Clarence Budington Kelland

“ Outside in the sand Chet and Chancy were wallowing and clawing around and pulling hair and kicking and trying to rub each other’s faces in the dirt. Old Mose leaned over the gate and watched them. All of a sudden he chuckled. It wasn’t a good-natured chuckle, by any means, but the sort of a chuckle a mean man gives when he sees something disagreeable happening to somebody he doesn’t like. He leaned over farther and began yelling at Chet and Chancy.
“Give it to him. That’s the way. Come squabblin’ around my gate, will you! Git a holt on to his nose, there. Whee!... Shove his face in the dirt. ”

“ He is heart and soul with you. From this minute Jehoshaphat P. Skip is his enemy. Zadok will help you. Zadok will advise you. Best of all, Zadok will look about him for opportunities.” Looking for opportunities was Zadok’s specialty. “We will show this Jehoshaphat P. Skip—a detestable name; I abhor such a name—we will show him!”
He turned to Mark.
“You are in business,” says he. “Business is the game that keeps the world going. Business is checkers; business is football; business is Brains. Would you hear my business rules? They will aid you—help is the more common word. ”

“ In spite of the high-and-mighty way he carried himself, and the way he barked at folks, he was said to be the kind of man who goes out of his way to do folks a favor. Heaps of poor folks had got law from him without paying a cent. Everybody in Wicksville laughed at him a little—and liked him a heap. Wicksville folks could laugh at him if they wanted to, but you let a man from Sunfield come over and start to make fun of Lawyer Sturgis and there’d be a fight in a second. It makes a heap of difference who does the laughing. ”

“ Skip, if it is going to mean a severe money loss to you to move, if there is no other store building in Wicksville, it seems to me your offer, considering the circumstances, is low—too low.”
“What do you want, then? How much? If it’s too high I may as well move. I’d rather lose my money moving than to give it to a man that rigged up a scheme to hold me up, anyhow.”
That sort of scared me and I nudged Mark, but he shook his head for me to be quiet.
“Two hundred dollars is the price, Mr. Skip. That is final. You can take it or leave it. My time, I may say, is of value. ”

“ I take an option. I go to Mr. Tidd and say, ‘Mr. Tidd, I will give you a dollar if you will agree not to sell that cow to anybody else before next Tuesday, and if you will agree to sell it to me any time before Tuesday for forty-one dollars.’”
“That’s too much for a cow,” says Mrs. Tidd.
“This is an imaginary cow,” says Zadok. Then he grinned all over. “That kind is more expensive, ma’am, because they don’t eat up any fodder.... Well, that’s an option. It’s where somebody else agrees to sell you something on or before a certain day, and not to sell it to anybody else in the mean time. ”

“ No business man would treat another like this.”
“H’m! I’m not so sure, Mr. Skip. While we’re on that subject I might say I’ve heard of dealings of your own that might have been more upright. I have been informed, Mr. Skip, that you have resorted to means which are, to say the least, reprehensible. I, sir, have been practising law in Wicksville for thirty-five years. I can assure you, sir, that, had I not considered my client justified in the course he follows in this matter, I should have declined to act for him. I do believe him justified. ”

“ I’d rather have stayed at Mark’s house or somewheres than with her, but it wasn’t any use. There’s no fun staying with a woman that’s all the time squealing and squinching and jumping like somebody shoved a pin into her.
That night, after father and mother were gone, Aunt Minnie wouldn’t let me go out of the house, because, says she, like as not burglars have been watching for just such a chance for years, hanging around Wicksville, waiting for this house to be left with nobody but her in it. ”

“ Every married woman insisted on having the votes of her church cast for her husband, and the four old maids that were scattered through the three denominations were all for Mr. Pilkins, the school principal—him being an old bachelor. At last the noise got so bad and the women got so mad Mark made up his mind he’d have to do something about it—and he wanted to do something that would help out the Bazar while he was at it. ”

“ Folks started to bid. One man offered a dead dog, and another bid a plugged cent, and another the squeak of a pig and another the hole in a fried cake. All the time Sam was straining and tugging, but Mark didn’t let go. Then a man back in the crowd yelled, “I bet Sam Hoskins’s yaller dawg.”
“Sold,” says Mark, and he let loose of Sam. You never saw a kid disappear as quick as that kid did. He just vanished. You can bet no more kids interfered with Mark’s auction that day. ”

“ Hain’t you been jawin’ enough? Say! Hain’t you goin’ to give a man no peace?”
Then he jumped up and shut off the machine. Of course the talking stopped. Old Mose grinned proud-like, just as if he’d done something worth while.
“Haw!” says he, “you will, eh? You will set there and jaw and jaw! I’ll show you. Jest like all folks, hain’t you? Want to keep wagglin’ your tongue all the time. But I kin shut you up. Old Mose is the feller that kin turn you off.” ”

“ We had more folks in the store that day than we ever had before, I believe, unless maybe nights before Christmas. We let them joke us all they wanted and didn’t try to sell them things. What we wanted them to do was walk around and sell things to themselves. That was Mark’s idea. You haven’t any idea how people like to poke around by themselves and stick their noses into things. They right down enjoy it. The more they poked the more they bought. It kept Mark and me busy, and we wished a lot of times that Binney and Tallow were there to help us. ”

“ Mark Tidd was laughing that still laugh of his till I was afraid he’d roll off the roof.
“B-b-beauty contest!” says he.
“Don’t seem like folks would make such idiots of themselves over a contest that don’t make any difference to anybody!” I says.
Mark chuckled again.
“’Tain’t the reason for the c-c-contest that counts,” he says, “it’s that it is a contest. The whole idee of the thing is that nobody likes to have anybody else b-b-beat them at anything.”
“That’s so,” says I. “Seems like I’d be sorrier to have Jehoshaphat P. Skip beat us than I would be to lose the Bazar.” ”

“ What’ll folks think? Eh?”
“I dun’no’, Peasley,” says his wife.
“I know,” says he. “They’ll say Peasley Snell’s wife don’t love, honor, and obey him, that’s what they’ll say. They’ll say Peasley Snell hain’t of no account in his own family. They’ll say his wife’d rather have any other man in town than him.... And, Mis’ Snell, I hain’t a-goin’ to endure it. Mark me! Your duty is plain before your eyes. You git into that Bazar, Mis’ Snell, and you git my name on that list. And you see to it that your husband has as many votes after his name as Bloom or Peterson. That’s what. ”

“ The next thing was a new-fangled carpet-sweeper that father had bought a year ago and never got anybody interested in. Mark he explained it careful, and threw a handful of papers and things on the floor and swept them up to show how well it worked. Then he looked the crowd over slow and calculating. Over at one side stood old man Meggs, who was an old batch and kept house by himself.
“L-labor-savin’,” says Mark. “Just the thing for a single man. No broom. Gits all the dirt. Almost works by itself. Make me an offer, Mr. Meggs.” ”

“ Most of the time there was a boy or so hanging around the front of the Bazar to ask everybody that came out for the votes they’d got. Some people weren’t interested a bit, and would toss them over. So the boys managed to get a stock. Those five were in the lead a little. You never could tell which one would come out ahead until there was a count. But at least a dozen more men were up where they had a chance. So everybody was interested, and almost everybody was mad at somebody else. That’s all that kept us going.
The next week Mark managed to think up a couple of things to interest folks. ”

“ I can name three or four folks who came in to buy something for a dime, but did buy something for a half a dollar or a dollar just because they saw them on the way back. Things we calculated folks would want we had set up conspicuous, with the price marked on them plain—and it was generally a price that ended in odd cents. Mark says folks are used to paying even money, and if you make it ninety-eight cents or sixty-three cents, why, right off they think it’s a bargain. ”

“ Sam puffed up important-like and pushed his way across the road and scrambled up by Mark, and Mark took hold of his arm. When you look at Mark he don’t seem to be anything but fat, but he’s strong. He’s got a grip in his fingers like you wouldn’t believe. ”

“ Maybe you never met Zadok Biggs before, but we had, I can tell you. We got acquainted with him when Mr. Tidd come close to losing the turbine-engine he had invented and which made him rich, and Zadok did a lot to help us get it back. I really don’t believe we ever would have got it back if it hadn’t been for him. So we were pretty good friends, and every time he was near Wicksville with his tin-peddler’s wagon he’d stop overnight with Mark, and we’d all spend the evening together. ”

“ He just stood and trembled, he was so furious, and waggled his nose, and his Adam’s apple went up and down like an elevator in a busy building. And the folks yelled. It wasn’t a cheer; it was a laugh. They hollered. Men and women threw back their heads and laughed like I’ve never seen folks laugh before. And the things they said to Skip! I wouldn’t have had folks poke fun at me like that for seven times five hundred dollars. Mark held up his hand.
“I advertised this f-foreclosure,” he said, with a grin, “so all Wicksville would know what kind of a man Skip is. ”

“ Skip,” says Mr. Sturgis. “I hope you will ponder over this transaction. You will find material for thought in it, I am certain. In Wicksville we believe in competition, in fair competition. We believe in doing by others as we would like to have others do by us. An old saying, Mr. Skip. In this instance you have had done to you what you have done to others.... It is not, I believe I am safe in saying, particularly pleasant. Good afternoon, Mr. Skip.”
Skip grabbed the lease and plunged out of the door and down the stairs. As soon as it was safe Mark and I came out. ”

“ Every time he set his heart on doing something, whether it was for himself or for somebody else, he went at it like he owned the whole shebang and had to come out on top or get dragged off to the poorhouse. ”

“ Long Neck.
“We’ll swap you the r-right to open a store in Wicksville for the right to sell whatever we please,” says Mark.
Mr. Skip kind of clouded up and I judged he was getting ready to thunder a bit. He did. He roared and grumbled, and made a sight of noise about it, too.
“Don’t make fun of me, young feller. Don’t make fun of Jehoshaphat P. Skip. Nobody ever did and failed to regret it. I’ve told you you can’t interfere with my trade, and you can’t. This is the first and last warnin’. Don’t dare sell a nickel’s worth or a dime’s worth or you’ll suffer the consequences.” ”

“ Here was Mark’s chance to show if he was as great a man as folks thought he was.
CHAPTER IX “Mark!” I yelled as soon as I got to the front door. “Hey, Mark! Quick!”
“T-take it easy,” says he. “Where’s the fire?”
“Fire!” says I. “You’ll wish it was a fire.”
“Um!” says he. “Out with the sad news, Plunk. Let’s weep t-t-together.”
I told him as fast as I could. His little eyes began to glow and you could see his chin setting under the fat. He was mad, mad clear through the whole of him.
“That J-j-jehoshaphat P. Skip,” says he, “is about as low down as they make ’em. He’s a human skunk.” ”

“ It was pretty serious to them, I can tell you, especially to them that had husbands a person could look at without smoked glasses on.
Probably not a woman in Wicksville ever thought whether her man was handsomer than somebody else until Mark schemed up this contest. But, as Mark says, as soon as somebody else lets on he’s handsomer or bigger or smarter than you are, you get mad and say he isn’t. It don’t matter, says Mark, whether you ever thought you were handsome or big or smart before. ”

“ This time the signs were about the Mason jars and the great sale we were going to have on Friday—three cans for ten cents. They drove all over town and out through the country, banging on a drum. I guess folks were getting used to this way of telling them things, for when they heard the drum whanging women would come running to the door to see what new thing we were up to. Mark put a big sign up in the window, too, and as the paper came out Thursday he put an advertisement in that told all about it. That was about all we could do. Now the Wicksville folks would have to do the rest. ”

“ He said Skip didn’t know who was at the bottom of the scheme, and wasn’t going to find out yet. Mark had his reasons, and, because he owned the scheme, so to speak, we did as he said.
Two hundred dollars! That made up for the hundred we had to send mother and gave us an extra hundred into the bargain—and about a million dollars’ worth of satisfaction. It beats all how you can make money if you happen to know how. Mark Tidd didn’t spend more than a couple of hours earning this—but I suppose he did two hundred dollars’ worth of thinking, or he wouldn’t have made a go of it. ”