My, how those Home Culturers and Literary Circlers did work to get subscriptions for us. I never would have believed it, and how any of them had time to cook their husbands’ meals, or wash their kids’ faces, I don’t see. Probably they didn’t, for little things like keeping house wouldn’t matter when there was a contest on to see who had the most brains.

Old Grandma Smedley claimed both clubs didn’t have any brains or they wouldn’t be fussing with such things. “I calc’late,” says she, “that I’m the only woman in town that’s got even common sense. 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.

While the subscriptions were coming in we didn’t forget the advertising, you can bet. Mark figured out arguments for us to shoot at the merchants, and they worked pretty good. Every week we carried more advertising than we ever had before, just because we had convinced business men how interested everybody was in the Trumpet just now while the contest was going on, and how everybody was reading it. The business men could see that for themselves, because they were reading it, and their wives were reading it.

“Let’s see,” says Mark, “how much we m-might make a year out of this paper if this contest b-brought our subscription list up to f-fifteen hunderd. The subscriptions would amount to eighteen hunderd and seventy-f-five dollars. Then our regular advertisin’ that we could f-figger on here in Wicksville and the county’ll fetch about seventy-five dollars a week, or even up to a hunderd, if we’re real lucky. As soon as we git enough s-subscribers I’m goin’ after some out-of-town adver-tisin’. I see a lot of it in good country p-papers. We’ll git some of that, and our job work amounts to quite a bit the way it’s been comin’ in. Looks to me like we ought to make this p-paper show a profit of, anyhow, two thousand d-dollars a year, and maybe more.”

“Countin’ chickens before they’re hatched,” says I.

“We’re hatchin’ ’em fast,” says he.

“Spragg may bust up the nest,” says I, “and drive off the settin’ hen.”

“Spragg hain’t got real d-dangerous yet” says he, “but we’ll have to pay him some attention perty quick.”

“Seems like we ought to get somethin’ more to do to take up our time,” says I. “We hain’t busy enough. 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.”

Mark grinned, and says he was going to get somebody to help Tecumseh Androcles in the shop, but how that helped us I didn’t see.

Well, as I was saying, those women combed the town and country for subscriptions, until it got so that anybody who hadn’t subscribed for the Trumpet was as popular as a little girl coming to school with a box of candy. All you had to do was to stand in front of the post-office and mention that you hadn’t subscribed for the paper yet, and right off you’d be asked by one woman to go driving with her, and by another to come to dinner, and by another if you wouldn’t like a batch of her raised biscuits. I dunno what a feller could have got out of not having subscribed yet if he held out long enough, but I guess most of ’em got their money’s worth. For when you get a paper for a year, and two or three invitations to dinner, and buggy rides, and auto rides, and fresh pies sent over, and all that sort of thing, why, it would be a mean man that wasn’t satisfied.

Mark sat down at his desk and started writing letters. I guess he wrote a dozen and put them in the envelopes and stamped them.

“Who’s goin’ to git all the mail?” I says.

“Diff’rent folks,” says Mark, the way he always speaks when he intends to keep something to himself. “I’m just writin’ around to git a l-l-little information.”

“Thought you had all there was,” says I.

“Keep cool, Binney,” says he. “Your strong point hain’t sarcasm. Let’s go out to see Rock.”

We two went out and we expected maybe Rock would have something exciting to tell us, but he didn’t. It seems like nothing at all had happened. He hadn’t seen a thing of Pekoe, and hadn’t heard him much.

“Funny,” says Mark, “that you don’t know anything about this Pekoe, Rock, when it was him that b-brought you here.”

“Not when you know how I’ve always lived,” says Rock. “Why, I haven’t seen my father since I was a baby! I don’t even remember what he looks like. He wrote me once in a while, but his letters didn’t tell much. About all there was in them was that he would come home some day.”

“You don’t suppose this Pekoe is him, do you?”

“I know he isn’t,” said Rock, as positive as could be.

“But your father sent him,” says I.

“He didn’t say,” says Rock.

“What made you g-go off with him, then?”

“There wasn’t anything else to do.”

Well, we were stumped right there. It was a sure thing that this Pekoe knew something we ought to know, but it looked like he might as well be in China as where he was, for all the good it did us. It made Mark Tidd mad.

“We’re goin’ to t-t-talk to Pekoe,” says he, “and we’re goin’ to do it right off.”

“I’m willin’,” says I, “but I hain’t got any wings to fly up to his window.”

“And Jethro might not like to see a boy flying around the yard like a bird, anyhow,” said Rock, making the first thing that sounded like a joke that I ever heard him try. It wasn’t much of a joke when you come to think of it, but it was encouraging.

“I wish Plunk and Tallow was here,” says Mark.

“I’ll git ’em,” says I, and off I went, running as hard as I could. It didn’t take long to grab onto the fellows and hustle back. 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.

Mark didn’t say anything till Tallow was through spluttering. Then he says: “Jest wait a m-minute till I tell you about it. I’ve got to talk to this Pekoe. It hain’t any easy job to do it, and it won’t be possible if you don’t help. That’s where the f-f-fight comes in. I want you to go back by the barn and start a reg’lar rip-snortin’ rumpus that can be heard to Jericho. It’ll attract Jethro right out of the house to see what’s goin’ on. While he’s gone Binney and I will sneak up-stairs. Rock’ll keep w-w-watch at the foot of the third-floor and make a noise to warn us if Jethro’s comin’. See? You hain’t goin’ to back down on me, be you?”

“No,” says Tallow, “but I wisht you’d find somethin’ for me to do where I wouldn’t get all mussed up. Plunk gets too doggone int’rested when he goes to fightin’. Seems like he don’t know the difference between foolin’ and bein’ in earnest.”

“So much the better,” says Mark. “It’ll look real to Jethro.”

“It’ll look real to Plunk,” says Tallow, short-like, but Plunk just grinned. He sort of liked fights.

Tallow and Plunk went off to the other side of the house like Mark told them. I wished I could have watched the row, because I’ll bet it would have been a bully scrap. The way the fellows looked when we saw them again made me sure of it. Both of ’em looked as if they’d been in a boiler explosion that had blown them into the middle of a cyclone mixed up with an earthquake. It was just my luck.

Mark and Rock and I waited till we heard Plunk shout as loud as he could, “You did say it, too. I heard you. What you mean talkin’ about me like that?”

Tallow yelled right back at him, “I calc’late I kin say what I want to, and if you don’t like it you can lump it.”

“I’ve a notion,” says Plunk, “to hit you so hard your head’ll bust like a bad egg.”

“Hit ahead,” says Tallow. “I dare you to. You dassent. You couldn’t bust an egg any-how—not if you jumped on it. Looky here. Here’s a chip on my shoulder. You dassent knock it off. Jest touch it with your finger, that’s all. Jest brush it off, if you’re lookin’ to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll knock it off,” says Plunk. “You bet I will. Have I got to chase you all over the yard to do it? Huh! Jest gimme one lick at you, and that’ll be all—just one good lick.... There goes your old chip.”

Spang! Tallow swatted at him, and in a second they were at it. Usually when a fellow gets to fighting in earnest he’s too busy with his fists to have much time for hollering, but the way Tallow and Plunk yelled and dared each other was a caution. I don’t see how they managed it.

“Good kids,” says Mark. “L-l-listen to ’em. That ought to fetch Jethro.”

It did. In a minute out came Jethro to see what the racket was about, and as soon as he came, the three of us slid in the side door. You bet we were pretty spry about it. Rock knew the way, and he hustled some. We stuck right to his heels. We almost jumped to the top of the first flight of stairs, and would have jumped the next but our wind was getting short. Rock stopped at the bottom of that flight.

“Cough,” says Mark, “if Jethro comes this way.”

“All right,” panted Rock, and up we went.

All the doors on that floor were shut, but we knew Pekoe’s door must be on the left side of the hall and three or four doors from the back of the house. Mark tried the fourth door, rapping on it three times soft, and then three times again.

“Who’s there?” says a voice.

“Are you Mr. Pekoe?” says Mark.

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Friends of Rock’s. We haven’t much time. Got Jethro out of the w-w-way for a minute and sneaked up. We’re helpin’ Rock. There’s some kind of a mystery about him, and we’re solvin’ it. We got to know what you know.”

“Don’t go too fast, young feller,” says Pekoe. “I don’t know you yet, and I hain’t talkin’ to anybody that inquires. Maybe you was sent by the feller that shut me up here.”

“We weren’t. Rock’s with us. He’s standin’ at the f-f-foot of the stairs, watchin’. It was us that s-s-shot at your window yesterday, and it was me that t-t-talked deaf and dumb with you.”

“Oh,” says Pekoe. “What do you want to know? Why don’t you let me out first?”

“We can’t,” says Mark. “Why don’t you get out?”

“I’m no sparrow,” says Pekoe. “It’s three stories down and them blinds is nailed. I can’t bust open the door. That Jethro didn’t leave a thing in the room I could use to bust it down. There hain’t a chair or a bed in here. Nothin’ but a mattress and some quilts. What kin a feller do with them?”

“Not much,” says Mark. “And we can’t do anythin’ now. But we’ll git you out. Rock’s the m-m-main consideration now. You f-fetched him here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I got a letter from his father tellin’ me to git him at the school he was at and fetch him here.”

“Why?”

“’Cause his father was down with some kind of sickness in Central America and figgered he was goin’ to die. The letter was two months old when I got it. It jest said he was goin’ to die, and to get his son and take him to Henry Wigglesworth in Wicksville.”

“What made his father send you?” Mark says.

“Because him and me was pals in lots of places, and because he knew he could trust me to do what he asked. We been in a lot of pinches together.”

“Why was you to t-t-take Rock to Mr. Wigglesworth?”

“I dunno. Big Rock never told me.”

“Is Rock’s father’s n-n-name Rock, too?”

“Yes.”

“What else?”

“Rock Armitage,” says Pekoe.

“Huh!” says Mark in a sort of disappointed tone. Then in a second he says: “What made you come back again? And how did the Man With the Black Gloves know you was comin’ so as to l-l-lay for you?”

“I come back because—”

Just then Rock began to cough like the mischief, and we dassent stop, but rushed right to the stairs. Rock looked up and motioned us back, and we could hear Jethro coming up the stairs from the ground floor. Rock hadn’t signaled us quick enough so we could get down, and there we were, caught on the top floor of that house without any chance I could see but what we’d be caught by Jethro, and then there’d be a fine mess of fish.

But Mark he never stopped to think. He just grabbed my arm and hauled me back along the hall. We stopped back from the stairs and heard Jethro ask Rock what he was doing there, and Rock said he was just going to his room for something. And then Jethro started up to the third floor.

Well, if he got to the top of those stairs he’d see us, for there wasn’t anything to hide us. Mark reached out quick and tried a door. It wasn’t locked, thank goodness, and he jerked it open and in we popped. It was a stairway leading up to the attic or something, and you’d better believe we went up some fast and considerable quiet.

“Huh!” I whispered when we were up there. “We’re in a lovely boat now. Four stories up.”

“I dunno,” says Mark. “It might be worse.”

“Yes,” says I, “we might be up eight stories.”

“Anyhow,” says he, “we’re in the h-h-house.”

“Yes,” says I, “and like to stay in it.”