Clarence Budington Kelland

“ I wished Tod Nodder was swallowed by a whale or something, and I made up my mind that the next time Mark Tidd had any watching to do he could count me out. My stummick was full of watching.
It got five o’clock and six o’clock, and still Tod didn’t budge. It began to look like he had taken root and was going to grow there. It turned out later that he was asleep with his back against a tree and had been asleep all the afternoon. He hadn’t stayed because he wanted to, but because he went fast asleep and didn’t wake up. A man like that ought to carry an alarm-clock around with him. ”

“ Wiggamore. The Middle-West Power Company employs decent men only. I’m ashamed to have been associated with you. I’m ashamed of what people must think of me, of what you have made people think of me.... It doesn’t pay, Mr. Wiggamore. Here you have been tricky and crooked, and you have been beaten, and beaten badly by a boy. He has done you. Besides being a trickster and a disgrace to decent business, you are incompetent. Your connection with this company is severed from this instant. Good day, sir. ”

“ Do you know that a banker is more particular about a man’s truthfulness and honesty than he is about his security? Yes, sir. I’d rather lend money to a man who hadn’t security, but who had always been honest and fair, than to a man who could give me government bonds as security, but had a reputation for being crooked. ”

“ He’s going to try to buy them cheap, but the folks that sell will be sorry. Especially folks that are owed by Silas Doolittle Bugg. If anybody comes to pay you less for a debt than is owed you, don’t take the money. Fetch your bill right to Silas Doolittle Bugg’s mill and give it to Mark Tidd. Silas is getting in shape to pay every honest debt. If Silas owes you money, see Mark Tidd about it right off. But be ready to prove that he owes you. Take warning and don’t sell your debts. There’s a mighty mean trick being done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A man must feel pretty small and mean when somebody catches him trying to play a low-down trick.
Zadok came into the office about the middle of the afternoon, and he was grinning like all-git-out. “Ha, Marcus Aurelius!” says he. “Opportunity spelled with a capital O. Opportunity is everywhere. Always one is under your nose. You have but to see and pluck it. (‘Pick’ is the commoner word.) I shall not tell you about the Opportunity I have seen, but I shall hint at it. A hint should be enough for you.”
“F-fine!” says Mark. ”

“ It’s somethin’ to git all of that you kin, and to let go of as little of as you got to. If you got a dollar, why, you got a dollar; if you up and spend it, what you got then? Nothin’ but vain regrets, says I.”
“Right,” says Mr. Wiggamore. “I see you are a wise man, and I like to do business with wise men. I’m sure I shall find much work for you, for I need men who think the way you do.”
“Much obleeged,” says Jason, purring like a tabby-cat laying in a sunbeam. You could ’most see him hump up his back to be scratched. “The only thing I don’t take to about this here is that Mark Tidd is in it. ”

“ A good-natured fellow ought to fight about once a year just to show folks he hain’t too good-natured.
That night I waited till half past seven, and then I sneaked sister’s baby-cab and down-town I went. The band was just coming out of the Firemen’s Hall and forming a circle in the square when I got there. Mark and Tallow and Binney were sitting on the railing of the town pump, waiting, and I trundled past them without so much as looking. I pretended I didn’t see them at all, and pushed the cab right around the band. For a while nobody noticed me because the band was trying to get up steam. ”

“ When the little pegs began to come through Mark was satisfied.
“Now for Jason,” says he.
“Jason’s one of them spirit fellers,” says I.
“How’s that?” says Binney.
“Believes spooks comes monkeyin’ around a feller,” says I. “Goes to them mediums and gits to talk to his grandfather’s aunt’s sister’s poodle-dog that died the year of Valley Forge,” says I. “And he hears rappin’s on the wall, and pencils writes on slates when nobody is around, and sich cunnin’ things.”
“What’s a medium?” says Tallow.
“Why,” says I, “you know what a medium is! Anybody knows. ”

“ Then he would mogg into the mill and stand alongside the saw for a spell and talk to himself and act as if a saw cutting through a log was a miracle right out of the Bible. I never saw a man that could get up so much surprise over something that didn’t surprise him a bit. He was always surprised. I’ll bet it surprised him when he woke up in the morning.
Mark and I went over to him, and Mark says:
“Mr. Bugg, see if you can’t think of somebody that owes you some money—somebody you’ve sold things to.”
“Wa-al,” says Silas, “I calc’late I’ve sold a heap of folks a heap of things. ”

“ Makes all the difference in the world. I was just sayin’ the other day that money always makes a difference. Yes, sir. If you got money you’re different than what you be if you hain’t. If you want money you’re different than what you be if you don’t want it. On the other hand, if there wasn’t no money not much of anythin’ would make any difference, eh? I’m a sensible man, Mr. Wiggamore, and I calc’late not to let no day end without I’ve added some to what I got in the savin’s-bank. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There wasn’t anything bad about George even if he did steal a hog. He wasn’t the stealing kind, regular, but he didn’t ever do a thing in a hard way when he could do it easier, and he probably found it was easier to get that hog by swiping it than it would have been to buy it. He was a regular rabbit except that he couldn’t jump. He might fall off of something, but he’d never jump off it. Why, he didn’t even have a nickname. Folks called him George all his life, or maybe Georgie. Imagine a grown man being called Georgie! Whew! It’s enough to give you a stummick-ache. ”

“ Still, Mark Tidd says it is more important what a judge has in his head than in the legs of his pants, and maybe he’s right.
Zadok came into town next day and drove right up to Tidds’. He thinks Mark is the greatest boy in the world, on account of his name. Zadok is funny about names. He collects them like some boys do stamps or birds’ eggs, and he says Mark’s name, Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, is the best one of the lot.
“Well, well, well!” he said. “What’s this I am informed? (Most folks would say ‘told.’) Runnin’ a mill, eh? Now can you beat that? Indeed you cannot. ”

“ So we done that. Mark and I crept cautious around to the log-slide and went up it, and it was a job for a cat in that darkness. Once we was inside the mill it was a lot worse. I’ve been in the dark once or twice, but that’s the first time I was ever in dark that was so dark you had to push it away from you. Honest, I could reach out and grab chunks of it, and it felt like it would pack like snow.
When we got inside we stopped and listened, but there wasn’t a sound.
Then Mark whispered in my ear: “Go along s-soft. That there magician’s got ears like a cat.”
“Kin he see in the dark?” ”

“ That’s the way to do with jokes. Jokes is like dollars. A good dollar is worth a hundred cents, but a bad dollar is apt to get you s-s-shut up in jail. Or eggs,” says he. “You don’t have to crack a joke to tell if it’s bad, like you do an egg.”
“I suppose,” says I, “that was a joke?”
“There’s folks would call it sich,” says he.
“Aw, come on,” says Binney. “Quit your jawin’ like old wimmin at a knittin’-bee and git to work. What’s goin’ to be done?”
“I wisht I knew,” says Mark.
“If we found him he wouldn’t come back,” says Binney. “He’d be afraid of the sheriff.” ”

“ She won’t talk business without him, and he can’t be found. I’ve had men looking for him, but we can’t locate him. That is a trifling matter, and will be straightened up the minute George Piggins is found.”
“Um!...” The fat man turned to Mark and says: “You say you are in a position to force us to your terms if you want to. That sounds like talking pretty big, for a kid. What do you mean by it?”
“I mean just this, sir, that if I’m wrong about you men, and you aren’t b-big and square and honest like I think, why, I’m g-goin’ to git all I kin out of you, and I’ve got a way to do it!” ”

“ Man signed his name the best he could.
“Tallow,” says Mark, “swim over and git that b-b-boat Plunk saw stranded. We kin m-manage to git him out of the hole!”
Tallow went crashing off, and we let down the bough of a tree and pulled the man out. He was a sight. Honest, he was the muddiest, bedraggledest thing you ever saw, and he was tame. I never saw a grown man quite as tame as he was. He hadn’t any fight left in him, and all he wanted to do was to rest and get dry. We built him a fire to dry by, and by that time Tallow came back. ”

“ He was there, all right, pitching with old Jim Battershaw, and they was down on their knees measuring from the peg to a couple of horseshoes with a piece of string to find out which was the nearest, and quarreling about it as if it was the most important thing that had happened in the world since Noah built his ark. We waited for them to decide which horseshoe was nearest, but they couldn’t decide, and they wouldn’t call it even. ”

“ But I calc’late you and me is equal to one fat boy. Now maybe I got some suggestions like. You kin bet that there Tidd boy will make money out of that mill if he’s let be. He’s got the knack of it. If he’s let be, mark you! Was you willin’ to see him let be, or would it be worth a man’s while to sort of kind of mix in once in a while?”
“For instance?”
“Things happens in mills,” says Jason, confidential-like. “Somethin’ might get wedged into the water-wheel. There’s ways of messin’ up machinery so’s it won’t run.”
“I see you’re going to be a valuable man for me.” ”

“ If it didn’t do him any good, it would be a lot of help to boys like Mark and me that had to sit and watch him.
It was after seven o’clock when Tod finally stretched and gaped and twisted around and pulled in his fish-line and started for somewheres. Now it’s easy to follow one man, but to follow a man when he is followed by some one else and his follower is followed by a third man, is another kind of a thing altogether. We had a tough job cut out for us to find out where Tod was going without having one of those other fellows finding out that we were following him. ”