“ We’re tickled to death to contest with them in any kind of a contest from washing dishes to building a house. If they can do a single thing that we can’t do a heap better, why, now’s the time to show us. ”

“ While we were arguing about it there was a clanging and banging out in the yard like a dozen kids were knocking tin pans together, and we heard somebody set up a holler.
“Hey! inside there! Hey! Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, are you at home?”
“It’s Zadok,” says I, and we ran to the door.
Sure enough, there was old Zadok Biggs, the tin peddler, who was such a good friend of ours. Zadok was about half a man high and a man and a half wide, with the soberest, most serious-looking face you ever saw. He traveled all over the State in his red wagon, swapping tinware with wimmen for old rags. ”

“ What have you boys been accomplishing? Accomplishing is an elegant word. I love to use it. Most folks would say’doing.’”
“We’re runnin’ a newspaper,” says I. “At least Mark is, and the rest of us are helping.”
“Newspaper. Ha! Splendid! Molding public opinion. I, Zadok Biggs, might have been a great editor, though nature fitted me to be a judge. What newspaper?”
“The Wicksville Trumpet” says Mark.
“Splendid! Extraordinary! Are you making money? Do the folks appreciate a good periodical—paper is the commoner term?” ”

“ Spragg’s notion was to put in a little money himself and to have the merchants and business folks in town put in the rest. His argument was that there was money in running a newspaper, and the money was made out of the advertising. So, if the men that put in the advertisements and paid money for them owned the newspaper themselves, why, they would just be paying the money to themselves, and the subscribers would pay the cost of getting out the paper. So the advertisers would be getting their advertisements practically for nothing. ”

“ Mark sort of puffed out his chest and looked important.
“I am the editor,” says he.
The tall man looked sort of taken back, but just the same he took off his hat with a sweep.
“I greet you sir,” he said. “You see before you no less a person than Tecumseh Androcles Spat. From my earliest youth the smell of printer’s ink has been in my nose. My services have been sought, obtained, and finally dispensed with in no less than one hundred and seventy-four printing establishments. I desire to round out the number and make it a full century and three-quarters. ”

“ Folks didn’t dare stick their heads out of doors for fear of bumping into a woman after their subscription to the Trumpet. They just dug in like it was a matter of life and death. Mark watched it and grinned, for, says he, if there’s a man, woman, child, cat, dog, or parrot in Wicksville that hain’t a subscriber for our paper before this thing is over, it’s because he’s up so high in a balloon that nobody can reach him. ”

“ Wigglesworth—”
He stopped. “But here’s to-day’s Trumpet. Let me read to you the real story. Then I want to say to you ladies that this contest has come out just the way it should have. It has proved that neither side is better than the other. It has proved that Wicksville ought to be proud of you, and that you ought to be so proud of each other that you’d join together and not be Home Culturers or Literary Circlers, but just one big club—The Wicksville Women’s Club, with everybody a member and working hard for the benefit of the town and of everybody in it.” ”

“ We helped some, but Mark did most of it. Mark’s father is a inventor, and some men stole his turbine, and we fellers got it back again.”
“Say,” says I, “let’s pester him a little to see what he’ll do—about that cat, I mean.”
“Better not,” says Tallow.
“Go on,” says Plunk. “Maybe we can get the best of him for once. Tell you what let’s do. Let’s make up a poem about a cat that don’t move, and recite it to him. It’ll tease him to beat the band, because he hates poetry.”
“Go ahead,” says I. “I hain’t no poet. It keeps me busy talkin’ ordinary grammar.”
“Keeps you more ’n busy,” says Plunk. ”

“ If a woman wants dumb foolishness in the family she don’t have to do it herself. Her husband’s always ready.” But what she said didn’t matter; the contest went on just the same.
The rules of the contest were that the money had to be paid right in with a subscription before it counted, and the first thing Mark and us fellows knew we had quite some considerable of a bank account. You get forty-odd women hustling for subscriptions at a dollar and a quarter apiece, and it don’t take long to have the money mount up. ”

“ Nobody—at least no other kid in Wicksville—would have thought of getting at prices the way Mark did.
“The other owner of the p-p-paper didn’t make money,” says Mark. “That’s why I added ten per cent. If we f-f-find that isn’t enough, we’ll add more—and we’ll get it, too, ’cause we’re goin’ to turn out first-class work—and turn it out just when we p-p-promise to. Folks don’t mind a few cents extry if they get quality and promptness.”
Tecumseh Androcles Spat came in from the composing-room just then, shaking his head from side to side and looking as doleful as a gander on a rainy day. ”

“ So all of us went to Lawyer Jones and told him the facts. He looked sorry and acted sorry, but he said there wasn’t anything to do but pay it. “It’s a shame,” say she, “and you’ve been swindled, but it can’t be helped. The old proprietor owed this money, and concealed the fact when you bought the paper. It isn’t honest, but the people who sold the paper aren’t to blame. The man who sold you the Trumpet is. According to law you’ll have to pay.”
“Um!” says Mark, tugging at his cheek like he always does when he’s thinking hard. “Eighty-seven d-d-dollars. ”

“ We knew Mark was a business man, and he had done things before that made folks take notice, but I don’t know as he’ll ever do a job of work harder than taking a busted-down newspaper that he bought for three-four hunderd dollars, and making it a first-class newspaper, and selling out for such a profit—just to pass away a vacation. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX We found out we were in a big attic that covered the whole of the house. Part of it was floored over and part of it was just joists with the lath and plaster showing on the under side. It looked as if there was about an acre in it, and it was full of angles and brick chimneys and little, funny-shaped windows, and rubbish, and trunks and goodness knows what—except things to eat. ”

“ Over at the livery we didn’t get much satisfaction.
“He hain’t never drove in with the same horse twict,” says the barn-man. “Sometimes it’s a gray, and sometimes it’s a bay, and last time it was a black.”
“Didn’t recognize any of ’em?” says Mark.
“Nary,” says the man.
And there we were, no better off than we’d been before. If those horses had come from anywheres within ten or fifteen miles of Wicksville that barn-man would have known them, so all we learned was that the Man With the Black Gloves must have come farther than that.
“If we could only trace those horses,” says Mark. ”

“ I never saw anything so easy. Mark says that folks would rather make fun of somebody or something, whether they’ve got any reason for doing it or not, than to work and make money, and I guess he’s right. ”

“ We knew he must have his eyes right there, looking, so Mark went to the door of the arbor and stood there quiet. Pekoe couldn’t miss seeing him any more than he could miss seeing the new post-office in town if he was standing right in front of it. That’s one good thing about being fat—it’s easy for folks to see you when you want them to. But, on the other hand, it’s hard to hide from folks you want to keep away from.
Mark looked at the house careful, but Jethro wasn’t in sight.
“Rock,” he says, “you and Plunk go to the kitchen and yell to Jethro that you’re hungry. ”

“ And every man he tells has to start out the same way, so in a half-hour from the time a thing starts almost everybody in town is out looking for somebody to tell it to. That’s what makes it so hard to run a newspaper. Everybody knows everything he reads in the paper as soon as the editor does. I guess about the only reason folks subscribe to the Trumpet at all is to see if their own name is mentioned, or to say to somebody else: “Huh! There hain’t never no news in this paper. ”

“ Might as well be two as one, so far’s I can see.”
“The Trumpet’s goin’ to pay,” says he, and he shut his jaw tight, like he does when he’s made up his mind to do something or bust. “Spragg or no Spragg, we’re goin’ to make a reg’lar paper of the Trumpet—and git money out of it. Don’t go gittin’ limp in the s-s-spine,” he says.
It don’t take long in Wicksville to find out what’s going on, because there isn’t much going on, anyhow, and as soon as something turns up and one man hears of it, why, he can’t rest or eat till he’s run all over peddling it to everybody he sees. ”

“ Jethro looked Mark over and laughed right out. Not the kind of laugh a fellow likes, but a noisy, bossy kind of a laugh. “You look like you gen’ally got plenty,” says he.
“I do,” says Mark, short as could be, because he don’t like to have folks talking about his weight. Then he winked at Jethro and got him off to one side.
“Say,” he says, “that kid’s goin’ to slip away s-s-sure,” says he, “if he hain’t watched. You can’t do it right, but us fellers can. What you say to givin’ us a job guardin’ him? We’ll see he’s kept here till it’s time for him to go somewheres else.” ”

“ If you tried it with a long pole Jethro’d catch you at it.”
“Yes,” says Plunk, “and if you tried it by throwing stones, he’d catch you at that too.”
“Maybe,” says Mark. “But I got a d-d-dodge that’ll work, maybe, and Jethro won’t see it, either. Let’s all git into the arbor where we can’t be seen.”
We went in and Mark asked if Plunk and I had our sling-shots. We had, because we always had them along. You can never tell when you may need a sling-shot in your business.
“Now,” says Mark, “here’s the notion. We shoot at Pekoe’s window. I shoot, then Plunk, then Binney. One, two, three. ”

“ When we got there Mark and Rock had their heads together like they were making up a scheme.
“Plunk,” says Mark, “you and Tallow are g-g-goin’ to have a fight. A noisy fight. You got to slam-bang into each other like all git out.”
“G’wan!” says Tallow.
“He knows I kin lick him,” says Plunk.
“If Mark Tidd wants any fightin’ done he kin do it himself,” says Tallow. ”

“ How does a paper make money? Subscribers, say I, and advertising. How do you get subscribers? First by having a good paper they’ll want to read. I can trust you to do that. Mark Tidd would have no other kind. Advertising? There may be advertising your experience has not made you aware of. ”

“ Mark read another.
“‘Many folks asked Jacob Wester what he exhibited at the fair. He said it was a cow.’” Mark giggled. “What did it look like, Binney, if so many f-f-folks was uncertain about it? Did it resemble a l-locomotive or a sewin’ m-machine?”
“Huh!” says I. “You think you’re smart.”
“No,” says he, “I t-think you be. Here’s another: ‘Mrs. Hob Sweet was among those watching the prize Jersey cow. Many claimed she was the finest piece of live stock on the grounds.’ ... Which, Binney, the Jersey or Mis’ Sweet?” ”

“ Tecumseh Androcles Spat sees the completed hand-bill in his mind’s eye—and it is beautiful.”
“M-make it beautiful,” says Mark, “but also make it quick!”
“Young sir,” says Tecumseh, “no compositor between the Broad Atlantic and the boundless Pacific can vie with me in speed. I shall show you.”
And he dodged out into the composing-room so quickly his head seemed to snap like the snapper on the end of a horse-whip.
“I’m afraid,” says Mark, “that Tecumseh’s bothered with what some folks call artistic t-t-temperament. ”

“ But,” says he, “it’s concedin’ consid’able.”
“Oh,” says she, “thank you, Mark! It’s awful good of you to let us do that. But what’s the rest of your scheme?”
“Why,” says he, “every year’s subscription you sell will mean ten votes, and the side sellin’ the most will be showed to be the smartest arguers, and the smartest arguers, everybody admits, is the smartest f-folks all around. Then, at the end, there’ll be a dinner served by the Circle, and one served by the Home Culturers, that nobody can go to but subscribers to the Trumpet. ”

“ Nothin’ to do but run a contest that’s close to bein’ a civil war, and git adver-tisin’ and write the news and git the news, and scare up advertisements, and tend to Spragg, and monkey around with Rock’s mix-up. If, maybe, we could buy a three-ring circus and be all the acts, includin’ the menagerie, and then have school start up to give us somethin’ to do daytimes, I guess we’d keep from gettin’ lonesome. ”