CHAPTER XI
A FRIEND IN NEED
“Hands off!” cried Frank.
His assailant laughed coarsely. He had Frank firmly in his grasp. Pushing him against the steps of one of the coaches, still gripping his two wrists in one hand he bent him back flat.
No one was in sight down the long, poorly-illuminated passenger platform. Frank at once guessed that the fellow had seen him counting over his money in the waiting room and had followed him to this spot.
Frank twisted his lower limbs to one side. His assailant was trying with his free hand to reach the pocket in which he had seen Frank place his little cash capital. Frank’s movement disconcerted the would-be thief. He grew angry as his captive wriggled onto one side, holding his pocket pinned up against the car step.
“Hi, you, turn over,” growled the fellow.
He gave Frank a jerk and then slapped him hard against the side of the head. He managed to thrust his hand into his pocket containing the money.
“Ouch!” he yelled, just as his eager fingers touched the roll of bank notes. “Zounds! who did that?”
Whack—Frank caught this sound, preceded by the air-cutting whistle of some swiftly-directed object.
Whack—whack! the sound was repeated. Frank was free. His assailant had relaxed his grasp. His hands were now busy warding off mysterious blows in the face.
Frank darted to one side, his precious savings clasped by one hand. He stared in wonder.
Some one on the roof of the front passenger coach was leaning over its rounding edge. He was armed with a jointed piece of iron. This he plied whip-fashion. Twice its end had struck the robber’s face, leaving two great red welts.
Then a spry, nimble form dropped from the car roof to the platform. Frank made out a boy about his own age. He was dressed wretchedly, and was thin and weak-looking, and his face was grimed, but he must have had pluck, for, running straight up to the would-be thief, he plied the weapon in his grasp like a flail.
A sharp blow made the ruffian roar with pain. Holding a hand to his eye, he retreated down the platform, fairly beaten off.
“There’s a police officer,” said Frank suddenly, noticing a man wearing a uniform come running down the platform from the direction of the waiting room.
“Oh, pshaw!” ejaculated his rescuer, springing nimbly to the platform of the nearest coach.
“Hold on, hold on,” cried Frank—“I want to thank you, I—”
But his mysterious friend had sprung across the car platform in a jiffy. He was swallowed up in the darkness beyond.
“What’s up?” hailed the policeman, running up breathlessly.
“A man tried to rob me,” explained Frank.
“Thought I made out a struggle. Did he get anything?”
“No.”
“Where did he go?”
Frank pointed towards the fan-shaped network of tracks melting into the gloom of the switchyards.
The policeman ran in that direction. Frank did not accompany him. He did not believe the officer would catch the thief. Besides, Frank was more interested in the strange young fellow who had done him such good service in his time of need.
Frank stepped up on the coach platform and peered up and down the sidings near by. His rescuer was nowhere in sight. Frank was sorry for this. The boy had struck him as a hard-luck object. His manifest reluctance against being seen by the officer suggested something sinister about him.
Frank stood waiting for the return of the policeman, a vivid picture of his rescuer in his mind. The boy had worn a cap pulled far down over his eyes. He seemed young, yet Frank recalled that he wore a moustache.
“I’d like to give him something for saving me the loss of all that money,” said Frank. “The poor fellow looked as if he needed it. Any trace of the man, sir?”
“No,” answered the policeman, coming back from a fruitless search. “Better keep nearer the lights, young fellow. All kinds of rough characters hang around here, on the lookout for somebody to rob.”
Frank walked with the policeman to the depot rotunda. He stayed outside, however. Once or twice he walked the whole breadth of the rotunda, peering down the passenger tracks and wishing he could find the boy who had beaten off the thief.
“There is some one now,” suddenly exclaimed Frank to himself.
He made a dash down a lonely platform and ran across a couple of tracks.
“Yes, it’s him,” declared Frank. “Hey, just a minute. Why, what are you running away from me for?”
The person Frank was after had started up quickly at the first hail. Frank overtook him, cornering him where some milk cars blocked the way south.
The strange boy braced back against the side of a car, pulled his cap down further over his eyes, and said.
“Want me?”
“Sure, I want you,” cried Frank spiritedly. “First, to shake hands with you and thank you for your bravery in my behalf.”
“Oh, that wasn’t anything,” observed the strange boy.
“No, only the saving of all the money I’ve got in the world,” retorted Frank.
He shook the boy’s hand warmly. The latter at last slightly returned the hand pressure, but kept looking about him furtively and uneasily.
“By the way,” said Frank, “what was that you hit that man with?”
“A loose-jointed ventilator slide bar I found on top of the coach.”
“And, if I may ask, what was you ever doing perched up there?”
“Well, if you must know, I was waiting for the train to start out. In fact,” confessed the speaker in a low, constrained tone, “beating my way, stealing a ride.”
“Where to?” asked Frank.
“Oh—anywhere, anywhere away from the city.”
The boy said this in such a forlorn way that Frank felt there was some pathetic cause for the despair expressed.
“You ran away from the policeman, too,” suggested Frank.
“Yes, he wouldn’t have much use for my kind,” observed the boy.
Frank was silent for a moment, intensely studying as far as the dim light would allow the figure and face of his companion.
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
“My name—oh,” sort of stammered the boy, “why, it’s Markham.”
“Well, Markham,” said Frank very kindly, placing a gentle hand on the lad’s arm, “you and I should be good friends. Don’t edge away from me. You say you were trying to get out of the city. Had you no idea of where you were bound for?”
“Nowhere, but the country. Some place where I’d be safe—I mean where they couldn’t find—that is, oh, just to get to some quiet little country town where I could get work.”
“I’ve got the town and I’ll guarantee the work,” cried Frank heartily, slapping Markham on the shoulder. “See here, no secrets between friends now. You’ve got no money, or you wouldn’t be riding on car tops.”
“That’s true enough,” admitted the boy, forcing a laugh.
“And maybe you’re hungry.”
There was no reply to this, but Markham’s eager eyes strayed in the direction of the lighted waiting room and its gleaming coffee tank and polished lunch counter.
“Come on,” urged Frank, keeping up a cheery, good-fellow air. “I’m ready for a bite, too.”
Markham held back as Frank tried to pull him along with him.
“See here—”
“Newton—Frank Newton, that’s me.”
“Well, I can’t go with you. In the first place, I’m a sight for respectable people. In the next place,” went on Markham, “there’s some people I don’t want to risk meeting.”
Frank reflected for a moment or two.
“Will you stay here for five minutes till I come back?” he asked.
“Why, yes, if you want me to,” was the reply.
“All right. Be sure, now.”
Frank was gone less than the five minutes. He returned with a little tin pail holding a pint of hot coffee, a picnic plate containing two sandwiches, a piece of pie and some doughnuts.
“There, try that,” he said, placing the things on a bumper post.
“Say,” choked up Markham—but Frank strode away, whistling to himself. He did not approach Markham until every vestige of the lunch had disappeared.
“That’s the first square meal I’ve had for two days,” said Markham in a grateful, contented tone. “Say, you’re good.”
“Am I?” smiled Frank. “I’m good for your railroad fare to where I live, and a job right on top of it for you, if you say so.”
“Do you honestly mean that?” asked Markham, almost solemnly, his voice quite tremulous.
“Every word of it,” declared Frank. “I live at Greenville. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles down state. Say the word, Markham. I can see you’re in trouble or distress of some kind. I’m not prying to find out what it is. I only want to show what I think of you for saving my money, and maybe my life with a courage that has got to belong to a first-class fellow.”
Markham bowed his head as if in deep thought. Frank saw a tear fall to the platform. Finally his companion spoke again.
“If you will advance my fare,” he said, “I’ll pay you back first money I earn.”
“That’s a bargain,” said Frank. “Come on. We’ll buy your ticket right now.”
“No,” demurred Markham, holding back in a timorous way. “You get both tickets. I’ll be somewhere on the train. I’d rather sort of hang around the smoker and the platforms till we get beyond the city limits.”
“All right,” said Frank.
He had a vague idea in his mind that Markham was afraid to show himself publicly in the city, for some reason or other. Frank even speculated as to the possibility of Markham being disguised. He looked, acted and talked like a boy about his own age. The moustache, however, suggested that he was a young man of about twenty.
Frank made his new acquaintance promise positively he would be on the train. He went back to the depot and bought another ticket to Greenville. He was somewhat anxious and impatient until the train started up.
There was a first stop at the limits of the city. Just as the train steamed ahead again, some one entered at the rear door of the coach.
“Hello—good,” exclaimed Frank, as Markham quietly sat down in the seat beside him. “Why—”
Frank paused there, staring at his fellow-passenger. Markham had washed the grime from his face. He no longer wore the cap pulled down over his eyes. Looking bright as a dollar, he smiled, pleasantly.
“Pretty grimy, wasn’t I?” he laughed.
“Why, yes,” stammered the puzzled Frank, “but say—what has become of your moustache?”
CHAPTER XII
A BOY WITH A MYSTERY
The boy who called himself Markham flushed scarlet at Frank’s sudden words. His hand went with a quick, nervous movement to his upper lip. He looked dreadfully embarrassed.
“Never mind,” said Frank abruptly, trying to make it easy for the young fellow. “You look better without it.”
Markham had gained time now to cover his confusion. He swallowed a lump in his throat and smiled feebly.
“You see,” he stammered somewhat, “that wasn’t a real moustache—that one I’ve dropped.”
“Oh, wasn’t it?” said Frank.
“No. How I happened to have it was this,” explained Markham, rather lamely, but with apparent truth. “See?” and he produced from a pocket two false moustaches and as many small goatees. “Fact is, I wanted to earn some money. I saw a peddler selling those things on a street corner. They went like hot cakes. I asked him where he bought them. He told me, said he had taken them up only temporarily to make a little pocket money. He was nearly sold out, and offered me about a dozen of them for a quarter. I sold nearly all of them, and then went to the address he gave me to stock up again. They wouldn’t sell under a gross—three dollars and sixty cents, I think the price was. I didn’t have that much, so my scheme fell down.”
Markham now took a printed circular from his pocket, as if to verify his statement. Frank glanced over it with increasing interest. It advertised a city firm supplying street peddlers with all kinds of goods.
“Yes,” said Frank, “I noticed a man selling these same articles on a street corner. It’s a pretty catchy novelty with boys and young men.”
“It is, for a fact,” declared Markham. “Look here: did you ever see ‘Teddy’s Teeth?’ That’s an old novelty—look.”
Markham produced and put in his mouth a row of false teeth, welted the reverse side of a moustache, placed it on his upper lip, a minute black dab of hair on his chin, and turned for inspection to Frank.
The latter laughed heartily. The transformation from Markham’s natural face was immense.
“You have no idea how those things catch people the first time they see them,” said Markham. “I’ve noticed that fellows from the country buy best. Say, if I had a gross of them, I bet I could sell them in two days, down your way.”
“I think you could, too, Markham,” replied Frank, “and you have set me thinking on an entirely new business proposition. Can I keep this circular?”
“Surely, if it’s any use to you.”
“It may be,” said Frank, “in fact, I think I shall order a gross as soon as I get home, just to experiment on.”
“Going peddling?” insinuated Markham.
“Why, I’ll tell you,” answered Frank. “Settle down comfortably, and we’ll chat a little. It will do me good to talk out what’s continually on my mind. More than that, I shouldn’t wonder if you, with all your experience, could give me some very valuable points. The long and short of it is, I am going into the mail order business.”
“Oh!” said his companion wistfully, “isn’t that grand.”
Frank told his new friend all about himself, his business and his hopes and plans. The other listened with great attention. When Frank had finished talking, Markham showed by his expression of face that he considered him a pretty smart business boy.
“If you can afford to hang around with me till I get my bearings,” added Frank, “I’ll guarantee you a comfortable home anyway, and good money if you know how to earn it.”
Markham’s eyes grew big with excitement. Then his face fell, as he said:
“I’d like nothing better in the world, but business men don’t hire strangers without a recommendation. I can give none. I’ll be square with you. My name isn’t Markham at all. I can’t tell you my real one until maybe a long, long time. I wore that moustache partly as a disguise.”
“Well, all that is your business, Markham,” said Frank.
“I know that, but it must look suspicious to you. If I told you that I am leaving the city to get away from some one who is hunting me, would you feel like trusting me much?”
Frank took his companion’s hand in his own and looked him straight in the eyes.
“Markham,” he said, “I am willing to put entire confidence in you. I owe you that much, surely. Your secrets are not my business, I would like to ask one question only: You haven’t run away from home, have you?”
“I have no home,” answered Markham in a subdued tone.
“An orphan?” insinuated Frank, gently.
“No, my father is living. He is in the Philippines. He will be out of service next January. All I am waiting for is for him to get back to this country to right my wrongs.”
“Don’t worry about it, Markham,” said Frank, observing deep sadness and distress shadow the bright face of his companion. “You come home with me. I’ve got so good a mother she will welcome you gladly.”
“But I want to work,” said Markham.
“Haven’t I got work waiting ready for you, and lots of it, too?” demanded Frank.
“That’s so, is it?” said Markham, brightening up. “My! to be away—away from the city in a quiet, beautiful town. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You are the first real friend I’ve found in six months, and—I can’t help it.”
“That’s right—get rid of all your old troubles,” said Frank, and he did not think the less of his new friend because he had a good, solid cry. “There’s nothing but sunshine ahead for you, if I can help you any.”
Frank warmed to the boy as they continued their conversation. A dark spell seemed to lift from Markham’s spirit, each mile accomplished away from the great city that appeared to hold some secret, haunting dread for him.
“Greenville,” announced Frank heartily at length—“and home.”
The hour was late, the streets deserted, but, as they strolled away from the little railroad depot, Markham walked like a person in some rapt dream. He drew in great luxurious breaths of the flower-perfumed air. He viewed pretty moonlit lawns and gardens as if he were looking at some fascinating picture.
“Like it, do you?” smiled Frank.
“I love the country. I always did,” replied Markham. “This is just grand to me. Look here, now,” he continued, “you had better let me stow myself in some friendly haystack or under some hedge till morning. Don’t disturb your mother to-night about me.”
“Disturb her?” said Frank. “No danger of her going to bed till I show up, if it’s till morning. There we are—there’s the light in the window for us, Markham.”
Frank led his friend upstairs over the store. Markham lagged behind until the greetings between mother and son were over. He stepped a little timidly forward, as he heard Frank say:
“Mother, I have brought a friend home with me. This is my mother, Markham.”
Mrs. Ismond received the homeless boy with a sweet, welcoming smile that won his heart entirely. She told Frank to take him into the sitting room while she herself hustled about the kitchen. Frank left Markham long enough to join his mother and tell her what he owed to his new companion.
“It’s late,” said Mrs. Ismond a few minutes later, “but you must eat a good meal after your long, busy day, and I positively will wake up nobody in this house until nine o’clock in the morning.”
There were only two beds in the house. Frank shared his with Markham. The latter wore a happy smile on his face as he stretched himself out luxuriously.
“That supper!” he said, in a rapturous sort of a way. “This nice comfortable bed! I’ve got to shut my eyes for fear it will all turn out a dream.”
Frank was glad to lie thinking for a spell undisturbed. His companion fell into a profound, exhausted slumber. Mrs. Ismond retired, and the house was all quiet at last.
Like a panorama all the varied events of the preceding twenty-four hours passed vividly through Frank’s mind. He felt greatly satisfied with the outcome of his visit to the city.
Then Frank began to scan the future, his plans, his ambitions. He felt truly rich with his little money capital, the present work in hand, the mail order lists, the apple corer, and other things.
“How sick that man is of his apple corer,” mused Frank. “There are over five thousand of the crude, unsatisfactory things in that big box down stairs. He had a good idea all right, but didn’t know how to apply it. He gave it—to—me—be—”
There Frank drifted into a doze. It was strange, but he half-dreamed, half-thought out some wonderful transformation of the hardware man’s invention, and, all of a sudden, in a lightning flash, a great, surging idea swept through his brain with tremendous force.
It lifted him out of his sleep half-dazed, he gave a jump from the bed to the floor. There he wavered, rubbing his eyes, and then irresistibly shouting out:
“Eureka—I’ve found it!”
CHAPTER XIII
A GOOD START
Frank did not go to sleep again, he couldn’t. As he lay there, it seemed to him as though every nerve in his body was wide awake and on a terrific tension.
Frank had heard of some of the great inventions of the world discovered in a dream. Had he, too, in a dream, or a half-waking doze, had the same experience.
“It came like a flash,” he reflected. “It’s plain as day now. The apple corer improved, remodeled, in perfect working order and a success. Oh, I simply can’t lie here.”
Frank wriggled and tossed restlessly. Then, when he was certain that Markham was asleep again, he slipped quietly out of bed, put on part of his clothes and glided noiselessly downstairs.
Frank softly closed the store door communicating with the hallway. He lit a lamp and went over to a counter containing the great heap of apple corers.
He selected one, got a sheet of tin and a pair of stovepipe shears, and became engrossed in cutting out and forming cones, funnels and all kinds of odd-shaped contrivances.
For fully two hours Frank was working at his task. He seemed to be supplying the crude apple corer with an inner sheath, to which he had supplied a small three-bladed device. He turned it about, altered it, worked over it, and a broad smile of satisfaction stole across his face as he progressed.
“Frank, this is not sleeping.”
Frank looked up from his task, quite startled, to find his mother standing a few feet away, watching him.
“I know it isn’t, mother,” he responded gaily. “It’s work, good work, too, so it couldn’t wait.”
“But, Frank—”
“Listen, mother,” he said, “I have dreamed out an invention. Really I have. If my improved apple corer works as I think it will, this is a lucky spell of wakefulness. I don’t want to say much about it till I am sure of it, but I believe I have invented something practical and of value.”
Frank treasured his little model in his pocket, and consented to go back to bed now. He was up bright and early. First thing he was down in his work shop. At breakfast he was more quiet than usual. Frank was doing a great deal of thinking.
“I have certainly got the patent right bee in my bonnet,” he reflected. “It’s a fascinating little insect. Ah, Markham, we were going to let you sleep till you were rested up completely,” added Frank, as their guest put in an appearance.
Markham was pleasant, polite and contented. He put some things in order for Mrs. Ismond, offered to help her with the dishes, and went downstairs finally to join Frank.
“Now then,” he said briskly, “I’m fed up and rested up—what is there to do?”
Frank explained about the needle packages. He told Markham as well as he could what towns in the vicinity had been covered.
“There’s a row of little settlements to the east,” he explained. “You can use my bicycle if you like and give them a call.”
“This is real life,” jubilated Markham, as he set off on the wheel with a hundred packages of the needles done up in a cardboard box.
Frank received visits from several of his boy employes that morning. Then he set about disposing of some odds and ends of the salvage stock about town.
From two till five o’clock he was busy working on his “patent.” From then until six o’clock he wrote several letters, went out and mailed them, and kept thinking and planning on the mail order business.
Markham, dusty and tired, wheeled up to the store about seven o’clock. He had an immense bouquet of wild flowers, which delighted Mrs. Ismond, to whom he gracefully presented it.
“What a day it has been for me,” he exclaimed, after a good wash up. “Why, I seem to be free, really free for the first time in my life—the pretty roads, the lovely flowers, the sweet singing birds—”
“And the needles?” suggested practical Frank.
“Oh, I sold them before noon,” said Markham, indifferently.
“All of them?”
“Fifteen packages to one little country store. Knocked a cent off my profit, but time counts, you know.”
“I sent an order to the city for a gross of those false moustaches,” announced Frank.
“You did?” exclaimed Markham. “That’s famous! When will they be here?”
“Day after to-morrow, I think. Then I’m going down to Riverton to collect some bills. I calculate it will take about three days to clean up the lot. Mother, you must run the business here while I’m gone. We will have to stay at Riverton nights.”
“Shall I keep on with the needles?” asked Markham.
“Yes, but not here. We will make Riverton headquarters for this trip. You can come with me, and try the false moustaches on the community.”
“Some needles, too,” said Markham. “I’ll guarantee to sell a gross of the moustaches in two days.”
Markham did quite as well the second day as he had the first. It pleased Frank to note how he seemed emerging from a worried-looking, distressed refugee into a bright, laughing, happy boy. Mrs. Ismond had taken a great liking to him, and he seemed never tired of helping Frank with his chores clear up to bed time.
The moustaches arrived the next afternoon. They had a merry evening, Markham applying moustache, goatee and false teeth to his face, and giving character imitations thus disguised, which he had seen at some show.
Frank hired a light wagon and horse for three days, and the next morning he and Markham drove over to Riverton. They arranged for a cheap lodging, and separated. Frank had routed the bills he had to collect systematically. The first batch took in a twenty miles circuit among farmers.
When evening came he had presented bills amounting to about two hundred dollars. As the horse walked slowly back the road to Riverton, Frank figured out the day’s results.
“Pretty good,” he said, running over the paper slips in a package. “I have collected forty-four dollars and eighty cents—got twenty dollars in sixty days’ notes, four promises to pay, four people call again, three parties moved away, and six bills no good.”
Frank drove leisurely down the principal street of Riverton, bound for the livery stable where he had arranged to put up the horse during their sojourn in town.
He halted with some curiosity and amusement at a corner where a crowd was gathered. Mounted on a dry goods box, Markham was addressing a large and jolly audience.
He was giving character sketches in a really entertaining way. After every sally of laughter he would ply his wares. Everybody seemed buying.
“He’s a bright fellow and a first-class peddler,” Frank reflected, as he continued on his way, unobserved by the friend he had started in business.
“All sold out and the public hungry for more,” announced Markham, as he joined Frank on agreement at a restaurant. “Those false teeth also. I’ll bet fifty people asked for them. Say, it would pay to wire a quick duplicate order on the moustaches and a gross of the teeth. I can certainly sell the outfit before we leave this town.”
“I’ll see if I can’t arrange it,” said Frank, and after supper he did so. Frank got track of a purchasing agent, who for a small commission went daily from Riverton to the city, bringing back with him what light stuff he could carry in his two valises—all the baggage the railroad company would allow through free.
Just at dusk Saturday evening the two friends started cheerily homewards. Frank had made exactly thirty-eight dollars for his three days’ work. Markham’s profits amounted to a little over seventeen dollars.
“I want you to be my banker, Frank,” he said. “Haven’t I done quite well? Next week I’ll cut a still wider swath.”
“Not peddling, Markham,” said Frank.
“Why not?” inquired Markham, in some surprise.
“Well, I’ll tell you. To-night about closes up what business I have in hand. You know all my hopes and plans tend towards starting a mail order business. We would soon exhaust this district, selling on a small scale. I want to reach a wider one. I have found out what takes with the public. Next week I am going to gather together what we have, and move to another town.”
Markham’s face fell. He looked a trifle uneasy.
“Nearer the city?” he asked, in quite an anxious tone.
“No, nearly a hundred and fifty miles north of here. The fact is, Markham, I am going to move to Pleasantville. I have some rare, royal friends there. Two of them, Darry and Bob Haven, are in the printing business. They own and publish a weekly newspaper. They can help me immensely. Then there is a mightier reason, too, for locating at Pleasantville.”
“What’s that, Frank?” asked the interested Markham.
“A man named Dawes runs a novelty factory there—makes all kinds of little hardware specialties. It is just the place to manufacture my apple corer, if it is a success. If it is not, I can advertise the list he already manufactures, and get up something else.”
“There’s a good deal of money in those little devices when a fellow gets up the right thing, I suppose?” asked Markham.
“Sure, anything new and handy goes great,” responded Frank. “I have read of a dozen little simple inventions that have made a great fortune for the owners.”
Markham was studiously silent for a few minutes. Then he asked:
“Do they make things in wire at that Pleasantville factory—I mean, do they have the material and machinery to make wire things?”
“If not, they can easily get them,” answered Frank. “Why do you ask, Markham?”
“Well,” said Markham, with a little conscious laugh, “the truth is, I have invented something myself.”
CHAPTER XIV
A MEAN ENEMY
“You have invented something yourself?” repeated Frank, with a good deal of curiosity.
“Yes,” nodded Markham.
“What is it?”
“A puzzle.”
“What kind of a puzzle?” pressed Frank.
“I’ll show it to you,” said Markham, fishing in his pocket. “There it is. I don’t suppose it’s much,” he continued in a deprecating way, “though two or three fellows who saw it said it was quite clever.”
Frank inspected the article his companion now handed him with a good deal of interest. It was roughly made of wire. There was a ring linked into a triangle, and the latter linked onto two other rings. The lower one of these had a link connected with a wire square. Lying loose around this link was a larger ring of wire.
“What’s the puzzle?” inquired Frank, looking over the little device.
“To get that big ring over all the other rings, the little square and the triangle.”
“Oh, I see,” said Frank, working at the device industriously, but finally asking: “Can it be done?”
“Readily—look here,” and Markham, taking the puzzle, deftly slipped the ring over all the obstacles, and then worked it back again into its original place.
“I say, that is mighty clever,” declared Frank. “Show me slower, now. The slip over the triangle is the trick, eh? Good! Markham, that thing would sell like hot cakes.”
“Think so?” asked Markham, seriously.
“I certainly do. If I was started in the mail order business, I wouldn’t hesitate to illustrate and advertise it in my catalogue.”
“Well,” said Markham, “that pleases me, for I can show in a small way my appreciation of all your kindness to me. Frank, I give it to you. If it’s worth patenting, all right. I know it’s original. It’s yours, freely.”
“On royalty—yes,” answered Frank. “I’ll have some nicely finished models made when we get to Pleasantville. We’re getting to be great business men, aren’t we, Markham, talking about patents and royalties? How did you come to make the thing, anyhow?”
“Oh, I was for—for a long time in a place where there was lots of wire,” explained Markham lamely. “I had too much leisure. It bored me. I had to find something to work at to kill time.”
The old gloom that Frank did not like came into the boy’s face as he spoke. Frank drifted off into generalizations on his mail order dreams to lead his mind into more pleasant channels.
There was a great confab at the supper table that evening. Frank told his mother all his plans in detail. She had too much confidence in his good judgment to oppose his wishes.
“I will be glad to get anywhere away from a place where I have seen so much sorrow,” she said. “Besides that, the Haven boys and Bart Stirling and their friends are certainly good friends of yours. Has my son ever told you of the lives he saved at the great fire at the Pleasantville hotel?” Mrs. Ismond asked of Markham.
“Oh, pshaw, mother,” said Frank—“don’t go to lionizing me, now.”
His mother was fondly persistent, however, and Markham, with gleaming eyes, was soon reading a treasured newspaper clipping telling of Frank’s heroic exploit, as already related in detail in “Two Boy Publishers.”
“That’s fine,” he exclaimed with enthusiasm, “and I’m proud to know your son, Mrs. Ismond.”
The next day Frank wrote a report to Mr. Morton about the collections. He returned the unpaid bills with notations as to the condition of each claim, explaining that he was going to move to a distant town, and naming Mr. Buckner as a reliable man to follow up the collections.
Frank saw their lawyer, Mr. Beach. The attorney stated that their suit against Dorsett would not be tried for over a year. He took Mrs. Ismond’s new address, and promised to look out for her interests.
Then Frank arranged to sell off some of their furniture. It took two days to pack up the rest. Tuesday morning early all arrangements had been completed for their removal. They had engaged a freight car to carry their belongings to Pleasantville.
Frank closed up his business with Nelson Cady and the other boys. The old store building was vacated. Markham was to go with them to Pleasantville.
Mrs. Ismond was to spend the day until train time with an old neighbor. Frank and Markham were also invited there to dinner.
They had just finished the meal. Frank was looking over a time-table and telling of a letter he had received from Darry Haven that morning, when there came a thundering knock at the front door.
“Frank,” said Mrs. Ismond, in quite a startled tone, as her hostess opened the front door, “it is that man, Mr. Dorsett.”
“Is the widow Ismond here?” demanded Dorsett’s gruff tones.
“Mrs. Ismond is here, yes,” replied her friend. “Won’t you come in, sir?”
“No,” sneered Dorsett, “short and sweet is my errand.”
“What do you want of my mother, Mr. Dorsett?” demanded Frank, stepping to the open doorway.
“Oh, you’re here, are you?” snarled Dorsett.
“Frank, do not have any words with him,” spoke Mrs. Ismond, hastening to her son’s side.
Dorsett stood outside. With him was a low-browed fellow whom Frank recognized as a chronic hanger-on about the village justice’s place.
“I’ve come—with my deputy and witness, ma’am,” announced Dorsett, “to inform you that I have learned that you are about to leave town.”
“Yes, that is correct,” answered Mrs. Ismond.
“Very well, then here,” and he produced a legal-looking slip of paper, “is a little bill you will have to settle first.”
“We owe you nothing that I am aware of,” said Mrs. Ismond.
“Mistake,” snapped Dorsett. “When I sued on my claim to your homestead, I entered judgment against you for the costs of court. There’s the amount—fifty-seven dollars.”
“And not satisfied with robbing me of my home and my income, in fact everything I had in the world, you have the heartlessness to press such a claim as this at such a time?” asked Mrs. Ismond bitterly.
“Law is law,” prated the mean old usurer.
“Why have you never mentioned this before?” demanded Frank, his eyes flashing dangerously.
“Because, you insolent young snip,” retorted old Dorsett, “I wanted to pay you off for some of your fine airs.”
“Well, Mr. Dorsett,” said Mrs. Ismond, “I shall contest this unjust claim.”
“All right,” jeered Dorsett, retreating down the steps, and beckoning to his companion, “then within thirty minutes I’ll put an embargo on your leaving the county until I have my money, according to law.”
Mrs. Ismond sunk to a chair quite pale and distressed.
“Frank,” she gasped in a frightened way, “what is he going to do?”
“Some mean trick, be sure of that,” said Frank. “Mother, I’ll stay here ten years but I will never pay that outrageous claim.”
“Be assured I would never let you,” replied his mother, firmly.
“I wish I knew what he was up to?” murmured Frank in a troubled way.
“Leave that for me to find out for you,” said Markham briskly, bolting from the house like a shot.
CHAPTER XV
A PIECE OF CHALK
Frank Newton had said that Markham was a first-class peddler. If he had followed his young friend as he darted from the house, he would also have noted him quite a proficient amateur detective.
Markham looked down the street after the retreating figures of old Dorsett and his companion. He saw they were bound for the business centre of the town. He cut down an alley, and heading them off allowed them to pass him by and quietly followed on their trail.
When they went up into a building occupied as offices for a justice of the peace and lawyers, Markham in a few moments trailed after them.
Loitering about the hall, he could watch them conversing with a village magistrate at his desk. The latter consulted a copy of the statutes, expounded some point under discussion, and finally filled out several legal blanks.
Markham was industriously reading the notices tacked to the justice’s bulletin board outside of his office door, as Dorsett came out of the room.
“Hold on, Sherry,” he said to his companion. “I’ll settle with you now.”
“All right, governor,” bobbed the man.
“You are deputized to serve these papers. Don’t get them mixed. Got any tacks?”
“I’ll get some all right.”
“Very well. When you have disposed of the first two documents, serve the last one on Mrs. Ismond, see?”
“Sure, I see, governor—ah, and glad to see this five-dollar bill. First one I’ve seen, in fact, for an age.”
“When you’re all through, report to me.”
“I will, governor.”
They kept together till they reached the street. Arrived there, Dorsett went one way, his hireling another.
Markham put after the latter, who was so elated over the possession of money that he chuckled and swung along the street with a great air of importance and enjoyment.
The man Sherry went straight to the railway depot. Markham, looking in through one of its windows, saw him approach the station agent. To him Sherry read one of the documents and came out again.
The second day of Markham’s residence in Greenville, he had done quite an heroic act. It had made the railroad men his friends. One of their number had celebrated pay day too freely. He had stumbled across a track.
Markham had run at the top of his speed, and had even risked life and limb to reach him in time to drag him out of the way of a freight train backing down upon him.
“Mr. Young,” said Markham, running into the depot by one side door as Sherry left it by another, “you remember me?”
“Sure, I do. How are you?” said the depot master heartily.
“I’m worried to death to find out what that man who was just here is up to,” said Markham, hurriedly.
“Up to? Down to, you mean,” flared out Young. “He’s served a paper on me as the representative of the railway company, notifying me that we are to hold the car containing Mrs. Ismond’s furniture until the matter of a debt she owes old Dorsett is settled in court.”
“Mrs. Ismond does not rightfully owe him a cent,” asserted Markham. “It’s a mean, malicious trick of the old reprobate to persecute my friend, Frank Newton. Can they stop the car?”
The station agent shrugged his shoulders dubiously.
“They won’t get any help from me,” he said. “That man asked me where the car was. I told him to find out—I wasn’t hunting for it. I’d like nothing better than to delay him for two hours. By five o’clock the north freights will have left the yards. Once out of the county, that furniture would be safe.”
“Thank you,” said Markham. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He ran out of the depot forthwith. Sherry had crossed the road. Markham saw him coming out of one of the taverns lining the street in that immediate vicinity.
Sherry had one or two men with him with whom he had evidently been treating. They walked along with him until they reached another haunt of the same class, and went in there.
Markham got in a doorway near the entrance to the place. In a few minutes Sherry came out to the street.
He had his hat stuck back and his head up by this time, and was officious and blatant in his manner.
“I’d like to stay with you, boys,” he announced. “Join you later. Got a big responsibility on my shoulders just now.”
“That so?” smirked one of the hangers on.
“You bet. See that paper?” and Sherry produced a document.
“We see it.”
“I can tie up the whole railroad system here if I want to,” he bragged.
Markham hurried off in the direction of the freight tracks. There was a wide crossing where the sidings began. A flagman guarded this. Markham ran up to him. This man, as he knew, was a brother of the railroader he had saved from being run over by the freight train.
“Mr. Boyce,” said Markham, “will you do me a favor?”
“Sure, will I,” cried the flagman. “We’re a whole family of friends to you, boy.”
“All right. Have you got a piece of chalk—the kind they use for marking on the cars?”
“Dozens of it. Here’s a handful, my hearty,” and the flagman darted into the little shanty and out again with a fistful of great chunks of chalk.
“All right,” said Markham, selecting a piece. “Now then, do you see that man coming down the track?”
“Yes,” nodded the flagman.
“He will ask you about the out freights, maybe about some particular car. It’s the car holding Frank Newton’s furniture that he’s after—their household goods they’re shipping to Pleasantville.”
“Aha,” nodded Boyce.
“I will be in sight,” went on Markham, rapidly. “Point me out to him. Say I can tell him, will you?”
“But what for—no, that’s all right. I will, I will,” pledged the flagman.
Markham ran down a siding. He was busy about a certain car for a few minutes. As, after interviewing the flagman, Sherry came that way, he discovered Markham seated on top of a locked box car idly kicking his heels against its side.
“Hey, hello,” hailed Sherry—“this the out freights?”
“How should I know?” muttered Markham.
“Oh, I know you. You’re the fellow who trains with young Newton. Of course you’d be here, and of course this is the car. Yes,” decided Sherry, scanning its side. “Sure. Here’s the destination marked in chalk.”
Sherry read the sprawling writing: “7-23, Pleasantville,” marked across the locked door of the car, and pulled out a document.
“That’s the way we do it,” he said in a boastful chuckle, picking up a coupling pin and using it to hammer some tacks through the paper. “There you are. In the name of the law this car seized in transit, ipse dixit, e pluribus unum, according to the statoots therein pervided. Quite a lawyer, hey? Boy, it’s a life sentence to tamper with that car till the judge says move her.”
“It is?” said Markham, tranquilly.
The big braggart swaggered away. Markham jumped down, watched him out of sight, jumped up and cracked his heels together. Then with his handkerchief he rubbed off the destination mark that had deluded old Dorsett’s boisterous and self-important emissary.
Then Markham chuckled as he glanced at the document tacked to the car door. He now moved over to a line of made-up freights on another track. He lingered in their vicinity for over an hour.
When he had seen an engine run on a caboose and then switch to the head of the train, Markham, with a good deal of complacency in his face, started back to join his friends.
As he neared the house where he had left Mrs. Ismond and Frank, he noticed a man leave the place. It was Sherry.
“All right,” announced Markham, breaking in upon his friends a moment later. “I’ve found out what old Dorsett is up to.”
“Yes, so have we,” answered Frank, who stood by the side of his mother, who was looking down dejectedly. “They have just notified us that the car containing our furniture is attached.”
“That so?” said Markham, with a broad smile. “Well, what are you going to do, Frank?”
“We can’t leave Greenville, that’s all,” said Frank, with a sigh. “Mother, I’ll go down to the station and get the money back for our tickets.”
“Hold on,” cried Markham, “you won’t do any such thing. How soon does that train leave, Frank?”
“In half an hour.”
“Well, get your traps together. You’re going to take that train all right.”
“Why, what are you talking about?” demanded Frank, staring at Markham in wonder.
“I mean that fellow who was just here has made a mess of it,” said Markham. “He’s attached a car all right, but not your car.”
“What?”
“No, sir-ree! Your car, my dear Frank, I am happy to tell you, is by this time twenty miles over the county line whirling on its way to Pleasantville. Hip, hip, hurrah!”
“See here, Markham,” said Frank, seriously, seizing his friend’s arm in an endeavor to cure his jubilant antics. “What have you been up to.”
“Me? Nothing,” declared Markham, assuming the vacant bumpkin look he expressed so well when he gave a character delineation. “It’s old Dorsett’s emissary who was up to something—up to the wrong car, see? He has tacked that attachment notice onto a poor innocent old car filled with ballasting cinders. Never mind now. I’ll tell you later. Don’t miss the train, Frank.”
There were hurried good-byes to their kind-hearted neighbor. Frank and Markham, each carrying two satchels, piloted Mrs. Ismond to the railroad station.
Just as the train came in from the south a man drove past the depot platform. He drew up his horse with a jerk. It was Dorsett.
He stared in amazement at the departing trio. Then suddenly, as if suspecting some trick, he got out of his gig and hurried across to the train.
Frank had got his mother to a comfortable seat. The coach window was open.
“You leave at your peril, widow Ismond,” shouted Dorsett. “That stuff of yours is attached. We’ve stopped the freight car, and—”
“All aboard!” sang out the conductor.
“Hold on, stop—zounds!” yelled Dorsett at the top of his voice.
He was lifted from his feet suddenly. Some one rushing down the platform at cyclone speed had collided with him.
It was Nelson Cady. He was hatless, his hair flying in the wind, his whole appearance that of fearful excitement.
“Say, conductor,” he panted out breathlessly. “Three people just got on the train—where are they? Must see Frank Newton!”
“Hi, there, Nelson,” hailed Frank, waving his hand through the open coach window.
“Oh, jolly!” shouted Nelson, keeping on a run with the moving train. “See Frank!”
Nelson tugged at his pocket. He pulled out a white, fluttering sheet of paper.
“Frank, Frank,” his excited tones rang out after the vanishing train—“I’ve got my letter at last!”
CHAPTER XVI
“FRANK’S MAIL ORDER HOUSE”
“Gentlemen, you embarrass me.”
“Hear! hear!”
“I may say, I am overwhelmed—overpowered—”
“Good! Get over it, and give us a speech.”
“No, a toast first. ‘Frank’s Mail Order House.’ Stet, fill up the sparking glasses once more.”
“Hip, hurrah! Success to Frank Newton and his new business venture.”
A merry friendly party was gathered about a long folding table in the middle of a spacious room. There were seven of them, and they were having a jolly good time. An acceptable lunch graced the banqueting board. Attired in a neat waiter’s apron and entering heart and soul into the enjoyment of the occasion, Stet, general utility boy for Haven Bros., helped the guests from a great pail of ice cold lemonade, and made himself generally useful about the table.
This was Pleasantville, where Frank Newton, his mother, and Markham had arrived just one week previous. The room in which Frank’s friends were giving him a welcome was located on the lower floor of the old building that Haven Bros. had transformed into a print shop in their early amateur publishing career.
Long since the firm of Haven Bros. had risen to the dignity of occupying quarters right next to the Eagle, on the main street of the village.
They had a lease of the old quarters, however. When Frank came again upon the scene a joint committee of his loyal friends had met in executive session to see what they could do to put him on his feet.
This old structure stood back from the street, but had a pleasing lawn and flower beds on either side of the broad walk approaching it. The building was just off the principal Pleasantville thoroughfare.
There were two large rooms on the lower floor and a spacious store room above. The Havens and Bart Stirling had fitted up one of the lower rooms as an office. Bob Haven had donated a desk and several chairs. His brother Darry had put in a table and a file cabinet. Bart had furnished a neat rug. That evening they had gone to the cottage which Mrs. Ismond had rented, and had led Frank over to this little surprise party, comprising themselves, Jim Dunlap, an old printer, and Baker Mills, also an employe of the Herald.
Markham was somewhat reticent at first, but he soon warmed up in response to the free and hearty spirits surrounding him.
He was immensely interested as the crowd began to chat on experiences. The story of how Bart Stirling had risen from a “sub” in a little express office to assistant manager of a large office, as already related in “The Young Express Agent,” was particularly fine to his way of thinking.
The career of the Havens was quite as remarkable. They now ran the leading weekly newspaper in Pleasantville, and had a job printing business that employed two men besides themselves.
Stet, the boy they had rescued from hard usage and extortion at the hands of their rival, Jasper Mackey, publisher of the Pleasantville Eagle, had become a valued fixture with them.
Mrs. Haven, who furnished fashion plates for some city magazines, got up an original pen and ink sketch for the Herald each week. The Haven boys were generally conceded to get out the most readable weekly newspaper in that section of the state.
“I declare,” said Frank, with a grateful and a gratified look about the place, “you fellows have just about equipped me for business.”
“Oh, not yet,” said Bob Haven. “My sister is away for a month, and I have arranged to loan you her typewriter till you can afford to get one of your own.”
“Say,” broke in Markham, eagerly, “I’m just at home on that machine.”
“Good for you,” approved Bob. “Then there’s a painter, here owes us a bill for printing he never could pay in cash. He’s painting a neat gold-lettered sign for the front of your place. ‘Frank’s Mail Order House.’”
“Yes,” put in Darry, “and I’ve dug out of storage an upright showcase we took for a debt. It’s got twelve glass shelves. Set it up at the edge of the walk with samples of the various articles you are going to sell, and I’ll warrant many farmer groups coming to town will drop in to look around and invest.”
“This is simply immense,” said Frank. “I’m just bursting with vanity, or self-importance, or ambition, or something of that sort.”
He briefly outlined his plans to his friends. Frank had only that day held a two hours’ consultation with John Dawes, who owned the novelty works at the edge of the town.
Dawes made a specialty of manufacturing light hardware specialties. His own list embraced over two hundred articles, ranging from pocket rules to tool chests. He supplied a great many mail order people all over the country, and told Frank he would be glad to encourage a local institution.
“He has given me as low a rate as any customer he has on his books, he says,” reported Frank. “Besides that, being directly on the spot, I save the freight charges, you see.”
“Good,” said Bart Stirling, “you’ve struck the right location, sure.”
“Mr. Dawes is going to make my apple corer and a puzzle belonging to Markham,” said Frank. “Then I have made arrangements with a dozen large city supply houses. I am going to push that harmless comical novelty, the false moustache wrinkle. I have also ordered quite a line of cheap jewelry, especially initial cuff buttons and friendship and birthday rings. I can sell at one dollar and a half a solid gold birthday ring that retailers everywhere mark at three dollars as a minimum price. Soon as I get onto all the ropes, I intend to reach out for class and fraternity emblem trade, selling on sample, and having the goods made by a city jewelry manufacturer.”
“That’s it,” suddenly broke in Bob Haven to Markham, who had carelessly slipped on one of the false moustaches in question. “Heard about your talent as an entertainer.”
“Yes, give us a round, Markham,” suggested Bart.
Markham got up on a chair, put on Stet’s cap, applied goatee and false teeth, and soon had the audience screaming with hilarity over a very creatable representation of a stranded actor giving a monologue in a country grocery store.
The party broke up with congratulatory hand shakes and all kind of good wishes for the success of Frank’s new business enterprise.
When Bart and the others had gone, Frank and Markham looked about their business quarters with a proud air of satisfaction and comfort.
“I tell you, Frank, those fellows are royal good friends of yours,” spoke Markham.
“Yes,” said Frank with real emotion, “they have indeed given me the lift they promised me. We are of poor business material, indeed, if we cannot make this fine beginning lead to a grand success. Now then, for a genuine start in the morning. If you will act as typewriter till we can afford to hire one, I will fold a batch of our first circulars.”
“Sure, I will,” said Markham readily.
Bob Haven had brought a thousand circulars just off the press. Haven Bros. were to do all the printing for the mail order business. Mrs. Haven had made several sketches, little inch squares, showing the false moustache outfit, the wire puzzle, the initial jewelry and several other minor specialties. Below followed a list of nearly fifty articles, of which Frank had a small stock on hand and could replenish on short order from city supply houses with which he had made a definite arrangement.
The two boys spread out one of the mailing lists Frank had got from the salvage stock. Four boxes containing a thousand envelopes were placed ready beside the printed circulars. Frank put out the lights and locked the office door with the care of a miser securing his treasure.
Markham routed Frank out of bed at five o’clock the next morning. They arrived at the office by six. Somewhere Markham had learned the typewriter perfectly. By four o’clock in the afternoon the thousand circulars were all folded, and the thousand envelopes all addressed and stamped.
“Why, hello, my young friends,” hailed the village postmaster cheerily, as this big mail was deposited on the stamp table. “If you keep this up, you’ll soon have this promoted to a second-class post office.”
Frank wound up the day’s labor by polishing up the show case Darry Haven had sent around that afternoon. They fitted up its glass shelves with samples of the goods they advertised. They got a staunch iron standard to support the case, and screwed this securely to the walk just at the edge of the street.
“We’ll work to-morrow morning on our catalogue and the advertising Darry Haven is going to place for us,” said Frank, as they left for home that evening.
“Don’t go in too deep at first, Frank,” suggested Markham.
“No, I have formulated a definite system,” declared Frank, “and I shall try to stick to it. You see, I left Greenville with about two hundred dollars. It has taken about fifty of that to get mother settled here, and incidental expenses. Then I have your twenty-five dollars you insist on leaving in trust with me. I have put fifty dollars aside for preliminary printing and some advertising in county papers Darry is going to get cheap for me. If returns are favorable I shall print a small catalogue, and put just half of our profits back into circularizing and advertising as fast as the money comes in.”
They had barely settled down to work the next morning when two schoolboys put in an appearance. One wanted to buy a “Twelve Tools in One” specialty as marked in the show case at twenty-five cents. The other produced a dime for a set of the false teeth.
“Profits fifteen cents and a-half to date,” cried Markham gaily, as their first customers departed. “Those little fellows will spread our fame.”
“When we get into full running order this local trade will be a nuisance to us,” declared Markham towards noon.
In fact, he was kept on the jump attending to local customers all the morning. A raw young farmer had come in to blushingly buy a friendship ring. Several curious townspeople strolled to the office door, and out of good nature invested in various knickknacks displayed. One boy bought a false moustache, and within an hour twenty others visited the place clamoring for duplicates.
“About to-morrow the answers to our circulars will begin to come in,” observed Markham. “That will be the real test of the merit of this business.”
“We will close up for the afternoon,” said Frank. “There’s a lot of little things to do about the house and lot mother has rented. I promised she should have our help for half a day.”