Leo Edwards

“ Treasure hunters! That’s what we were now. And to think only a few hours ago we had let ourselves get excited over a dinky little pickle business! Why, if we could find the pirate’s gold cucumbers we’d have a thousand times more jack in our pockets than a pickle store would earn for us in a thousand years. Automobiles! Airplanes! Motor boats! Candy and ice cream by the ton! We could buy anything, no matter what it cost. For gold cucumbers would be worth as much, pound for pound, as gold money. ”

“ Probably they are fairly good pickles, as pickles go. Because I am in the pickle business myself is no reason why I should run down anybody else’s pickles. Yet, on the other hand, I feel that I have a right to uphold the superior quality of my own pickles. And it is of such pickles that I am going to make good your loss. Not store pickles, Mrs. Clayton, as we usually accept the term, but home-made pickles, of which the more you eat the more you want; pickles that you never tire of; pickles with the lasting, lingering taste; pickles with a skin you love to touch ”

“ The pirate’s tunnel, as we now called the underground passageway, seemed cooler to me, once we got into it, than the average old tunnel of its kind. As we went deeper into the icy hole, where everything beyond the reach of our flashlight was as black as pitch, we not only stopped every few seconds to listen, but we doused our light, thinking that if we stood in the darkness we could better pick up another moving light, either ahead of us or behind us. ”

“ But, kid, we’ve got to face the fact that we’re licked. There’s no getting around that. Smart as we are, his money and influence have been too much for us. And if you shoot it back at him, and make him mad, he may close up like a clam and leave us in the lurch.”
“What do you want me to do,” says Poppy, “lick his hand?”
“We’ve got to knuckle down to him. It’s as bitter to me, of course, as it is to you. But we’ve simply got to do it. There’s no getting out of it. Anyway,” I held up the brighter side, “we’ll be richer by two hundred dollars. And Mrs. O’Mally will get her two-dollar price. ”

“ Pickles is pickles for the most part, but you’ll always get preferred pickles when you deal with us. Even your wife, excellent cook as she no doubt is, will be unable to make better pickles than ours. And to serve with those tasty party sandwiches, which mean so much to an experienced hostess, who would want to use any pickle except the perfect pickles that are the fame of Poppy’s Pickle Parlor? ”

“ Mrs. O’Mally was in her big cucumber patch back of the house. We could see her broad-brimmed straw hat. There were smaller bobbing hats, too, which told us that the pickle woman, as she was called in Tutter, had already put a number of young pickers to work.
“Unfortunate indeed is the aged body who has to raise cucumbers for a livin’,” she straightened and drained the sweat from her blistered face as we stopped beside her. “’Tis hard work,” she added, with a deep, weary sigh. ”

“ That morning we took a trip into Zulutown, which is the name that the Tutter people have for the tough end of town beyond Dad’s brickyard, to talk with Mr. Butch McGinty about moving our store. I suppose Mr. McGinty has some other front name besides “Butch.” But that’s the only name I ever heard him called by. And it sure fits him to a “T”—big ox that he is, so hairy and red-nosed. An old bachelor, his home in Zulutown is the dirtiest place I ever set eyes on. He does his own cooking and housekeeping. ”

“ With all of his wise talk there isn’t a boy in Tutter, where we live, who has more real he-kid fun in him than this long-legged, long-headed chum of mine. And that he has big ideas is, of course, the more credit to him. As he says, half of the fun of being a boy is getting ready early in the game to be a man. Take the stilt factory that I told about in the book, POPPY OTT’S SEVEN-LEAGUE STILTS. That was a big idea, let me tell you. Imagine two boys starting a real, honest-to-goodness factory! ”

“ Afterwards I got a kick out of Tom’s story of how a queer-acting customer breezed into the store, and instead of giving an order stood looking at him as though she wanted to jump over the counter and hug him. As a matter of fact, I suspect that Mrs. Clayton did want to hug him. Women are that way. And all wrapped up in Mr. Weckler, she was thinking, of course, of the happy days that were coming, with an old man’s mind at ease, and a young heir stationed in the home of his people where he belonged. ”

“ No, she told me, after tasting the pickles, they weren’t out of her kitchen. Nor could she help me. But she’d like to buy some of the pickles, she said, if it turned out that there were more of the same kind for sale. I went to three women in turn. No success at all. [21] But here’s an important point, Jerry: Every woman who sampled the pickles wanted to buy some. So you can see the big money that’s waiting for us if we can find out who this unknown pickle genius is and win her over to our scheme.”
There’s nothing I like better than mystery stuff. ”

“ There was a “do-or-die” look on Poppy’s face.
“We’ve got to have pickles,” says he.
“Wa-al?”
“And if you won’t let us have your recipe, or tell us where you got it, the only thing left for us to do is to hire you.”
“Meanin’ that you want me to work fur you?”
“Exactly.”
“Makin’ pickles?”
Poppy nodded.
“Um.... My business is towin’, not pickle makin’.”
“You may find,” says Poppy, “that you can make more money pickling than towing. For what you take in from towing isn’t all profit. The wear and tear on your outfit is considerable.” ”

“ We realized that now. But a fellow it seems always realizes those things when it’s too late, like the time I sent the homely valentine to the teacher. Ouch!
Old Butch, we learned, on sending a message into Zulutown, had gone up the canal on a towing job. So we had no chance of finding out from him how the poison had gotten into the pickles, or what it was. To that point, though, the chances were ten to one he couldn’t have told us, anyway. For it wasn’t to be believed for a single moment that he had known that there was poison in the pickles. ”

“ He dropped down beside me.
“It’s funny, Jerry,” says he, “what queer ideas a fellow gets about big business men. I always pictured a railroad president as a towering, square-shouldered, high-pressure man with a foghorn voice and sixteen jumping secretaries. But Mr. Lorrimer wasn’t that kind of a man at all. In fact, when I found out that he was the president of the railroad you could have knocked me over with a feather. And did I ever feel silly for a minute or two! For I had been razzing his pickles.”
I didn’t get that.
“We were in the dining car,” Poppy then explained more fully. ”

“ I nodded.
“All right,” says he, “we’re going to manufacture pedigreed pickles. Or, if you think it’ll help to stretch the name out, we’ll call them ‘Poppy’s Pedigreed Pickles.’ That’s what they are—pickles with a pedigree. For you heard what Mrs. O’Mally said about her recipe having been handed down in the family for a hundred years or more. There’s where the pedigreed part comes in. It’s a proven recipe, in other words. The quality of the pickles is guaranteed. Do you like the name, Jerry?” ”

“ It was fun at first. That is, I tried to let on that it was fun. For lots of times when a fellow does that he can take the gloom out of a bad predicament. But with slivers puncturing me at every step I soon got tired of it. Besides, this was no way for me to hit town. If the Tutter kids spotted me they’d start rolling me around as sure as pop. And how lovely for me without any pants on!
“I’m going back to Mrs. O’Mally’s,” I told Poppy. “And if I can’t do any better I’ll borrow a nightgown.”
Suddenly we heard the muffled thump-thump-thump of an approaching motor car. ”

“ And then, as though the deadly machine had completed its fearful work, the cellar was plunged into silence.
Knowing that the cat killer had secretly entered the cellar, to the death of her cat, Mrs. O’Mally fell helplessly into a chair. Her lips moved. But so great was her fright—I might say her horrified fright—that she could make no sound.
[157] My own voice, as I called my chum’s name, sounded faint and squeaky. “Poppy!” I called again. Then, as my legs began to lose their icy anchors, I managed to get to the head of the cellar stairs. “Poppy!” I called a third time. ”

“ People living in small towns usually keep pretty close tab on their neighbors. So, after Poppy’s two wild “pickle” spiels, first in the bank and again in front of the Parker grocery, it soon got noised about that a new local business was about to blossom forth. A Pickle Parlor! Kids who heard what we were doing came and rubbered at us over the fence that inclosed Mr. Weckler’s neglected garden. And older friends of ours smiled at us when they met us in the street. The general opinion was, as I had told Poppy in the beginning, that such a store would fizzle out for want of business. ”

“ No one who had any possible chance of laying claim to the diamonds stood idly by. For nothing was to be lost by writing; and there was a chance of great gain.
As we had to have pickles before we could open up our business, it was of more importance, Poppy said, to find out who the lucky pickle maker was than to finish painting our store, so, after a hurried trip to Mr. Weckler’s house, to see if the paint was drying, we headed for 616 Elm Street to interview the first one of the six women who had written to us. ”

“ Let me tell you something, old lady: you’re crazy to sell pickles to kids like them when you’ve got a big responsible company like ours to deal with. For when we buy we buy big.”
“Yes,” the pickle woman gave the bragger a dig, “an’ at half the price that other people pay me.”
“A dollar a bushel is a good price.” ”

“ Poppy quickly followed up. “We’ll go at it that way, then. You’ll be the boss. See? And the other women will do the work.”
“No, no!”
“But, Mrs. O’Mally,” old do-or-die hung on, “if you don’t help us, we won’t be able to pay you for the cucumbers. Besides, think of what it will mean to you if the pickles turn out to be a big success. We’ll be able to start up a pickle factory. That will make you rich. For, of course, you’ll be one of the owners.”
“Sure,” came dizzily, “’tis nothin’ I hear but talk of riches. First it was the pirate’s treasure; an’ now it’s pickles.” ”

“ Piling into the boat we rowed for dear life, as it was our further scheme to beat the kid and his uncle across the river. In going to their cave they’d never suspect that we were following them, and so, by secretly listening in on their gab, we could get a good line on them.
“Hot dog!” says Poppy, as the other boat came out of the creek into the moonlit river. Flipping the oars harder than ever, we soon turned into the opposite canyon, where we waited in a dark water cave. ”

“ You can’t borrow money here with the specific idea of starting up a pickle factory. However, having confidence in you, because of past associations, I’m willing to advance you five hundred dollars on a thirty-day note at six per cent, to enable you to swing this pickle deal and thus save yourself from loss. If you find in selling your pickles that you have what would seem to be the nucleus of another industry, that will be taken up separately, by the proper people. Just give this slip to the cashier as you go out and your account will be credited accordingly. ”

“ So we are led to think of good pancakes instead of flour. Which is all to the point that if we put this ‘Aunt Jemima’ scheme to work in our own business our customers will be led to think of good pickles, and the question of who made them may never come up.”
[64] That kid! If he isn’t the limit. The schemes in his head are thicker than mice in a corncrib. If something bobs up to cripple one scheme he drags out another. And if that one gets paralysis, or the chilblains, he has still a third. To tell the truth, this ‘Aunt Jemima’ stuff was all Greek to me. ”

“ I shimmied. “Let’s hope we don’t have to tackle any graveyard stuff.”
Tom further studied the third picture.
“Maybe the treasure is hid in the big chimney,” says he. “And to get it we’ve got to go in from the top.”
“But what’s the idea of the other pictures?” puzzled Poppy.
“The only thing a moon does,” says I, “is to make light. And light makes shadows. So maybe we’re supposed to dig in the shadow of the chimney, or something like that.”
“Jerry, old pal, that little beezer of yours sure is popping off steam to-night. Coffins always go in the ground. So we’re supposed to dig. ”

“ I staggered, pretending this time that my arms were loaded full. “I just dropped a jar of pickled carpet tacks.”
Poppy and I fool around that way a lot. It’s kid stuff, I know. And kind of silly. But in a way it bears out that old saying of Dad’s: Every day a little fun and a little business.
Having completed the entertainment, so to speak, I got down to business, making the suggestion that we paint the outside of our store yellow with green trimmings. The “yellow” would be the cucumber blossoms, I brilliantly explained, and the “green” would be the pickles. ”

“ But it was a lucky thing for us that we didn’t get too close to the enemy’s hiding place. For all of a sudden the kid, himself, tumbled out of the cave and threw himself face downward in the bushes.
Within the cave a talking machine had come to life. I don’t know what the tune was. I suspect, though, that it was a very old one. As a matter of fact, like Poppy, I was too amazed at the moment to pay any attention to tunes. The big thing in our minds was why the kid had turned on the talking machine in the first place, and why he was now hiding in the bushes. ”

“ For most men are too busy with their own work to give much thought or help to a boy’s schemes.
We solemnly buried the dead cat beside the onion bed in the weedy garden. It was daylight now. And as there was nothing more for us to do here, as I could see, I passed the suggestion to Poppy that we beat it for home and have a beauty nap. But he shook his head, telling me that he wanted to stay here and have an early talk with Mrs. Clayton, who was sleeping off the effect of Doc’s medicine. Getting his promise to meet me at Sunday School, I went off with Bill in the flivver. ”

“ Look at me ould back. ’Tis bent like the twisted willows that ye see on the river bank.”
Smarty made himself as important acting as he could.
“As it happens you’re luckier then you realize to get even a dollar a bushel from us. For at first the talk was in the office of paying you only ninety cents a bushel this year.”
“Oh, indeed!” Mrs. O’Mally was getting mad now, as her words and actions showed. “’Twas all decided in your office, was it? I had nothing to say in the matter at all.”
“Buying cucumbers is purely a matter of business with us. To make money we’ve got to buy right. ”

“ If the church ladies want to raise money, we’ll put them to work. We furnish everything and they get ten per cent of what the pickles sell for. Why, kid,” he yipped it off, from the peak of his enthusiasm, “they’ll jump at a scheme like that. Sure thing. And if we find out that we have more cucumbers than the Methodist ladies can handle, we’ll give the Presbyterian ladies a chance to lift their church debt. If that isn’t enough, we’ll call [198] in the Catholic ladies. For pickles are pickles, kid, regardless of whether they’re Protestant pickles or Catholic pickles.” ”