CHAPTER IXTHE WORLD TIPS OVER

CHAPTER IXTHE WORLD TIPS OVER

Didyou ever notice how crazy some people are to get something for nothing? A free show always gets a big hand no matter how punk it is. And however much some women may hate cornflakes, if a tiny package of breakfast food is tossed on their front porch it’s dearer to them than gold. Zip! Out they come to grab the sample almost before it stops rolling. I found this out one time when Red Meyers and I tagged a sample peddler around with the clever little scheme in mind of snitching his stuff behind his back. But we didn’t get very much. For the women for the most part were too quick for us.

To make sure of my own samples, I waited, after knocking, until the woman of the house came to the door. Then, giving her the pickles, together with a handbill, I politely recited my little speech, as I had memorized it ahead of time. Nor was there any frisky broom-swatting stuff this trip. As a matter of fact, I think Mrs. Bagley was very sorry for having swatted me. For she saw now that I wasa young business man. And there is a big difference, you know, between swatting an ordinary kid over the head and a young business man.

I missed Poppy’s help. For our store had to be moved. And it had been his intention to sort of boss the moving job while I dished out the samples. As it was, I had both jobs to do.

Running home at six o’clock, as hungry as a bear, I found a note from Mother telling me that she and Dad had gone over to the Methodist church to a chicken-pie supper. Chicken pie! Um-yum! What I wouldn’t do to that chicken pie, I told myself, pocketing the four bits that they had left for me. But eager as I was to wrap myself around a nice hunk of white meat smothered in gravy, I had the good manners to stop and wash up. I put on a clean shirt, too. For it wasn’t to be forgotten that I was now in business for myself.

It sure was a swell supper. But an old lady who had to listen through a tin pan almost spoiled the feed for me by passing me pickles. And, worse, they were greasy stuffed olives. Oof! Instead of taking one I asked her to please park the dish under the table.

I was up bright and early the following morning, having arranged with old Butch to do the store moving before the other people were out of bed. Hearing us in his yard, Mr. Weckler got up to help.But there wasn’t much that he and I could do except to look on. For the moving job, as Butch went at it with his wheels and other truck, was no trick at all. At six-thirty our store was properly set down, close to the sidewalk, in the vacant lot across the street from the cannery.

People who worked in the factory stopped on their way past to rubber at us. And I heard a lot of laughing talk back and forth about the new “Pickle Parlor.” Then who should roll up to the curb in a truck but little cutie, himself.

“You’ve got your nerve,” he lit into me, “moving this junk into our parking lot.”

“Yourlot?” says I, going ahead with my work of arranging pickle jars on the shelves. “How do you get that way? This is Mr. Weckler’s lot.”

“Well, even so, we’ve got a better right to it than you.”

Stepping back, I gave a critical eye to my finished work.

“Looks swell, doesn’t it?” says I, moving one jar a hair’s breadth.

“Say!... Did you hear what I said?”

“YES!” I boomed at him in the same thundering voice. “I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID. But what you say doesn’t amount to much. So, unless you want to buy some pickles, go outside in the sun and make a shadow.”

Here another auto came as far as the curb and stopped.

“What’s the meaning of this?” says Mr. Norman Pennykorn, coming into the store with a dark face. “Who gave you permission to move this nonsensical building onto our lot?”

I wasn’t going to let him bluff me.

“This is Mr. Weckler’s lot. And he told us that we could use it.”

“We need the lot for our cars.”

I asked him then why he didn’t park his cars on their own property across the street, which made him mad.

“In our business,” he swelled up, figuring, of course, that this would scare me to death, “we aren’t in the habit of explaining toboyswhy we do this or don’t do that. The point is, we object to having such a ridiculous outfit as this moved in front of our office. And, further, we need the lot for our own use. So, if you are wise you’ll have this building taken back where it came from.”

I couldn’t help but wish that old Poppy were there. For he can wind up his gab to match anybody’s.

“Suppose we don’t move out,” says I. “What will happen to us?”

“We’ll buy the lot and force you out.”

Well, there wasn’t anything that I could say tothat. Certainly, if they wanted to buy the lot, and Mr. Weckler was willing to sell it to them, we couldn’t stop the deal. But what made me hot was the thought that they had waited until now to do their buying. It looked like spitework to me. Still, it was hard for me to believe that a big business man like Mr. Norman Pennykorn would act that way with a couple of boys.

This, as you will remember, was on Saturday morning. And as Saturday is always a busy day in the stores I figured that we ought to sell a lot of pickles. But at eleven-thirty I hadn’t taken in a penny. Then, who should breeze in but old Poppy, himself.

“Hot dog!” says he, looking around. “This sure is the berries. How’s business?”

“Rotten,” says I.

“When did you open up?”

“This morning.”

“Peddle the samples?”

“Sure thing.”

“And you haven’t had any business in result?”

I shook my head.

“The only two people who were in the store all morning were young Pennykorn and his father. And they came to order us out.”

The returned one pricked up his ears.

“Order us out?” says he. “What do you mean?”

Getting the story, he hurried down the street to learn from the lot’s owner if the property had been sold. But he soon came back into sight. And was he ever stepping high!

“We’re all right, Jerry. Mr. Weckler says they can’t buy the lot now if they offer him ten times what he asked them for it in the first place. It seems he was sore at them for parking their cars here. And a month or so ago he told them that if the lot was so necessary to them in their business they’d better buy it. But you know how tight they are. What was the use of spending a thousand dollars for the lot, was their idea, when they could get the use of it for nothing? So they never bought it. And now Mr. Weckler is tickled to think that we crowded them out. He’s on our side strong. They just offered him twelve hundred for the lot. But he told them that, having rented it to us, it wasn’t for sale.”

I was out in front when smarty got into his truck to go home to dinner. And you should have seen him glare at me. But I stepped around as big as cuffy. We should worry abouthim.

As Mr. Ott had decided to stay in Rockford for a few days, which left Poppy alone, I had him go home with me to dinner. Mother was all excited. Half of the town was sick, she said. Since his firstcall at midnight, Doc Leland hadn’t had time to draw an extra breath.

“What is it?” says Poppy. “Some kind of an epidemic?”

“Ptomaine poisoning, as I understand it.”

Poppy and I put in the afternoon at the store. And still no customers. We couldn’t understand it. Was the scheme all wrong? It would seem so. Still, we hung on, how could it be wrong?

“Maybe,” I suggested, “we ought to sort of go out and look for customers instead of waiting for them to come to us.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” says he.

“We might be able to sell a pile of pickles if we went from house to house.”

That was well worth trying, he agreed. So, leaving him to run the store, I started out with a loaded market basket on my arm.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Brown,” says I at the first house. “You probably remember me,” I beamed.

“Yes,” she snapped. “I remember youwell.”

“Yesterday afternoon,” says I, wondering what had upset her, “I gave you a sample of our pickles—”

“Pickles?” she cut in. “Do you mean to call those filthy thingspickles?”

I stared. Then a horrified thought sort ofswooped down on me. I hadn’t tasted the pickles! Could it be that something was wrong with them?

I got out of the yard as quickly as I could. And hurrying to the nearest alley, out of sight, I unscrewed the top of a pint jar. Stiffening myself, to overcome my gaggy feeling, I took a bite. And then—

Well, say! I spit that pickle clean over the top of Denny Kirk’s barn. For if I must tell you the truth it was the rottenest pickle I ever had tasted in all my life. The wonder to me was that I didn’t heave up my whole insides.

Cutting down the street to the store, I found my chum with his face buried in a Chicago newspaper.

“Jerry,” says he, looking up at me with eyes as big as saucers, “did you eat any of the new pickles?”

“Thank heavenno!” I yipped, running to the door to spit.

“It would be awful,” he wiped his sweaty face, “if any of the people were to die.”

“Die?” says I, going cold. And then the truth of the matter dawned on me, too.It was our pickles that had done the poisoning!

My knees giving out, I sat down. And it was then that my chum showed me the article in the evening newspaper. It wasn’t much—just three or fourlines in small type. But it sure told the whole story.

Over a hundred patients were being treated by Tutter physicians for ptomaine poisoning, the result of eating contaminated pickles, the newspaper said. The state board of health was expected to act on the case immediately.

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