There wasn’t anything for us fellows to do but to go through with the thing now. We couldn’t very well duck out and then ever show our faces again in Wicksville. So right after supper we went down and opened up the hall where the food show was, and got things ready for the massacre. I kind of wished the times that Mark played games about would come back for a while. I mean when knights and such-like fellows went around with cast-iron nightgowns on so that you couldn’t hurt them without you found the combination to the safe and got the door open. That’s what Mark calls a mixed metaphor. It says what I mean, so I don’t care what he calls it. Anyhow, I don’t believe he knows what he’s talking about.

Well, about seven o’clock the crowd began to come. They came in a jam. There was to be a program, and at the end of it the announcement was to be made who had won the contest. The program started up at eight o’clock, and meanwhile all of us but Mark had been back at the Trumpet office, helping get out the paper. That was to be part of the evening’s excitement, too.

Pretty soon folks began to get tired of the program and began to yell for the decision of the contest. It kept getting louder and louder, till Mark judged it was best to let them have it.

“I’ll d-do it,” says he. “I’m the one that t-thought it up, so I’ll make the announcement and t-take what’s comin’. You fellers better skip.”

“Nix,” I says. “We’re goin’ to be right with you.”

“What you git we git,” says Plunk.

We listened and could hear the folks stamping their feet and clapping and yelling.

“Who won? Who won?” they started to yell over and over.

“Here goes,” says Mark, and out he went. We stuck right to his heels. The first thing I noticed, even in all that crowd, was Rock standing over at one side, and with a hand on his shoulder was the big man that we saw getting off the train. I nudged Plunk, and he looked, and Rock saw us and waved his hand.

Mark began. He made a regular speech, and it kept getting longer and longer, because he hated to come to the point and announce that nobody had won and that it was a tie. But he had to at last, because folks began to holler again.

Finally he says, “T-this has been a wonderful contest, ladies and gentlemen. There hain’t ever been sich a contest in Wicksville, and—if I got anything to d-d-do with it—there’ll never be another.” I believed that all right.

“The l-ladies,” says he, “has proved some-thin’. They have p-proved that nobody in the world kin beat the wimmin of Wicksville—not even the wimmin of Wicksville themselves.” He stopped and looked around, and though he was pretty uncertain in his mind, he grinned jest as calm as a cabbage.

“The number of subscriptions got by the Home Culturers,” says he, “is four hunderd and f-f-forty-six.”

There was yells and stamping from the Home Culturers.

“The n-number of subscriptions got by the Lit’ry Circlers is four hunderd and f-f-forty-six,” says he.

There was yells and stamping, but all of a sudden they stopped, and somebody yelled, “What’s that?”

“It’s a tie,” says Mark. “B-both got the s-same number.”

For a minute folks jest looked at one another, and then Mrs. Strubber and Mrs. Bobbin jumped to their feet and began talking at once. I could catch sich words as “cheat,” and “put-up job,” and “crooked,” and like that.

“L-ladies,” says Mark, “you’ve kept count of how many subscriptions you got, hain’t you?”

“Yes,” says both of ’em.

“What’s your count, Mrs. Strubber?” says he.

“We got the number you said, but they never did. Our number is right. But them wimmin—why, we must ’a’ beat ’em by fifty.”

“Mis’ Bobbin,” says Mark, “how do you make your c-count?”

“We make it same as yourn for us,” says she, “but them Lit’ry Circlers didn’t come within ninety of us. I know,” says she.

“L-ladies and gentlemen,” says Mark, “both ladies says their c-count agrees with mine. Both m-makes their n-number f-four hunderd and f-f-forty-six. I guess that shows this contest was on the s-square. If it wasn’t d’you think I’d ’a’ dared stand up here and announce it was a tie?”

“Don’t see how you dared, anyhow,” yelled Uncle Ike Bond. “I wouldn’t ’a’ done it for a farm.”

“What we goin’ to do?” says Mrs. Strubber. “We can’t leave this here undecided now. The town wouldn’t never git over it. Somebody got to be the champeen.”

“You bet,” says Mrs. Bobbin, “and the Home Culturers has got to be it. I guess our husbands hain’t goin’ to stand around and let us git done out of our rights.”

“I guess ourn hain’t either,” says Mrs. Strubber, and right there it sure looked like the furniture was going to get busted.

Then Mark got an idea.

“L-ladies,” says he, “I got a way out of it. T-there’s a man here that hain’t subscribed. Git him up here, and let them two clubs argue him into t-takin’ a subscription, and the side that gits him wins.”

They thought that over a minute, and then agreed.

“Who’s the man?” says all of them at once.

“Uncle Ike Bond,” says Mark, with a little grin. “He’s just got home from a visit.”

“Uncle Ike! ... Uncle Ike!” yelled everybody, and started to push the old ’bus-driver to the front.

“Hey!” says he. “Hey, Mark Tidd, what I ever done to you I should be got into this? I hain’t goin’ to. No, siree. You don’t git me decidin’ no sich fight. I got respect for my skin. If I was to decide this here, why, I’d have to lick every husband on the side I was decidin’ ag’in’. Not that I can’t do it—but I hain’t as spry and eager as I was once. No, siree,” says he, and he made a jump sideways, and scrambled up onto the window-sill, with fifty folks grabbing after him, and out he jumped. Well, that finished that.

Mark was laughing inside like everything. “There’s another m-man here,” says he. “He’s big enough so’s nobody’s husband’ll be anxious to t-t-tackle him. He’s doggone big,” says Mark, “and t-there he stands. Mr. Armitage is his n-name,” says Mark.

Armitage!

You could have knocked me galley-west with a feather. I seen it all in a minute.

“Mr. Armitage,” says Mark, “won’t you s-s-step forward and—”

“Risk my life?” finishes up the big man that was standing by Rock. “Why,” says he, “I’ll step forward and say something, and when I get through maybe you ladies will be willing to let things stand as they are—and glad to.”

He came surging up forward, and stood there, big and quiet, looking down on everybody.

“First,” says he, “I want to tell you something about myself.” It was funny, but they quieted right down and listened. Not a yell or a holler.

“After that,” says he, “I want to read you a piece in the Wicksville Trumpet, the best country paper in America,” says he, and at that Mark and us kids swelled all up.

“I’m a happy man,” says he, “because, after a dozen years, I’ve got my son back again. In that dozen years,” he says, “I’ve been working and fighting and starving and risking death for my son, but maybe it would have been better if I’d stayed home and got a job and been right by his side. But there was a time when I was sore in my heart because his mother died.” He stopped just a second. Then he went on. “I couldn’t bear to stay still, so I put my little son in a school and went off to Alaska. I thought I’d find gold there, but I didn’t find enough. After that I went to South America and to Africa and to China, and all over the world, always keeping my son in schools, and not seeing him nor scarcely ever writing to him. But I loved him just the same—like a father ought to. But I was set on coming home to him rich, so he’d be proud of me. That was wrong. I know it now. He’d have been proud of me anyhow, because he’s that kind. Well, I thought I was dying, and sent a friend to take my son to a man that should have looked after him—and that man died, but I got well. Today I came back and found my son, and saw him for the first time since he was in dresses. I found he had made friends, four friends, who had done for him more than I had ever done. These friends had worked for him. These friends had found him alone in a big house, practically a prisoner, not knowing who he was or why he was there. My boy was in a bad mix-up, I can tell you. And I was far away. Well, these four friends, just out of the goodness of their hearts, went to work, and solved the mystery that was surrounding my son, and proved who he was, and have put him in the way of being heir to a great deal of money. Not that that matters now, for I found my mine at last and have ten times as much as Mr. 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.”

Then he read, slow and emphatic, the story of Rock. He read how we had found him, and about all we had done, and about the paper Mr. Wigglesworth left, and about how we had got the paper. And—this was news to all of us but Mark—that Rock was Mr. Wigglesworth’s grandson, and Rock’s mother was Mr. Wigglesworth’s daughter, who had married Mr. Armitage against her father’s will, and he wouldn’t ever have anything to do with her again.

Well, people’s eyes almost popped out of their heads when they heard what had been going on right under their heads. When Mr. Armitage was done reading he laid his hand on Mark’s shoulder and says, “Here’s the boy that puzzled it out.”

“Binney and Plunk and Tallow did as m-m-much as me,” says Mark.

“Yes,” says Mr. Armitage, turning to us, “and I want to thank them, publicly, too. Four of the squarest, nerviest, cleverest boys I ever saw.”

“And now,” says he, “what do you ladies think? Won’t it be better to have one big club, working for the good of everybody, than two clubs pulling against each other?”

Mrs. Strubber looked at Mrs. Bobbin and Mrs. Bobbin looked back; then—and there was streaks down their faces where the tears had been running—they got up all at once and walked toward each other and shook hands.

That ended that.

But us fellows had a hard time getting away. Everybody wanted to shake hands and have us tell about it, and taffy us, but we did wriggle through, with Rock and his father following us, and sneaked to the office. And there we had a regular reunion. I tell you Mr. Armitage was a fine man, and he had a mess of adventure stories to tell that just lifted the hair off from your head.

Best of it is he’s going to live here with Rock on the Wigglesworth place.

We talked a long time, and then went home to bed.