Mark Tidd, Editor Part 29

"Where she looks she walks," says Plunk. "Let's walk."

"Nix," says Mark. "Jethro might be l-l-lookin'. We want to foiler out this thing on the quiet-and we'll do it, you bet. We know where to start from, and that's the hardest part of it." He turned to Rock, "I guess we're goin' to haul you out of this sc.r.a.pe," says he, "sooner or later.... Now we got to git for h-home. I got work to do."

CHAPTER XIV

"Listen," says Mark Tidd that night.

"We've got to w-w-wake up and do some-thin' with this newspaper."

"Huh!" says I. "I thought we _had_ been doin' somethin'. Dunne's I ever worked harder in my life."

"Yes," says he, "but what's it g-gettin' us? We're p-payin' our bills and not r-runnin' in debt, but that's about all. No use havin' a b-business if you don't make money out of it."

"Go ahead," says I. "I'm willin' to make all there is."

"I'm goin' ahead," says he. "I'm goin' to start a scheme to get s-subscribers. I want a t-thousand of 'em right off. Not jest f-folks that buys the _Trumpet_ on the street, but that p-pays their money and has it all the year. Like to git fifteen hunderd if I could."

"Hain't that many families in Wicksville," says I, "and no family wants more 'n one copy of a paper, even if you do edit it," says I.

"There's other towns," says he. "We got the whole county to p-play with.

The Eagle Center _Clarion_ come over here and tried to t-t-take our town away from us. Well, turn about's fair play. Besides, there's all the farmers and settlements and what not."

"If you say so," says I, "it must be so." I was a little mite sarcastic, and he came right back at me quick.

"If I say so it's so," says he, "because I don't jest let my t-t-tongue waggle like you. I don't gen'ally say somethin' till I got somethin' to say, after I've f-figgered it out in my head. The t-trouble with you, Binney, is you do most of your t-thinkin' with your stummick."

I didn't think of anything to say back to him.

"And," says he, "you don't do enough thinkin' with t-t-that to give you a stummick-ache."

"If you could think with your stummick," says I, "you'd have some mighty big thoughts," which was so, him having one of the biggest stummicks in town. He just grinned and said that was pretty good for me, and he had hopes I might really say something smart some day if I practised hard.

"Let's see," says he; "there's folks around solicitin' subscriptions for magazines. They must get p-p-paid somehow."

"They do," says I; "my aunt takes subscriptions, and she gits so much for every one she takes. They call it a commission, or somethin' like that."

"Wonder why we couldn't work it ourselves," says he. "Not reg'lar agents," says he, "but some scheme to git a l-l-lot of folks int'rested in gittin' subscribers for us. If we could git a woman's missionary s-s-society to goin' on it, it would s-stir things up a lot. Them wimmin, when they git set on anythin', go after it all-fired hot."

"How about the Ladies' Lit'ry Circle," says I, "and the Home Culture Club?"

"Binney," says he, "that's an idee. L-lemme think. Um! ... Have to git 'em to w-w-workin' ag'in' each other somehow. Git 'em into a s-squabble of some kind. That'd do it, sure. How m-many wimmin b'long to those things?"

"There's eighteen in the Circle," says I, "because ma b'longs, and they're meetin' at our house to-morrow. I know there's eighteen, because ma was figgerin' how much she'd have to have to feed 'em. She says two sandriches apiece would do for most clubs, but thirty-six never'd fill up the wimmin in hern. She says she wished she could find somethin'

stylish to put into those sandriches that didn't taste good. Then, she says, she could brag about havin' somethin' special nice, and at the same time n.o.body'd be able to make hogs of theirselves eatin' it."

"Have her t-t-try p-p-perfumed soap," says Mark. "That's swell, but n.o.body'd g-gobble it much."

"But," says I, "I dunno how many's in the Home Culture. I kin find out, though."

I did. There was an even twenty in it.

Well, Mark he sat down and pinched his cheek awhile, and then he took to whittling, which showed plain he was going after it hard. He whittled up nigh half a cord of wood before he got it all figgered out to suit him, and then he says, "Binney, who's boss of each of those clubs?"

"Mis' Strubber's president of the Circle," says I, "and Mis' Bobbin's president of the Home Culturers."

"We'll go s-s-see 'em," says he. "We'll give 'em all the lit'ry and all the culture they kin use in a month of Sundays."

So he dragged me off to Mrs. Strubber's house. Mrs. Strubber is one of them big women; not fat, you know, but _big_. I calc'late she's more 'n six feet high, and she could lift a barrel of sugar without turning a hair. But she's smart. Everybody says so, and she don't deny it herself.

Most of the fellows are sort of scairt of her, but Mark didn't seem to be much afraid, for he marched right up to her door and rang the bell.

She came to the door, with her sleeves rolled up, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n, and when I see how strong those arms looked I sort of edged back so as to have the steps convenient if she didn't act pleased to see us.

"Well, boys?" says she in a voice perty near as big as she was.

"Mis' S-s-strubber," says Mark, "we've come to ask some advice from you.

Everybody says you're the smartest woman in this t-t-town, so we wouldn't go to anybody else with an important t-thing like this."

Well, you should have seen her grin. My! but she was tickled. "Come right in," says she. "I was jest in the middle of a batch of fried-cakes, but I calc'late Milly kin finish 'em up. Like fresh fried-cakes?" says she.

"Not g-gen'ally," says Mark, "but I've heard a lot about yourn. Folks says they melt in your mouth."

"A-hum!" says Mrs. Strubber, perducing some of them fried-cakes. "You're a onusual p'lite young man, Mark Tidd. I wisht other boys would pattern after you."

"Yas'm," says Mark, his mouth full of fried-cake.

"What kin I do for you?" says she. "Don't hurry. Eat them cakes and don't try to talk till you're done. You might strangle," says she.

"Mis' Strubber," says Mark, "I've heard some argimint in Wicksville over these t-t-two wimmin's clubs-the Circle," he says, "and the Home Culturers."

"A-hum!" says Mrs. Strubber, drawing herself up like a rooster looking for trouble-not a banty rooster. No, sir, one of them great big Barred Rocks.

"Yes," he says, "there's some t-talk, and I figger it ought to be s-settled once for all. 'Course most folks agrees that _you're_ the smartest woman the' is, but a few hain't got sense enough to own up to it. But quite a few f-folks is divided over which of the two clubs is the brainiest, and which does the m-most good here, and all that. Now, for me, there hain't any doubt at all. But it ought to be s-s-settled, and I f-figger the Wicksville _Trumpet_ ought to t-take a hand, it bein'

literature, kind of."

"A-hum!" says she, scowling as black as a pail of axle grease.

"So," says he, "I got to t-thinkin' it over," he says, "and it l-l-looked like the public demanded that question should get settled once for all. Now, if _you_ kin see your way clear to come in with me, the _Trumpet_'ll announce a contest between the clubs, and the thing'll be decided forever. Not only," says he, "as to b-brains, but as to c-cookin'."

"If them Home Culturers," says Mrs. Strubber, "got the _nerve_," she says, "to come into a contest ag'in' us, I guess we got the self-respect to give 'em the come-down that's due 'em."

"Good," says Mark. "I f-figgered you'd think that way."

"What kind of a contest?" says she.