In spite of all we could do, business fell off. It was just as I had argued from the very beginning—there wasn’t enough trade in Wicksville for two stores like ours and Jehoshaphat P. Skip’s. Even if we got half or more than half, it wouldn’t keep us running. Of course I know as well as anybody else that Mark Tidd’s schemes had made folks buy more than they usually did, and for a couple of weeks we sold more than my father generally sold in that much time, but pretty soon everybody was stocked up with the sort of stuff we had and things were about as bad as ever.

The week after the rumpus at Old Mose Miller’s things started out pretty fair, but along about Wednesday it got dull, and from then on there weren’t enough customers to pay to keep the doors open. It seemed like we just couldn’t draw them in, and I expect it was as bad at Skip’s. In fact, I know it was, for we kept watch on him pretty close. If things kept on like they were going, neither one of the stores could last. Skip would put us out of business, but he would put himself out of business doing it. I said so to Mark and he told me to keep thinking about it if I got any particular satisfaction out of it, which I didn’t.

Saturday came along, and though we advertised and trimmed our windows and fixed up special-bargain-tables, it didn’t do a bit of good. And right there, that very morning, along comes Jehoshaphat P. with an announcement that with every dollar’s purchase he would give a ticket to the moving-picture show that had started up in the opera-house.

Mark Tidd was so mad at himself he could have taken a bite out of his own ear if he could have got hold of it.

“Sh-should have thought of that myself,” he says, and went sulking to the back of the store and wouldn’t have anything to do with anybody for a couple of hours. There he sat, scowling and whittling—and we kept away from him as far as we could. I know just how bad he felt.

For once he didn’t have a scheme. Yes, sir. Right there he seemed to go dry. We expected him to come up with a new idea that would stand Skip and his moving-picture show on their heads, but he didn’t. He never said a word. I guess he’d been thinking up so many plans that he was about run dry. And I don’t blame him. I’d have run dry long before.

But just the same it was the most discouraging thing that had happened to us yet. So long as Mark Tidd kept going there was hope, but if he began to slip we might just as well close the doors and give the Bazar to Jehoshaphat.

That day we did a little business, and for the next week we sold enough so there was something to send mother at the end of the week, but we didn’t lay a cent aside. We paid expenses and a little over. If there had been clerks to pay we would have come out behind. Most of the time Mark sat back on a packing-box and whittled. We left him alone. He was as worried as we were, and we knew he was trying, trying every minute.

I guess the only thing that kept our heads above water was that beauty contest. Folks kept right on being interested in that and watched for results every time we put up names. Principal Pilkins, with a lot of young ladies working for him, was climbing up pretty fast. Mr. Peterson was coming strong, too. His wife stirred up a lot of votes for him, and so did Mrs. Bloom for her husband. One week one of them would be ahead, and the next week the other would shoot into the lead. Then there were Chet and Chancy! I guess those two gave up everything else to run down votes. They begged them and borrowed them and worked for them and traded for them. Yes, that is a fact. Votes got to be a sort of money among the boys. You were always sure you could swap them for something. Most of the time there was a boy or so hanging around the front of the Bazar to ask everybody that came out for the votes they’d got. Some people weren’t interested a bit, and would toss them over. So the boys managed to get a stock. Those five were in the lead a little. You never could tell which one would come out ahead until there was a count. But at least a dozen more men were up where they had a chance. So everybody was interested, and almost everybody was mad at somebody else. That’s all that kept us going.

The next week Mark managed to think up a couple of things to interest folks. One was a guessing-contest. He filled a big bottle with beans and put it in the window. Everybody who bought a nickel’s worth could have a guess at how many beans there were, and the one who came nearest was to get a prize. If it was a lady she got a pair of gloves, and if it was a man he got a patent safety razor that looked like a cross between the cow-catcher on an engine and a hoe.

Wicksville was quite a place to guess, so we got in a little trade with that. That week we did better than the week before. But after we had sent mother what she needed we only put by five dollars in the bank. We were still nearly three hundred dollars away from having enough to pay Jehoshaphat P. Skip his five hundred dollars and get free from the chattel mortgage.

“Mark,” says I, that Saturday night as we were closing up, “how about it? Of course we’ve got to hang on as long as we can for the folks’ sake, but we’re beat, hain’t we? Jehoshaphat has sunk our ship.”

Mark was mad in a minute. “S-sunk nothin’!” says he. “We got a couple of weeks more, and who knows what’ll turn up? I’m a-goin’ to think of somethin’. I know I am. It’ll come. So don’t you go gittin’ any more downhearted than you can help. Jehoshaphat P. Skip isn’t goin’ to b-b-bust this business while I got a leg to stand on.”

“All right,” says I, “but your leg’s gettin’ sawed off fast.”

He didn’t say anything to that. I guess there wasn’t anything to say. After a while he says:

“There’s ways of makin’ m-m-money—of makin’ a lot of it at once. That’s what I’ve been figgerin’ on. If we could just pay off Skip I believe this business will go along. I don’t b-believe two businesses like his and ours can make a living in Wicksville. But I do b-believe we’ll be the one that’s left. He can’t afford to keep on, and we can’t afford to quit. And there you are.”

“Then,” I says, sarcastic-like, “all we got to do is raise three hundred dollars in six or eight days.”

He squinted at me, but didn’t say anything.

“We’ve been tryin’ to raise that money for five weeks,” I says. “Five weeks! And what have we got to show for it? Two hundred dollars! That’s how much. Just git out your pencil and figger it up: if it takes four boys five weeks to raise two hundred dollars, what chance have they got to raise three hundred in one week?”

Then we went home.

Sunday, just before dinner—I was invited over to Mark’s for dinner that day—Zadok Biggs came driving his peddler’s wagon into the yard. We could hear him coming for a block, his tin dishes rattling and his whistle going. “Marching Through Georgia” was what he whistled, and you should hear the way he can rip it out. There are trills and runs and wiggles and bird-calls and all sorts of things. I expect he’s the best whistler in Michigan.

He sat on the seat looking down as important as a brand-new poll-parrot and didn’t say a word for a minute. Then he put his hand on his hip and stuck out his chest and says:

“Opportunity. Have you heard Zadok Biggs mention that word before? Eh? I believe I have mentioned it. I am sure I have pronounced it in your hearing. Have I not?”

“You have,” says I.

“Zadok Biggs has been thinking of you—of all four of you boys engaged in the mercantile enterprise—business is the more usual expression—of running Smalley’s Bazar. I have thought of you often. I have asked myself if I could be of assistance to you. I have looked about me to discover an opportunity to offer you.” He drew himself up again and cocked his head as if he’d done something to be mighty proud of. “It was not in vain, says I. I looked—and I saw. I come to-day bringing you an opportunity. What have you to say to that? An opportunity. I bring it to-day.”

“I say,” says Mark Tidd, “that it comes at a l-l-lucky time.”

“Get down and come in,” says Mrs. Tidd. “Dinner’s all ready and there’s chicken and biscuits in gravy and pumpkin-pie and—”

Zadok didn’t let her finish.

“Don’t repeat the bill of fare, ma’am. It is not necessary. What there will be I do not care. That I am to dine with the parents of Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd is enough. Any food prepared by the hand of Mrs. Tidd is better than a banquet. I will come down. I am coming down. See—I am down.”

It was a fact. He was down, and went trotting ahead of us into the house.

“The opportunity—” he started in; but Mrs. Tidd cut him off.

“You can fuss around with your opportunity after dinner,” she says. “I don’t want these vittles to get cold. Set right down and ’tend to eatin’.”

So we sat down, and you can bet we did ’tend to eating. I expect Mrs. Tidd is one of the reasons why Mark is so fat. Anybody would be that ate the kind of things she cooks every day. Why, Mrs. Tidd can take a cold potato and the hoop off a barrel and a handful of marbles and make a meal out of them that beats anything you can get even at a city hotel!

After dinner we went into the parlor and Mr. Tidd got down his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and started to read to us, but Mrs. Tidd stopped him. Mrs. Tidd was boss around there. “Now, pa,” says she, “you put that book right up. Mr. Biggs has something he wants to tell the boys.”

“Um!” says Mr. Tidd, “that’s so. I was clean forgetting all about it. I guess the Decline and Fall will wait a spell. But I would like to read ’em jest this leetle piece here—” He started to open up the book again, but Mrs. Tidd took it right out of his hand and put it on the table.

“Go on, Mr. Biggs,” says she. “I’ll see you don’t get interrupted.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you a thousand times. A wonderful woman, boys. A remarkable woman. Also a remarkable man. Did he not invent a turbine that has made him rich? Eh? He did. Zadok Biggs knows well that he did. Did he not name his son Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus? Eh? He did. That was an achievement, boys. Where is another name like that? Where—”

“You’re interruptin’ yourself,” says Mrs. Tidd.

“Um,” says Zadok, making a little face. “Well, ma’am, I’m on the right track now.... I have an opportunity—an opportunity for anybody in the bazar business. Especially anybody who has to compete with a five-and-ten-cent store. The opportunity is in Sunfield. Where, you may ask, is Sunfield? It is a village not thirty miles from here.” We knew that as well as he did. “It is a little village, a pretty village. It is a village you will always think of kindly when I tell you of the opportunity that is to be found there.”

“Well, then,” says Mrs. Tidd, “why don’t you tell about it?”

Zadok swallowed hard, but he grinned and went on.

“There’s a man in Sunfield who started up a five-and-ten-cent store. Pretty store. Good stock. Nice man. Then what did he do? Why, friends, he got sick. His doctor says he must go West. He is going West. What, then, becomes of the store? It is to be sold. The owner is even now looking for a purchaser—for somebody to buy it is the more common phrase.” He stopped and beamed around at us. “There,” says he, “is the opportunity.”

Right along I’d been hoping. I thought maybe Zadok had hit on something that would help us out, but when I heard what it was my heart plopped right down into my boots. What good was the stock of a five-and-ten-cent store to us? We couldn’t buy a postage-stamp to send a letter to Sunfield, let alone a stock of goods. I looked at Mark. He didn’t look like he was disappointed. He didn’t look happy, either, but he did look thoughtful. Right off I saw he thought he could see something in it.

“How m-much does he want for it?” Mark says.

“It can be purchased cheaply. The owner must have cash. He will sacrifice. That stock must be worth close to a couple of thousand dollars. I believe, and my belief is not without foundation, that you can buy it for half of that.”

“Hum!” says Mark. “Hum!... Complete stock?”

“As fine a stock as you’d wish to see.”

“We’ll go over to s-see it to-morrow, Plunk,” says Mark.

I shrugged my shoulders. “What’s the use?” says I. “We can’t buy it, and if we could, what would we do with it?”

“I dun’no’,” says he. “Maybe we could figger on s-some way of buyin’ it. I’ve seen sicker horses ’n that g-git well.”

“But not on the kind of medicine we got to give ’em,” says I.

“Anyhow,” says Mark, “we’ll go over t-to-morrow. You don’t need to, though, Plunk, if you don’t think it’s worth while. But I’m goin’. I’m goin’ to see that stock. I’m goin’ to have a look at Zadok Biggs’s opportunity.”

“I knew it,” said Zadok. “I knew Marcus Aurelius would not disappoint me. I knew he would see the possibilities of this opportunity. I do not blame you, Plunk Smalley, for failing to see them. It was not to be expected. There is only one Marcus Tidd. Only one.”

“Yes,” says I, “and that one has bit off a leetle more’n he can chaw comfortable this time.”

Mark didn’t even look at me. He was pinching his cheek and squinting up his eyes like he does when his mind is about as busy as it can be. Pretty soon he looked up at Zadok.

“Say,” says he, “can you tell me, Zadok, what an option is, and how it works?”

Well, sir, Zadok jumped right up and danced. “I knew it,” says he. “I knew Marcus Tidd would see the opportunity. I knew he would never miss it. What is an option? That’s what he asks. You heard him. Now listen and Zadok Biggs will explain. He will make an option so clear to you that—that even Plunk Smalley will be able to make one with his eyes shut.”

“Well,” says Mrs. Tidd, “what is an option?”

“The man who wrote the dictionary,” Zadok explained, “says an option is a right to make a deal or not to make it before a certain time. Not very clear, is it? I will enlighten you—make it plain to you is the customary way of saying it. Suppose I want to buy a cow from Mr. Tidd. I want that cow, and I don’t want anybody else to get it before I do. But, alas! I haven’t enough money to pay what Mr. Tidd asks. What do I do? I take an option. I go to Mr. Tidd and say, ‘Mr. Tidd, I will give you a dollar if you will agree not to sell that cow to anybody else before next Tuesday, and if you will agree to sell it to me any time before Tuesday for forty-one dollars.’”

“That’s too much for a cow,” says Mrs. Tidd.

“This is an imaginary cow,” says Zadok. Then he grinned all over. “That kind is more expensive, ma’am, because they don’t eat up any fodder.... Well, that’s an option. It’s where somebody else agrees to sell you something on or before a certain day, and not to sell it to anybody else in the mean time. Understand?” He said that to me, because, I expect, he thought if I understood it it must be clear to everybody else.

“But,” says I, “suppose you pay a dollar for the right to buy Mr. Tidd’s cow on Tuesday, and then when Tuesday comes you haven’t any money?”

“Why, then, Plunk, Mr. Tidd can sell his cow to anybody else he wants to.”

“But don’t it cost me anything?”

“Nothing but the dollar you paid him to wait till Tuesday for you.”

“Huh,” says I, “I understand options, all right, but for the life of me I can’t see what good they’re going to do us.”

I looked over at Mark Tidd, expecting him to explain, but I guess he was a little provoked at me because I didn’t think much of the whole scheme, whatever it was, and so he shut his mouth tight like the lid of a trunk and wouldn’t say a word.

“We’d better get an early start,” says he, “and t-take no chances.”

“Yes, indeed,” says Zadok.

“Are you going to c-come, Plunk?” Mark asked.

“Sure,” says I, “if I can be of any help.”

“Well,” says he, grinning a more cheerful grin than I’d seen on his face for weeks, “you can’t do any harm, anyhow.”