Mark Tidd in Business Read online

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  WE SHUT UP THE DOORS AND COUNTED UP TO SEE WHAT WE'DDONE]

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  MARK TIDD IN BUSINESS

  BY

  CLARENCE B. KELLAND

  AUTHOR OF "Mark Tidd" "THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER" ETC.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

  By arrangement with Harper & Brothers

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  MARK TIDD IN BUSINESS

  Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America

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  MARK TIDD IN BUSINESS

  CHAPTER I

  The Wicksville paper told how there wouldn't be any school for sixweeks, on account of somebody getting diphtheria. That same afternoonmy father didn't get out of the way of an automobile and got brokeinside some place, so he had to go to the hospital in Detroit to haveit fixed.

  "James," says my mother--that's my real name, but the fellows call mePlunk--"I've--I've got to go with--your father." She was crying, yousee, and I wasn't feeling very good, I can tell you. "And," she wenton, "I don't know what--we shall ever do."

  "About what?" I asked her, having no idea myself.

  "The store," she says.

  I saw right off. You see, my father is Mr. Smalley, and he ownsSmalley's Bazar, where you can buy almost anything--if father can findwhere he put it. With father gone and mother gone there wouldn't beanybody left to look after the store, and so there wouldn't be anymoney, because the store was where money came from, and then as sure asshooting the Smalley family would have a hard time of it. It made megloomier than ever, especially because I didn't seem to be able tothink of any way to help.

  Mother went up-stairs to father's room, shaking her head and crying,and I went outdoors because there didn't seem to be anything else todo. I opened the door and stepped out on the porch, and right thatminute I began to feel easier in my mind, somehow. The thing that didit was just seeing who was sitting there, almost filling up a wholestep from side to side. It was a boy, and he was so fat his coat was'most busted in the back where he bulged, and his name was Mark Tidd.That's short for Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, and you maybe haveheard of him on account of the stories Tallow Martin and Binney Jenkshave told about him. Yes, sir, the sight of him made me feel a heapbetter.

  "Hello, P-plunk!" he stuttered. "How's your f-f-father?"

  "Got to go to the hospital," says I, "and mother's goin', too, andthere won't be anybody to mind the store, and there won't be any money,and we don't know what we're a-goin' to do." I was 'most cryin', but Ididn't let on any more than I could help.

  "W-what's that?" asks Mark.

  I told him all over again, and he squinted up his little eyes and beganpinching his fat cheek like he does when he's studying hard oversomething.

  "L-looks bad, don't it?" he says.

  "Awful," says I.

  "M-must be some way out," he says, which was just like him. He neverbothered fussing about how bad things looked. As soon as they beganlooking bad he started in to find some way of fixing them up so they'dbe better. Always. He kept on thinking and then he turned to me, and Isaw right off he'd seen something to do.

  "N-no school for six weeks," says he.

  "I know," I says, not seeing what that had to do with it.

  "G-gives you and me and T-tallow and Binney all the t-time toourselves," says he.

  "Sure," says I, not seeing yet.

  He wrinkled his pudgy nose sort of disgusted at me.

  "D-don't you figger," says he, "that four b-boys is 'most equal to onem-m-man?"

  "Maybe," says I.

  "Even if the man is your f-f-father?"

  Then I saw it, and it sort of scared me. It looked to me like a biggerjob than Mark ever tackled yet.

  "You don't mean for us boys to run the store?" I says.

  "Sure," says he.

  "But runnin' a store's business," says I.

  "B-b-business," says Mark, "hain't nothin' but makin' m-money out ofsomethin' you like to do. P-poor business men is them that tries tomake money out of somethin' they d-don't like to do."

  "Um," says I.

  "We'll enjoy runnin' the Bazar," says he, as if the whole thing wassettled.

  "I'm afraid," says I. "S'pose we was to bust the business."

  "We won't," says he. "L-let's talk to your ma about it."

  We went in, and after a while my mother came down-stairs. I felt sortof foolish when I told her Mark's idea, and it didn't get any betterwhen she said, "Bosh!"

  But I was forgetting about Mark. He started in to talk to mother, andhe spluttered and stuttered along for fifteen minutes, arguing andwiggling his stumpy fingers, and explaining to her how easy running abazar was, and just why he and Tallow and Binney and I were a lotbetter able to do it than anybody else on the face of the earth. Why, Ibegan to believe him myself! So did mother. Mark knew just how to go atit. At the start, when she didn't want to listen, he talked so fast shecouldn't find a chance to tell him to keep quiet, and by the time hewas beginning to slacken up mother was bobbing her head and almostsmiling, and saying, "Yes, yes," and, "Do you honestly think youcould?" and, "I _don't_ see why I didn't think of it myself," andthings like that.

  "Why," says Mark, "you d-d-don't need to worry about the Bazar aminute. Just look after Mr. Smalley."

  "I wish I could ask your father's advice," mother said to me, finally,"but I daren't. I'll just have to decide myself. And it seems likethere wasn't but one way to decide. I won't say a word to father aboutit.... You can try, boys ... and it will be a--miracle--a blessedmiracle if it--comes out all right." Then she started to cry again.

  Mark, he waddled over and patted her on the back and says,soothing-like, "Jest you t-t-trust _me_, Mrs. Smalley--and don'tworry--not a mite."

  It ended up by mother giving me the keys to the Bazar, and kissing meand Mark, and telling us she was proud of us, and--hurrying out of theroom so we couldn't see her cry any more.

  Mark looked at me and scowled. "Looky there, now," he says. "Lookythere. Guess we g-g-got to make a go of it. Calc'late she's got troubleenough without us makin' it worse.... C-come on."

  We went out and found Binney and Tallow. At first they wouldn't believeus when we told them, but when they did believe they set up a whooplike somebody'd up and given them a dollar to spend for peanuts.Anybody'd think running a bazar was some kind of a circus, which itisn't at all, because I've worked for dad holidays and Saturdayssometimes, and I know.

  "When do we start?" asks Tallow.

  "F-f-first thing in the mornin'," says Mark.

  "When they goin' to take your father?" Binney asks me.

  "On the five-forty to-night," I told him, "and I guess I'll be goin'home to see if there hain't somethin' I can help with."

  "Where you goin', Mark?"

  "Home, too. I got consid'able th-thinkin' to do. How'd you expect me tom-make money with this business if I don't study it some?"

  Anybody'd 'a' thought it was his business, to hear him talk, and Iguess he'd already begun thinking it was. No matter what he tackled, hewas just that way. Every time he set his heart on doing something,whether it w
as for himself or for somebody else, he went at it like heowned the whole shebang and had to come out on top or get dragged offto the poorhouse.

  I started to walk off, but Mark called after me:

  "B-b-better gimme those keys. I'll be down 'fore you are in themornin', and maybe I'll have to go down to-night."

  Well, sir, I handed over the keys and didn't say a word. I could seewho was going to be the head of that business while dad was gone, andthat feller's name wasn't Plunk Smalley.

  "I hope," says I, after thinking it over a minute, "that you'll atleast give me a job."

  "Huh!" snorts Mark. "If you don't git wider awake than you usually be Idun'no's the business can afford to h-have you around." But right afterthat he grinned, and when Mark Tidd grins nobody can be mad with him orenvy him or think he is bossing the job more than he ought to.

  "T-tell your mother not to worry," he yelled after me.

  It was possible for mother to go with father and leave me at homebecause Aunt Minnie was there. Aunt Minnie was my father's sister, andshe lived with us because if she hadn't she would have had to livealone, and she couldn't live alone because she was afraid. One day Istarted to count up the things Aunt Minnie was afraid of, but it wasn'tany use. I guess if she was to set out and try she could be afraid of_anything_. She was afraid of pigs, and of thunder, and of tramps, andof bumblebees, and of the dark, and of sun-stroke, and of book agents,and of-- Why, once she lay awake all night and shivered on account of ared-flannel undershirt hanging on the line. I'd rather have stayed atMark'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 andsquinching and jumping like somebody shoved a pin into her.

  That night, after father and mother were gone, Aunt Minnie wouldn't letme go out of the house, because, says she, like as not burglars havebeen watching for just such a chance for years, hanging aroundWicksville, waiting for this house to be left with nobody but her init. It didn't seem to me like it would be worth a burglar's time towait many years for a chance at what was in our house. But you couldn'treason with Aunt Minnie, so I had to sit in the house right when Iwanted to see Mark Tidd the worst kind of way.

  Along about half past eight there come a rap at the door, and AuntMinnie let out a yell that startled me so I was close to seeingburglars myself. It wasn't, though; it was Mark.

  "Come in," I says to him. "I'm pretty busy keepin' out robbers, but Iguess I can find a minute to talk with you."

  He just grinned, because he knew Aunt Minnie.

  "I've b-been down to the store," says he.

  "Oh!" says I.

  "Just lookin' around," says he, "to g-git an idee."

  "Did you git one?" says I.

  "I did," says he. "I got the idee that n-n-nobody could find what hewas lookin' for in that Bazar 'less he did it by accident."

  "Pa used to have that trouble," says I. And it was a fact. I'veknown pa to spend the whole morning looking for a spool ofdarning-cotton--hours after the customer that wanted it had gottired and gone home. But pa never got provoked about it; he alwayskept on till he found it, and then put it handy. Next day ifsomebody come in for a brush-broom that pa couldn't find, he'd tryto sell them the darning-cotton instead. Old Ike Bond, the'bus-driver, used to say that if pa didn't have anything to sell butone spool of thread, and that was hanging by a string in the middleof the store, he never would find it without the sheriff and asearch-warrant.

  "F-first thing for us to do," says Mark, "is to f-find _everything_.Got to know what we got to sell 'fore we can sell it."

  That sounded likely to me.

  "And," says he, "we got to hustle."

  "Why?" says I.

  "To get a head start," says he.

  "A head start of what?"

  "The other bazar," says he.

  I grinned because I thought he was joking, and said to git out, becausethere wasn't any other bazar.

  "Worse'n a bazar," says he. "It's one of those five-and-ten-centstores."

  "Be you _crazy_?" I says.

  "They've rented that vacant s-s-store of Jenkins's, and there's a bigsign sayin' they'll be open for b-business Monday."

  Well, sir, I was what Aunt Minnie calls flabbergasted. Why, Wicksvillewasn't big enough for two bazars--it was hard enough for _one_ to makea living.

  "I--I hope it's a mistake," says I.

  "Oh, I dun'no'," says Mark, sort of squinting up his little eyes. "Ig-guess we'll git along somehow--and it'll be more fun."

  "Fun?" I says.

  "Fun," says he. "Hain't it more f-f-fun to play a ball game againstanother team than it is to bounce a ball against the side of the houseall alone?"

  Now, wasn't that just like him! If a thing was easy he didn't take anyinterest in it, but just the minute you put some kind of a _contest_into it, then Mark couldn't start in fast enough.

  "Maybe it'll be fun for you," I told him, "but what about the Smalleyfamily that expects that Bazar to pay for what they eat?"

  "Plunk," says Mark, "don't git licked before the f-f-fight begins."

  "We can't sell as cheap as those five-and-ten-cent stores. I've heardpa say so."

  "I hain't so s-sure," says Mark. "We'll cross that bridge when we cometo it.... You be d-down to the store at seven o'clock," says he, andwaddled off home.

  Now, wouldn't anybody think it was _his_ store? Wouldn't they? Itlooked to me like he was trying to be the whole thing, but you can betI didn't feel that way before we were through with it. I was all-firedglad Mark Tidd was around with his schemes and his plans and his way ofrunning everything in general.