supply the material for this
department. As the author of the books, all I have to do is to assemble
the material. If you are one of the many hundreds of boys who have
written to me, it may be that your letter was incorporated in the
“Chatter-Box” in one of my other books. Writers of accepted poems
receive, as a reward, a free autographed copy of the book in which
their poem appears. The fine poems (all written by boys and girls who
call themselves Jerry Todd fans) contained in the “Chatter-Boxes” in my
recent books will interest you. But if you can’t write poetry, built
around the characters in my books, be sure and write me a letter. If
you make your letter interesting I’ll try hard to find a place for it
in a future “Chatter-Box.” I doubt if I could fully express the
pleasure that I derive from the many letters that I receive. My boy
pals! That is the way I regard the writers of these dandy letters. So
the more letters I receive the more pals I’ll have. And I sure like
pals!
LETTERS
“One day,” writes Oswell Patout, Jr., of Jeanerette, La., “our gang
(I’m enclosing a picture showing the three of us reading Jerry Todd
books) began receiving mysterious maps and letters informing us about
missing pearls. Here was a fine chance, we thought, to solve a mystery
like Jerry Todd and his gang. So we set to work in regular Juvenile
Jupiter Detective style. But, alas, the pearls were a fake. The letters
and maps were a trick of boy friends of ours who know how ‘bugs’ we are
about your peachy books.”
“I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to be a book writer like you,”
writes Charles Jordan of Chicago, Ill., “or at least try to be. If all
men were like you it sure would be a swell world for us kids. I sure do
appreciate your books. Yes, sir, I do. My cousin and I have tried many
times to do things like Jerry. But what can a fellow do here in this
big city! Boy, Jerry and his gang sure have peachy times, if you ask
me. Whenever I read a Jerry Todd book I have the feeling that I’m right
there, going through all the adventures the same as the other boys.”
“I belong to a gang of Boy Scouts,” writes Billy Johnston of Little
Rock, Ark. “We have bully good times. One time we had a cave, to get
into which we first had to raise a trapdoor and then crawl through a
dark tunnel.”
Boy, that sounds hot! And I’m reminded, too, of the cave that Trigger
Berg and his pals built. Did you, Bill, like Trigger and his gang,
catch a robber in your cave? This episode of Trigger’s, I believe, took
place in the Treasure Tree book.
And as though in answer to Bill’s letter, Joe Griffith of Allegan,
Mich., writes: “Our cave, built back of our barn, didn’t last long. For
a boy walked across the top and two boards fell on the kid’s head who
was inside. Ouch! I was glad it wasn’t me.”
Also from Allegan comes this interesting letter from Jack (Yam) Hale:
“As the leader of our gang I am called Jerry Todd. Don Garlock is Peg.
Zeb Jones is Scoop. And Si Herrington is Red. Having a raft with a big
slingshot on it we frequently dress up like pirates, using wooden
swords. Also we built a lean-to in the woods and made a totem pole—not
so good, though, as the one in Poppy’s book. Nor must I forget the
‘Stricker gang’ that we have battles with. That’s the name we have for
a rival gang near us. They’re hard, like Bid.”
Here’s a joke (I think it’s good, too) sent in by Emanuel Bernstein of
Newark, N. J.:
Jerry: “It’s only six o’clock. I told you to come over after supper.”
Red: “That’s what I came after.”
Another boy—George Browne of Rye, N. Y.—submits this one:
Father, to little Tommie who had just started to school: “Well, son,
what lesson do you like best?”
Tommie: “I like recess best.”
And what do you think—Alfred Burke of Cranford, N. J., states that he
has read the Whispering Cave book twenty-four times!
Here’s another snappy one: “I tried to make a dinosaur egg,” writes
Jack Hanson of Rockford, Ill. Jack doesn’t say how the egg turned out.
Yet how glad we are that he didn’t try to lay it!
“My chums and I recently organized a Juvenile Jupiter Detective
Association,” writes Wilfred Hinkel of Elmont, L. I., N. Y., “only we
call ourselves the Jerry Todd Union of Detectives. Boy! You should see
our peachy badges.”
FRECKLED GOLDFISH
Out of my book, Poppy Ott and the Freckled Goldfish, has grown our
great Freckled Goldfish lodge, membership in which is open to all boys
and girls who are interested in my books. Thousands of readers have
joined the club. We have peachy membership cards (designed by Bert
Salg, the popular illustrator of my books) and fancy buttons. Also for
members who want to organize branch clubs (hundreds are in successful
operation, providing boys and girls with added fun) we have rituals.
To join (and to be a loyal Jerry Todd fan I think you ought to join),
please observe these simple rules:
(1) Write (or print) your name plainly.
(2) Supply your complete printed address.
(3) Give your age.
(4) Enclose two two-cent postage stamps (for card and button).
(5) Address your letter to
Leo Edwards,
Cambridge,
Wisconsin.
LOCAL CHAPTERS
To help young organizers we have produced a printed ritual, which any
member who wants to start a Freckled Goldfish club in his own
neighborhood can’t afford to be without. This booklet tells how to
organize the club, how to conduct meetings, how to transact all club
business, and, probably most important of all, how to initiate
candidates.
The complete initiation is given word for word. Naturally, these
booklets are more or less secret. So, if you send for one, please do
not show it to anyone who isn’t a Freckled Goldfish. Three chief
officers will be required to put on the initiation, which can be given
in any member’s home, so, unless each officer is provided with a
booklet, much memorizing will have to be done. The best plan is to have
three booklets to a chapter. These may be secured (at cost) at six
cents each (three two-cent stamps) or three for sixteen cents (eight
two-cent stamps). Address all orders to
Leo Edwards,
Cambridge, Wisconsin.
CLUB NEWS
“My chums and I,” writes Charles Lewis of Conneaut, Ohio, “are all
Freckled Goldfish. Calling our chapter the Freckled Fantails, we have
secret rules, initiations and mysterious departments, such as Juvenile
Jupiter Detectives and Secret and Mysterious Order of Humpty-Dumpty.
Our password is ——”.
You’ve heard about club members being in good standing. Well, Frank
Boyd of Dunellen, N. J., claims to be a member of our Freckled Goldfish
lodge in good “sitting.”
“I made some candy, like Andy Blake did in his book,” writes Frank,
“but even our dog Towser sniffed at it. Also, my chum and I made a kite
ten feet high. It cost us fifteen cents. A stick broke when the kite
got as high as a telephone pole, and that was the end of our fifteen
cents.”
Speaking of big kites, the new boys in Andy Blake and the Pot of Gold
have a lot of fun with a huge kite. Andy himself is a young man; but
the boys I refer to are quite young. Hence this story will be
interesting to very small boys.
“Perhaps you’d be interested to know,” writes Freckled Goldfish George
Lindsay, Jr., of Philadelphia, Pa., “that my father manufactures food
for goldfish.”
Well, well! We’re sure glad, George, to have such an authority in our
ranks. If any of our Goldfish get the “tummy-ache” we’ll turn them over
to you for proper treatment.
“All of the boys around here are Freckled Goldfish,” writes Thomas
Keogh of Brooklyn, N. Y. “So I want to join, too. And here’s a
suggestion: You have Jerry Todd in the Poppy Ott books, so why don’t
you put Poppy in the Todd books? Also, tell me how many members there
are in the Freckled Goldfish lodge. The Bob-Tailed Elephant book is the
funniest thing I ever read.”
By the time this “Chatter-Box” appears in print we will have not less
than 8,000 members in our Goldfish lodge. As for your suggestion, both
Scoop and Poppy are natural leaders. We don’t need two leaders in a
book. Nor would it be fair to push Poppy in front of Scoop in the Todd
books. A better plan is to let Scoop do the leading in one series and
Poppy in the other.
“I would like to organize a local chapter,” writes Jim Gordon of
Brooklyn, N. Y., “but there are not many boys around here. At the most
I could get only five members. Please tell me if that would be enough.
Also I would like to know if my dog can join. His name is Tramp.”
If boys, conducting local chapters, want to include their pets in the
chapter membership it certainly is all right with me. It takes three
boys to organize a chapter. Many of our chapters have only five
members; some have less.
“Ed Nilsson, a Freckled Goldfish, and I are going to organize a local
chapter,” writes James Elphinstone of Ludlow, Mass. “We have used Ed’s
barn at other times for clubs. But we feel sure our Freckled Goldfish
club will be the best of all. The trapdoor in the barn will come in
handy during initiations! We have a pole in the old grain chute,
extending from the attic to the cellar. We go down it like real
firemen. I hope we don’t share Red’s grief and have a baby elephant
cave in one side of our barn.”
LEO’S PICTURE
And now, gang, I have some news for you. An autographed picture of Leo
Edwards—in person—may be obtained by writing to Leo Edwards’ secretary,
Grosset & Dunlap, 1140 Broadway, New York, N. Y., and enclosing ten
cents in stamps to cover cost of handling. Modesty prevents me from
telling you, fellows, that this is a rare bargain. Only ten cents for
such a wonderful picture. Ahem!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The “Sally Ann” 1
II The Enemy 10
III A Whispering Ghost 18
IV The Merry-go-round Organ 26
V Taming the Hand Organ 42
VI Under Power 48
VII Our First Show 56
VIII The Girl in the Blue Tam 68
IX Under Arrest 83
X The Greased Pig 93
XI The Mystery That Came with the Night 106
XII The Buried Treasure 113
XIII Amazing News 123
XIV Capricorn Hebrides Windbigler 137
XV Under the Bed 153
XVI The Secret of the Piano Leg 165
XVII Back to the Island 182
XVIII What the Turtle Did to Me 195
XIX In the Cave 208
XX The Mystery Clears 225
JERRY TODD AND THE OAK ISLAND TREASURE
CHAPTER I
THE “SALLY ANN”
It was summer vacation when this happened. We had been swimming in the
fourth quarry and had stopped at Dad’s brickyard canal dock on the way
home.
Scoop Ellery, our leader, reached for a rock the size of his fist and
sent it crash-bang! against the side of an old clay scow that was
moored to the dock.
“If I had money enough,” he grinned, “I’d buy that old tub and have
some fun with it.”
Red Meyers scratched his freckled nose.
“What kind of fun?” he wanted to know, wondering, I guess, what use one
could make of the weather-beaten old scow.
“Well,” considered Scoop, cocking his eyes at the scow, “it would make
a swell houseboat, for one thing.”
“Let’s do it,” I promptly encouraged, picturing to myself the dandy fun
that we could have in the Tutter canal with a houseboat. Hot dog! “Dad
won’t care,” I hurried on. “Honest. For he told me that he was going to
drag the scow out of the water and knock it to pieces.”
Here Peg Shaw, our big chum, came into the conversation.
“If your pa’ll let us use it,” he said to me, with an ear-to-ear grin,
“I know how we can earn some money with it.”
Well, that sounded darby. For boys like to earn money. And if we could
have fun doing it, as seemed very probable, so much the better.
Then Peg told us that it was his scheme to get up a boat show,
patterned after the boat shows that used to travel on the Mississippi
River years ago, only, of course, our show was to be a small one as
compared to the early river shows. We could easily make the audience
seats, our chum explained in reciting his scheme, and build a stage at
one end of the boat.
Red wanted to give a picture show.
“I’ve got a peachy moving picture machine,” he told us.
“What’s the matter with our black art show?” Scoop suggested.
“The black art show,” Peg said, waggling, “is what I had in mind.”
“Oh, baby!” I cried. “Won’t we have fun?”
Scoop had been studying sleight of hand tricks and his book of
instructions told how to stage an amateur black art show. Black art is
a good magic trick. Anybody can do it, as I will explain later on in my
story. In June we put on the show in Red’s barn. It was fun. We took in
ninety-five cents, which was pretty good for the first time. If Peg,
the big cow, hadn’t stumbled over a lantern, thereby setting fire to
one of Mrs. Meyers’ sheets that we were using on the stage, we probably
would have made a lot of money giving black art shows. But we had to go
out of the show business when Mr. Meyers put a padlock on the barn
door.
Now we were going to be showmen again! We were glad. The more we talked
about the boat show scheme the better we liked it. In the first place
it was different. People who had laughed at our barn show, calling it a
kid affair, would be interested in our boat show. And we wouldn’t have
any competition, because we would be the owners of the only
flat-bottomed boat in town. Other boys might envy us, but they wouldn’t
be able to take any of our business away from us by starting a rival
boat show. Certain of success, we were eager to begin. But first I had
to gain Dad’s consent.
The old clay scow is a part of his brickyard outfit. I guess it was
built years and years before I was born. Anyway, I remember it as one
of the first things in the brickyard that drew my attention. I was
sorry when they quit using it. For it was fun to ride up the shady
canal to the clay pit and back again to the factory where the clay was
made into bricks. It took two men to manage the scow when it was in
use. One man drove the team of mules that did the towing and the other
man handled the big rudder, thereby keeping the loaded scow in the
canal’s channel. As you can imagine it was rather slow traveling, for
the mules never moved faster than a walk; but, as I say, it was fun
nevertheless.
Nowadays all of Dad’s clay comes into the brickyard on big motor
trucks. And it was because he had no use for the scow that he had told
me that he was going to knock it to pieces.
That evening at the supper table I told my folks about our swell show
scheme. They laughed.
“What won’t you and that Ellery boy think up next!” Mother said.
“It’s a dandy scheme,” I told her. “We’ll make a lot of money. It’ll be
fun, too.”
“I only hope,” she said, when I had gotten permission to use the old
scow, “that the boat won’t spring a leak and sink in the middle of the
canal during one of your shows.”
“No danger of that,” laughed Dad, who knew how well built the scow was.
He caught my eyes. “Did I understand you to say,” he quizzed across the
table, “that it’s going to be a magic show?”
“The same as we put on in Red’s barn,” I nodded.
“Who’s the magician?—Scoop?”
I gave another nod.
“He’s also the general manager of our show company,” I informed.
Mother smiled.
“What are you,” she inquired in fun, “the traffic manager?”
I told her, with dignity, that I was the treasurer, which was a very
important and trustworthy position, and handled the money.
“Peg’s the secretary,” I further informed, “and Red’s the ticket
agent.”
Dad considered.
“How would it be,” he suggested, starting his nonsense, “if you put on
a trapeze act? Mother and I are crazy to get our names on the program;
and trapeze stuff is our specialty.”
“The very idea!” sputtered Mother, who knew, of course, that Dad was
trying to bother her. He likes to tease people. I’ll tell the world
that I get my share of it!
After supper I picked up Red and the two of us went in search of Peg
and Scoop to tell them the good news that the scow was ours. They were
at Peg’s house, where Scoop was importantly lettering a fancy cloth
sign. Here it is:
THE “SALLY ANN” SHOW COMPANY
Mystery and Magic
To-night at 8:30
Admission, Including War Tax, 15c.
Children 10c.
Red hates girls.
“Who’s ‘Sally Ann’?” he scowled, letting out his freckled neck at the
sign.
Scoop quickly read the other’s thoughts.
“You’ll like Sal,” he grinned.
“If you’re going to have a gurl in it,” Red balked, “you can count me
out,” and he hitched up his pants and started off.
“Hey; come here!”
“Nothin’ doin’.”
“‘Sally Ann,’” laughed Scoop, “is the name of our show boat.”
Red gave a disgusted snort.
“Named after a gurl! Huh! Why don’t you name it after a boy?”
“A boat,” explained Scoop, “is usually a ‘she.’ Anyway,” he defended,
“‘Sally Ann’ is a good name. I’ve got it printed that way and I’m not
going to change it.”
Like Red, I didn’t think very much of our leader’s choice of a name for
our show boat. But I kept shut. For you can’t argue Scoop down.
“I’m going to make two of these signs,” he explained to us. “One for
each side of the boat. I can finish the job to-night. And to-morrow
we’ll put up the stage and build the seats.”
“Hot dog!” I cried, thinking of the fun we were going to have.
“It will take a lot of coin to get started,” he went on, “so we better
check up and find out how we stand on the money question. I can put in
seven dollars.” He looked at me. “How much are you good for, Jerry?”
I knew that I could depend on Dad and Mother to help me out. It would
be a loan, sort of. Later on, when the show was earning money, I could
pay them back out of my share of the profits.
“I’ll bring ten dollars to-morrow morning,” I told our leader.
“So will I,” promised Red, who has more truck than any other kid in
Tutter. If he took a sudden notion to start a circus all he would have
to do would be to whistle and his folks would stock him up with a baby
elephant and a flock of camels.
Peg was silent.
“I don’t like to ask Pa for money,” he finally spoke up. “For he has to
work hard for what he gets. If I could sell some of my rabbits....”
“Don’t sell the white one,” grinned Scoop, “for we need it in our act.
Remember?—I wave the magic wand over the empty teacup and out jumps a
white rabbit.”
“Tommy Hegan wants to buy a pair of rabbits,” I told Peg, who promised
to call on the Grove Street kid the first thing in the morning.
Scoop was adding in his mind.
“If you can get three dollars,” he told Peg, “we’ll have an even
thirty. That ought to be enough to start with.”
“Thirty dollars,” repeated Red, thinking of his stomach. “That will
buy—um—three hundred ten-cent dishes of ice-cream; or six hundred
ice-cream cones; or three thousand penny sticks of licorice; or——”
Scoop gave the hungry one a contemptuous up-and-down look.
“Good-night!” he groaned, throwing up his hands. “It’s a hopeless
case.”
Red grinned. For he likes to get Scoop’s goat.
“I can’t work,” he strutted around, holding his freckled nose in the
air, “if I can’t eat. And if you expect me to put in ten dollars——”
“Your ten dollars is an investment,” explained Scoop, who has learned a
lot about business from his father. “It gives you a quarter interest in
the company.” He paused, then added with a grin: “If we take in a
million dollars, you get a quarter of it.”
“I’ll be satisfied,” Peg spoke up in his sensible way, “if we make a
hundred dollars ... twenty-five dollars apiece. I’ve been wanting a
bicycle.”
“You and me both,” I put in.
“Well,” grinned Scoop, “it’s a bit unlikely that we’ll get to be
millionaires. Still, you never can tell.”