Frank had some odd chores to do about the village. When he came home again about six o’clock he found Gregson refreshed-looking and comfortably seated in the parlor reading a book.
They had a pleasant time at the supper table. Then they adjourned to the cozy little sitting-room. Christmas was allowed to stay in the house, and seemed to enjoy the animated ways of the balloonist as much as the others.
Park Gregson fairly fascinated them with the story of his travels and adventures in many countries.
“You see, I have been quite a rolling stone, Mrs. Ismond,” he said. “A harmless one, though.”
“Have you never thought of settling down to some regular occupation, sir?” suggested Frank’s mother.
“It’s not in me, madam, I fear,” declared the knockaround. “I did try it once, for a fact. Yes, I actually went into business.”
“What was the line, Mr. Gregson?” asked Frank.
“Mail order business.”
Frank showed by the expression of his face that the balloonist had struck a theme of great interest to him.
“I had a partner,” went on Gregson. “We advertised and sold sets of rubber finger tips to protect the hands of housewives when working about the house.”
“Was it a success?” inquired Frank.
“It was great—famous. The orders just rolled in. We made money hand over fist and spent it like water. One day, though, there came a stop to it all. A lawyer served an injunction on us. It seemed that the device was a French invention patented in this country. My partner sloped with most of the funds, leaving me stranded. All the same, it’s a great business—the mail order line.”
For over an hour Frank kept their guest busy answering a hundred earnest questions as to all the details of the mail order business.
When Gregson had retired for the night Frank sat silent and thoughtful in the company of his mother. Finally he said.
“Mother, Mr. Gregson’s talk has done me a lot of good.”
“I saw you were very much interested,” remarked Mrs. Ismond.
“Interested!” repeated Frank with vim, unable to control his restless spirit and getting up and pacing the room to and fro—“I am simply wild to go deeper into this mail order business. Why, it looks plain as day to me—the way to begin it—the way to exploit it—the way to make a great big success of it. He says that little metal novelties of the household kind take the best. I was just thinking: there’s a hardware novelties factory right on the spot at Pleasantville, and—Down, Christmas, down!”
The dog had interrupted Frank with a low growl. Then, before Frank could deter him, the animal flew at the open window of the sitting-room.
Frank seized Christmas by the collar, just as the animal was aiming to leap clear through it to the garden outside.
“Why, what is the matter, Christmas?” spoke Mrs. Ismond, arising to her feet in some surprise.
Just then a frightful shriek rang out from under the open window, accompanied by the frantic words:
“Help, murder, help—I’m nearly killed!”
CHAPTER VI
“MAIL ORDER FRANK”
At the outcry from beyond the window of the little sitting-room, the dog, Christmas, became fairly frantic. Seizing him by the collar, however, Frank gave him a stern word. Wont to obey, the animal retreated to one side of the room, but still growling, and his fur bristling.
Frank instantly caught up the lamp from the table and carried it to the window. His mother peered out in a startled way at the scene now illuminated without.
“Why, it is Mr. Dorsett!” she exclaimed.
“As I expected,” said Frank, quietly.
“Frank,” murmured his mother, anxiously, “what have you been doing?”
“Preparing for eavesdroppers—and sneaks. Caught one first set of the trap, it seems,” responded Frank in clear, loud tones.
The captured lurker was indeed Dorsett. He was panting and infuriated. One foot was held imprisoned in a wooden spring clamp chained to a log in a hole in the ground. This aperture had been covered with light pieces of sod which Dorsett was pushing aside with his cane, while he continued to groan with pain.
The lamplight enabled him to discern more clearly the trap that had caught him. He managed to pull one side of the contrivance loose and got his foot free.
Wincing with pain and limping, he came closer to the window, boiling with rage.
“So you did it, and boast of it, do you?” he howled at Frank.
“I did and do,” answered Frank calmly. “This is our home, Mr. Dorsett, not a public highway.”
Dorsett uttered a terrific snort of rage. He brandished his cane, struck out with it, and its end went through the panes of both the upper and the raised lower sash.
Frank receded a step, unhurt, with the words:
“Very well. You will pay for that damage, I suppose you know. You will get no further rent until you repair it.”
“Rent!” roared the frenzied Dorsett. “You’ll never pay me rent again. I’ll show you. Tenants at will, ha! Can’t stroll around my own property, hey? Why, I’ll—I’ll crush you.”
“Mr. Dorsett,” spoke up the widow in a dignified tone, “it is true this is your property, but you have no right to spy upon us. You took away our dog—”
“Who says so—who says so?” shouted the infuriated man.
“Christmas himself will say so in an unmistakable manner if I let him loose at you,” answered Frank. “The poundmaster at Riverton might be a credible witness, also.”
“You’ll pay for this, oh, but you’ll pay for this!” snarled the wretched old man as he limped away to the street.
Mrs. Ismond sank to a chair, quite pale and agitated over the disturbing incident of the moment.
“Frank,” she said in a fluttering tone, “that man alarms me. It makes me uneasy to think he is lurking about us all the time. I am unhappy to think we are subject to his caprices, where once he owned the property.”
“We own it yet, by rights,” declared Frank. “Some day I may prove it to Dorsett. But do not worry, mother. You must have guessed from my interest in what Mr. Gregson said to-night, that I believe there is something for me in this mail order idea. I have not yet formed my plans, but I am going to get into business for myself.”
The boy heard their guest stirring about up stairs, probably aroused by the window smashing. He reassured Gregson and went to bed himself.
Frank lay awake until nearly midnight thinking over all that Gregson had told him. He went mentally through every phase of the mail order idea that he knew anything about.
When Frank finally fell asleep it was to dream of starting in business for himself. At broad daylight he was in a big factory which his own endeavors had built up. Around him were his busy employes nailing up great boxes of merchandise ordered from all parts of the country.
The sound of the hammers seemed still echoing in his ears as he was aroused by the voice of his mother from her own room.
“Frank! Frank!” she called.
“Yes, mother,” he answered, springing out of bed.
“Some one is knocking at the front door.”
“Knocking?” repeated Frank, hurrying into his clothes. “That’s no knocking, it sounds more like hammering.”
Christmas was barking furiously. The hammering had ceased by the time Frank had got down the stairs and to the front door. He unlocked it quickly.
At the end of the graveled walk, just turning into the street was old Dorsett. He waved a hammer in his hand malignantly as he noticed Frank.
“We’ll see if I am to have free range of my own premises,” he shouted. “Young man, you get your traps out of here within the time limit of the law, or I’ll throw you into the street, bag and baggage.”
Frank saw that Dorsett had just nailed a square white sheet of paper across the door panel. He stood reading it over as his mother came out onto the porch.
“Was that Mr. Dorsett, Frank?” she inquired.
“Yes, some more of his friendly work.”
“What is it, Frank?”
“A five-days’ notice to quit,” answered Frank.
Mrs. Ismond scanned the legal document with a pale and troubled face. Frank affected unconcern and indifference.
“Don’t let that worry you, mother,” he said, leading her back into the house.
“But, Frank, he can put us out!”
“If we stay to let him, probably. The law he has invoked to rob us, may also enable him to evict us, mother, but he won’t win in the end. You say you dislike the place. Very well, we will move.”
“But where to, Frank?”
“This isn’t the only house in Greenville, is it, mother?” asked Frank, smiling reassuringly. “What’s more, Greenville isn’t the only town in creation. Stop your fretting, now. I’ve got a grand plan, and I am sure to carry it out. Just leave everything to me. My head is just bursting with all the ideas that interesting balloonist has put into it. Why, mother, if I can only get a start, if I can get hold of a few novelties and do a little advertising—”
“Oh, Frank, it takes money to do all that!”
“And brains. Mostly brains and industry, Mr. Gregson says. Mother, now or soon, here, at Greenville or somewhere else, I am determined to give the mail order idea a trial.”
“Mail order, Frank?”
“Capital! excellent!” cried Frank with enthusiasm. “Why, mother, you have suggested the very catchy name. I will use to advertise by—‘Mail Order Frank’!”
CHAPTER VII
STRICTLY BUSINESS
The balloonist, Park Gregson, needed rest after his strenuous experience of the previous day, so Frank did not disturb him. He and his mother had their breakfast together, then Frank started out on his usual daily round of duties.
He did his chores about the house. Then he went down to the eight o’clock train to get a bundle of daily newspapers from the city. These he delivered to his regular customers. At nine o’clock he went to the office of Mr. Beach, the lawyer.
Frank was informed by the attorney’s clerk that Mr. Beach had left Greenville to see a distant client. He would not be back for two days.
“I need somebody’s advice about this five-day notice of Mr. Dorsett,” reflected Frank, and proceeded to visit the insurance man, Mr. Buckner.
“Good!” exclaimed the latter briskly, as Frank put in an appearance, “I was just about to send for you.”
“To send for me?” repeated Frank.
“Yes, I told you that you might expect some further business commissions from me, you remember?”
“Yes, Mr. Buckner.”
“Well, they have materialized. Can you give me your time unrestrictedly for a week or ten days?”
“Why—yes, I think so,” answered Frank, but somewhat slowly, for he thought of their family complications.
Mr. Buckner was a keen-witted man. He read something under the surface in Frank’s hesitancy.
“Something troubling you, Frank?” he suggested.
“Oh, nothing serious, Mr. Buckner. It seems we have offended Mr. Dorsett. He is our landlord. He has ordered us to leave the house we rent from him within five days.”
“Hum, the old curmudgeon! His house! I wonder whose it would be if some of his clever rascality was investigated?”
“Well, I suppose we have got to go,” said Frank. “He is ugly and determined.”
“Oh, that difficulty can be easily solved,” declared Mr. Buckner, lightly. “You know the vacant store front on Cedar street? I am agent for that property, owner a non-resident. There are five nice, comfortable living rooms upstairs. It’s only two blocks’ move for you. If it suits you, make the move. You need pay no rent until you decide where you wish to locate permanently.”
“You are very kind,” said Frank.
“Why—never thought of it!” exclaimed Mr. Buckner, with new animation of manner and voice. “The very thing, it exactly fits!”
“What do you mean?” inquired Frank.
“Sit down, and I’ll explain. You took a check yesterday to pay for some salvage at a fire at Riverton.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.
“I notified my client last night by telegraph of our success. He’s a Lancaster man, in the hardware line. He ran up to Greenville last evening to see me. It seems that Morton, the man burned out at Riverton, was also in the hardware line. Everything he had was burned up in the fire. When they came to clear the wreck, they found all the metal stock he carried massed in among the ashes in the cellar. The insurance company had it put in big packing cases. It was all mixed up, some of the stock damaged entirely. My client, however, decided that it might net him a profit on the two hundred dollars he paid for it.”
“I see,” said Frank.
“What he has engaged me to do, is to go or send to Riverton and get the stuff carted over here. Then he wants the rubbish gone over, and the good stuff selected and sorted out. It seems that Morton had been neglecting his regular hardware business for some time. He invented an apple corer that wouldn’t core very well. He bought a lot of little stuff, such as initial buttons, needles and the like, and was trying to get into the mail order business, when the fire came along.”
“The mail order business?” said Frank in a quick breath.
“Yes. Now he’s going to take his insurance money and buy an interest in some publishing business in the city. Well, you can see that a little time and care may result in picking out quite a lot of really valuable stuff from the mass, brushing it up and all that.”
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank.
“We can store the plunder in the Cedar Street building. You take charge of it, hire what help you need, and I’ll divide with you what I charge my client for my services. Pretty liberal, ain’t I now, Frank?” asked Mr. Buckner, with a smile. “You doing all the work, and me getting a full half of the pay.”
“Yes, but you are the directing genius of the affair, you know,” suggested Frank pleasantly.
“Oh, I can direct all right, if you will do the hustling,” laughed the insurance man. “Settled, is it? All right. My client thinks it will take a week or ten days to sort the stuff into some kind of shape. He’ll be here to inspect progress next Saturday. You make your arrangements, and draw five dollars a day.”
Frank was quite stunned at the munificent offer.
“I trust you implicitly, Frank,” went on his kind friend. “Here is a letter to the custodian of the property at Riverton, and here is twenty dollars to carry around with you to meet any expense that may come up. Hire the moving teams as cheaply as you can, store the boxes at the Cedar Street place. I leave the details entirely to you. When can you start in?”
“Right now,” replied Frank promptly.
“All right, get into action.”
Frank was proud and pleased as he hurried back home. He did not let the grass grow under his feet, but neither did he go off in a wild tangent that might disorder things. He was all business and system.
First, he reported to his mother. They decided to move at once. Then he sought out Nelson Cady, a close chum, and commissioned him to look after his evening paper route and other odd jobs he did daily. Frank decided he could save money by hiring home talent to do the moving of the salvage stuff. He was not much acquainted at Riverton. The teamsters there might be extortionate, as it was a double trip for the wagons.
Within an hour’s time Frank had made an excellent bargain, and all interested were duly satisfied with the arrangement. An honest old negro named Eben Johnson, who carted ashes and other refuse for the town, was not doing much that especial day. He agreed to lease his two teams and one driver for twelve hours for seven dollars and the keep of man and horses.
Frank knew he could make no more economical arrangement than this. By eleven o’clock he was on the way to Riverton, acting himself as driver of one of the teams.
The driver of the other team was a good-natured though rather shiftless fellow, named Boyle. When they reached Riverton, Frank took him to a restaurant, gave him the best meal he had ever eaten, and made the fellow his friend for life. The horses were given a first class feed and a good rest.
Frank found he had to handle eight immense packing cases and one zinc box. This latter was full of books and papers. These went to the purchaser, it seemed, along with the “good will” of the business.
The eight packing cases were tremendously heavy. A glance at their contents showed Frank a confused jumble. There were hammers and hatchets with their handles burned off, saws and chisels, blackened, and some of them burned out of shape by the fire. There were nails, tacks, hinges, keys, door knobs, in fact a confusing mass of mixed hardware of every description.
Frank and his man could not handle four of the cases alone. The lad had to hire a couple of men to help them load these onto the wagons. As they got all ready to start for home, the custodian came up with a little wizened man with a Jewish cast of countenance, and introduced him as Mr. Moss.
“There’s a lot of junk not worth carting away over at the ruins,” explained the custodian to Frank. “This man wants to buy it.”
“All right,” said Frank, “let him make an offer.”
“Mein frient, two dollars would be highway robbery for dot oldt stuff,” asserted the junk dealer, with a characteristic shrug of his shoulders.
“Is that your offer, Mr. Moss?” asked Frank in a business-like tone.
“I vill gif it chust to spite oldt Isaacs, my combetitor,” declared Moss.
“Well, we will go and take a look at the stuff,” said Frank.
“Mein frient, dot vos useless,” insisted Moss. “Time ish monish. Tree tollars!”
“No,” said Frank definitely. “I always calculate to know what I’m about.”
He left the wagons, and accompanied by Moss soon reached the blackened ruins of the hardware store.
Just as they arrived there, a shrewd-faced little urchin approaching them halted, and gave both a keen look.
“Hoo!” he yelled—“I must tell vader!”
Moss threw his cane after the disappearing urchin, and looked perturbed and anxious.
“Dot vos de stuff,” he explained, pointing out two cindery piles back of the ruins.
“Why,” said Frank, poking in and out among the debris, “there is quite a heap of it.”
“Ashes, mein frient, ashes,” suavely observed the junk dealer.
“Not at all,” retorted Frank. “Here is a stove, all but the top. Here are a lot of hoes and rakes, twisted a little, but not entirely worthless. Both heaps are nearly all solid metal. There must be over a ton of iron here.”
“Four tollars—I tell you vot I do: four tollars,” said Moss fervently.
Frank shook his head and continued to look calculatingly at the blackened heaps.
“Five tollars,” spoke Moss with sudden unction. “Mein tear younug frient—cash. Say nodings. Dere vos de monish.”
But Frank looked resolutely away from the bank note tendered as a near shout rang out.
A stout, clumsy man had come lumbering around the corner at his best gait, in a frantic state of excitement.
He was in his shirt sleeves, drenched with perspiration and waving his arms wildly. Beside him ran the urchin Frank had before noticed. It was apparent that he had succeeded in satisfying his father that a sale of the fire debris was on.
“Mishter, Mishter,” he called, “it is Ezekiels Isaacs. I vill puy de goods. How mooch is offered?”
“Five dollars so far,” repeated Frank tranquilly.
“Six,” instantly bolted out the newcomer.
“Seven!” snarled Moss.
“Ten tollars,” pronounced the other, pulling out a fat pocketbook.
“Gentlemen,” said Frank. “I have made up my mind. You must start your real bids at double that, or I cannot entertain an offer.”
“Yesh,” cried Moss eagerly—“twenty tollars.”
“Und a kee-varter!” howled his rival.
“Un a hal-luf!”
“Tage it!” roared Moss, waving his cane in impotent rage, and turned away disgusted.
“Of course you gif me four per cent. discount for cash?” demanded the successful bidder.
“Of course I shall not,” dissented Frank. “Shall I call back Mr. Moss? No? Thanks,—that is correct, twenty dollars and fifty cents. Here is a receipt.”
Frank felt that he had closed an exceptionally good sale. Within half-an-hour the wagons were started on their way for Greenville.
CHAPTER VIII
A STEP FORWARD
The return trip took three hours. It was just five o’clock when the wagons drew up in front of the store front building on Cedar Street, in Greenville.
A man whom Mr. Buckner had hired was sweeping out the place. With his aid and that of another helper, the big packing cases were stowed in the main floor room as Frank wanted them.
Frank had just paid off the two outsiders, when the man he had leased the wagons from drove up in a light vehicle. He was all smiles. He looked over the horses and turned to Frank.
“Mistah Newton, sah,” he observed, “the mussiful man am kind to his beast. Ah see dem hosses in good trim, sah, and am obleeged. Sah, you am a good-luck boy. Like to hire you as my manager, sah, ef I had enough money. Ha! Ha!”
“Where does the good luck come in, Mr. Johnson?” inquired Frank smilingly.
“Ah tell you ’bout dat, sah. Logic am logic. Theyfoh, it follows ef I’d gone up to dat no-good, cheap hauling for de lumbah comp’ny I’d been out five dollahs, ’cause you paid me seben, ’sides having de hosses worked to death. Again, sah, de suckamstance am dis: I happened to be in town when a stranger gen’man came ’long and hiahed me to drive him into de woods. Got another gen’man from your house. I helped dem get a b’loon down from a tree, load it on de wagon and took it to de train. One ob de gen’mans knew you ’ticularly, sah.”
“Yes, Mr. Gregson,” murmured Frank. “Did both leave town?”
“Yes, sah, with the b’loon.”
Frank was sorry he had not seen his entertaining acquaintance before he went away. Mr. Johnson continued:
“Rar gen’man, dose, ’specially dat professor. What think, sah? He say: ‘How much am dis exertion on youah part worth, Mistah Johnsing?’ and when I say, ‘Bout eight bits, Mistah Professor,’ he laugh and gib me a five dollah gold piece. And de other gen’man say to me confimadentially: ‘Mistah Johnsing, please tell young Mistah Newton I shall write to him, and when I get making a little money I shall do myself de pleashah of sending him a gold watch and chain, and dat dog of his a gold collah.’ Deed he did, sah.”
Frank laughed pleasantly, believing that “Mistah Johnsing” was romancing a trifle. Then he said: “I believe our contract on the teams was for twelve hours’ service, Mr. Johnson?”
“Dat am correct, sah.”
“If you say so, I will give them a good feed and do our moving from the house to the rooms upstairs here. Of course I will pay your man for the extra labor.”
“Dat am highly satisfact’ry to me, Mistah Newton.”
The two teams were driven over to the cottage and unhitched in front of it. Frank rigged up a convenient feed trough, gave the horses their oats, and invited Boyle to join him at supper.
Frank had talked over the moving question with his mother that morning. He found that she had put in a busy day. All the pictures were removed from the walls and neatly encased in newspapers. The books had been placed in boxes; everything, even to the beds, carried from upstairs.
Notwithstanding all this, Mrs. Ismond spread out an appetizing meal for the two workers.
“Mother, this really won’t do,” remonstrated Frank seriously.
“What won’t do, my son?” asked his mother, smiling.
“Carrying those heavy things down stairs.”
“But I did not do that—at least not all of it,” the widow hastened to say. “Your friend, Nelson Cady, happened along about three o’clock. Nothing would do but he must lend a helping hand. Then his chums found him out. They were soon in service, too.”
Just as Frank finished his supper there were cheery boyish hails outside. Nelson and five of his cohorts animatedly demanded that they become part and parcel in the fun and excitement of moving.
Soon there was a procession carrying various articles to the rooms on Cedar Street. The wagons took the heavy furniture and such like. Just at dark the last had left the cottage. Looking back, Frank saw Mr. Dorsett sneaking into his empty house from the rear.
“He doesn’t look particularly happy, now he has had his own way,” reflected Frank. “I hope mother doesn’t take the change to heart.”
His first question was along that very line, as the last chair was set in place in the new family habitation.
“Sad, Frank?” said his mother—“no, indeed! When we were forced from the old home on the hill a year ago, I was very sorrowful. It is a positive relief now, though, to get out of the shadow of Mr. Dorsett and all belonging to him. It is nice, and home-like and cozy here, and I am sure we shall be very comfortable and happy in our new home.”
Many hands had aided in bestowing the family goods just where Mrs. Ismond wanted them. There was very little tidying up to do half-an-hour after Frank had dismissed the teamster, with a dollar for his extra work.
Then he led a gay procession down the principal village street. They entered a little ice cream parlor, and Frank “treated”—one ice cream and a glass of soda water all around.
“I want to see you, Nelson, as early in the morning as I can,” said Frank, as they separated for the night.
“Business?” inquired Nelson, in a serious way.
“Why, yes. Truth is, I can put some loose change in your pocket, if you care to undertake a ten-days’ job I have in hand.”
Nelson shook his head dubiously, with a very important air.
“Dunno,” he said calculatingly. “You see, I am expecting a letter any day now.”
Frank smiled to himself. Nelson had been “expecting a letter” every day for a year. Every boy in the village knew this, and occasionally guyed and jollied him about it.
Nelson’s great ambition was to become a cowboy. On one occasion he had run away from home, bound for far-away Idaho. He got as far as the city, was nearly starved and half-frozen, and came home meekly the next day.
His father gave him a good, sensible talk. He tried to convince Nelson that he was too young to undertake the rough life of a cowboy. This failing, he agreed that if Nelson would get some respectable stockman in Idaho to ensure him a regular berth for a year, he would let him go west and pay his fare there.
Since then Nelson had spent nearly all the pocket money he could earn writing to people in Idaho, from the Governor down. Nobody seemed to want an inexperienced, home-bred boy to round their stock, however. Still, Nelson kept on hoping and trying.
“I’ll risk your letter coming before your contract with me is finished, Nelson,” said Frank kindly. “About this cowboy business, though—take my advice and that of your good, kind father: don’t waste your best young years just for the sake of novelty and adventure. No ambitious boy can afford it.”
“But I have a longing for the wild ranch life,” said Nelson earnestly.
“All right, then do your duty to those at home, earn a good start here, where you have friends to help you, and begin with a ranch of your own. When I have made enough money, I would like to run a ranch myself. But I want to own it. I want to make a business investment—not fun and frolic—out of it.”
“All right, I’ll be on hand in the morning,” promised Nelson.
“I have been saving a surprise for you, Frank,” said his mother, as he rejoined her about nine o’clock. “What do you think? Your friend, Mr. Gregson, insisted on leaving you twenty-five dollars.”
“Oh, that won’t do at all!” cried Frank instantly.
“The professor, who was with him, insisted that it must. Besides, they left all sorts of kind regards for you.”
Frank’s was a truly grateful heart. It had been a splendid day for him. He took up a lamp and went downstairs, whistling happily.
“There’s a lot of work to do here,” he said, going from box to box, flashing the light across the contents. “There must be a million needles in that packing case. Poor Morton’s apple corer—there’s several thousands of those. And here’s a great jumble of lawn mower repair material.”
Frank stood mapping out how he would handle the mass of stuff. About to leave the room, he set down the lamp and curiously inspected the zinc box that had apparently been the burned-out hardware man’s safe.
It was filled with papers of various kinds: receipted bills, statements of accounts and letters. Many of these latter were from mail customers who had bought the apple corer and were dissatisfied with its operation.
Many of the papers were partly burned away. All were grimed with smoke. Finally from the very bottom of the box Frank fished up a square package. Opening this, he found it to be some part of a mail order office equipment.
Frank’s eye sparkled. There were several sheets of cardboard. On each of them a colored map of a State of the Union was printed. Each town had a hole near it. This was to hold minute wooden pegs of different hues, each color designating “written to,” or “first customer,” or “agent,” and the like.
At a glance Frank took in the value and utility of this outfit. As he drew some typewritten sheets from a big manilla envelope, he grew positively excited at the grand discovery he had made.
“Fifty thousand names!” exclaimed Frank—“possible mail order customers all over the country! Oh, if this outfit were only mine! Can I get it, or its duplicate? Why,” he said, in a fervent, deep-drawn breath, “circumstances seem absolutely pushing me into the mail order business!”
CHAPTER IX
SENSE AND SYSTEM
Frank was up and stirring before six o’clock the next morning. He felt like a person beginning life brand-new again.
When his mother appeared half-an-hour later, she found everything tidied up, including Frank himself, who hurried through a good, hearty breakfast with an important business engagement in view.
“You will excuse me for calling at your home instead of the office,” said Frank to Mr. Buckner, a little later.
“That’s all right, Frank,” declared the insurance man, shaking hands heartily with his early caller. “Time is money, and of course you want to utilize it to the best advantage. Well, what’s the news?”
Frank recited the progress of the day previous. When he came to tell of the sale of the old junk at Riverton, his host laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
“You’ll do, Frank,” he observed with enthusiasm—“decidedly, you’ll do! You got the moving done at just half what I expected to pay, and collected twenty dollars and a half we never knew a word about.”
“Then you want me to go on getting the burned stuff in order, do you?” inquired Frank.
“Certainly—that was all understood, wasn’t it? I’ll try and drop around to-day or to-morrow and take a look at the plunder, just out of curiosity. As to getting it in shape for my client’s inspection, I leave that in your able charge exclusively.”
“Thank you,” said Frank.
Nelson Cady was piping a cheery whistle in front of the store when Frank got home.
“Got no letter yet,” he announced in his old important way, “so I reckon I can give you a lift, Frank.”
“Good for you,” commended Frank. “You know how to work all right when you want to, Nelson.”
Frank unlocked the store door with a proud sense of proprietorship. Both entered the long, rambling room.
“Now then, Nelson,” said Frank, “I offer you ten cents an hour, and make you superintendent of the little plant here.”
“What am I expected to superintend?” asked Nelson.
“Did you notify any of the boys?”
“Oh, yes—I could get an army of them, if needed.”
“I think about half-a-dozen will answer,” said Frank.
“They’ll be here shortly all right,” responded Nelson. “It’s vacation, and—there’s the first arrival now.”
A curly-pated, eager-faced little urchin popped in through the open doorway.
“Hey, Nelse, am I early enough?” he asked anxiously.
“Five cents an hour,” announced Frank, with a welcoming smile.
“Oh, my!” cried the little fellow—“five times twenty-four is, let me see—a naught and two to carry, a dollar and twenty cents. Whoop!”
“Here, here, you don’t suppose we’re going to work all day and all night, too, do you?” said Nelson. “Eight hours will tire you out soon enough.”
“Forty cents a day, then,” cried the little fellow. “Say, I’ll be rich!”
Within the next ten minutes as many as a dozen other boys arrived. The news of Frank Newton having work to be done, had spread like wildfire among juvenile Greenville. All hands begged for employment, but Frank could not hire all of them. He engaged first boys whose families needed help, and promised the others they should work as substitutes when any of the original employes dropped out of the ranks.
“Now then, friends,” said Frank, as soon as the hiring business was disposed of, “Nelson Cady will direct what you are to do. You had better all of you go home first and put on the oldest duds you can find, for this is going to be dirty work. Look here, Nelson.”
Frank had got a big piece of chalk at a carpenter’s shop on his way home from the interview with Mr. Buckner.
With this he now divided the floor space of one whole side of the store into sections about six feet square.
“You see, Nelson,” he said to his superintendent, “first you tip over one of those big packing cases onto the floor.”
“All right, Frank.”
“Then begin picking out an article at a time. Suppose it is a hammer comes first: write with chalk on the edge of a section ‘Hammers,’ and then group all the hammers you find by themselves.”
“I understand,” nodded Nelson.
“Label all the squares plainly. Mass everything of its class in distinct heaps. That is the first start in your work.”
Frank had some of his regular village chores to do. He was gone over an hour attending to various duties.
As he came back to the store again, Frank was spurred up by the busy hum of industry. Half-a-dozen urchins peering enviously in at the open front door made way for him. He gave them a kind word and stepped inside to take a sweeping view of his juvenile working force.
A great rattlety-bang was going on as the boys pulled over the heap of debris. Hands and faces were grimed. There were some blistered fingers, but the boys were working like bees in a hive.
The chalked-off sections had begun to grow in number. One was labelled “Needles.” Frank stared in some wonder. There were papers of needles whole, and others with half their original paper coverings burned away, of loose needles, some rusted and blackened, some still bright and shining; there seemed to be thousands upon thousands.
Then there was a lot of pieces of lawn mowers, blades, wheels, screws, cogs and axles. Hinges of all sizes and qualities showed up prominently. Pocket knives, scissors and carpenter tools were likewise greatly in evidence.
One pile was growing rapidly with the minutes. This was a heap of apple corers. It was a contrivance with a small wooden knob. A screw held a tapering piece of thin metal, which penetrated the centre of an apple. Then a twist was supposed to cut out the core.
From letters in the zinc box which Frank had read, he knew that purchasers of this device had complained about it greatly. In the first place it was arbitrarily set for one uniform cut. No matter whether the apple to be operated on was large or small, the hole made was exactly the same. If the fruit was hard and crisp, according to the letters of complaint the corer split the apple. If it was soft, the corer mushed the apple. There were already sorted out several hundreds of these corers. Frank wished he could get hold of them and improve them.
Frank looked over all the selected stuff in view. Then he went in turn to the village blacksmith, the local hardware store and to a druggist friend. He returned with some sponges, soft rags, sandpaper and a can of oil. He chalked off new spaces at the rear end of the store, three being devoted to each article labelled. Then he ordered his helpers to grade the various utensils dug out of the debris. Thus, hammers: those burned beyond practical use were put in heap one, second best, heap two; those that were only slightly marred were placed in heap three.
When Mr. Buckner came to the store the following day at noon the work had progressed famously. The insurance man was greatly gratified at the layout.
“Sense and system,” he said, and told Frank he was proud of him.
Certainly Frank had proceeded on a routine that was bound to bring good results. What he called the finished product was now strongly in evidence. He had divided his working force. Five of the small boys helped him in getting all the salable stuff sorted by itself.
Mr. Buckner’s client did not put in an appearance until the following Tuesday. By that time the place looked more like a real hardware store than a repairing shop.
All the best stuff was classified and neatly laid out. The hardware man from Lancaster made one sweeping inspection of the various piles of merchandise. There was quite a delighted expression on his face as he turned to Frank.
“Young man,” he said, “Mr. Buckner prepared me to meet a brisk, enterprising fellow of about your size, but the way you have handled this business is a marvel.”
Frank flushed with pleasure.
“Right at the start,” continued his visitor, “I offer you a good, permanent position in my store at Lancaster at eight dollars a week.”
“I thank you greatly,” replied Frank, “but I have partly decided on some other plans with my mother.”
“All right. If you change your mind, come to me. Now then, to size up this proposition in detail.”
The speaker looked into and over everything. When he had gone one round he picked up an empty red cardboard box and began to cut it up into small squares.
“I seem to have made a fine investment, Buckner,” he said to the insurance man. “There’s over two hundred dollars in those lawn mower parts alone. The regular stuff like tools and cutlery are good for as much more. See here, Newton: I am going to put one of these red cardboard squares on all the lots I wish you to ship to me at Lancaster.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.
“Get some strong boxes and pack the stuff well, send by freight.”
The hardware merchant now went from pile to pile, placing the red bits of cardboard on about two-thirds of the stuff.
“Aren’t you going to take those needles?” inquired Buckner, noticing that his client had passed them by. “Why, there’s fully a million of them.”
“No use for them.”
“And this big pile of apple corers?”
The hardware man shrugged his shoulders.
“No,” he said plumply. “They busted Morton. If he couldn’t make them go, I can’t.”
“And those other heaps of second-best stuff?” inquired Frank. “I should think they would sell for something.”
“And spoil the sale of good-profit goods. No, no. That’s poor business policy. I shall make double good as it is. Just dump the balance into some junk shop. Whatever you get for it you can keep, Newton.”
“Oh, sir,” interrupted Frank quickly, “you hardly estimate the real value there. Why, anyone taking the trouble to put those needles up into packages could clean up a good many dollars. There’s a lot of sewing machine needles there, too. They are worth three for five cents anywhere.”
“All right,” retorted his employer with an expansive smile. “You do it, Newton, I won’t. Take the stuff with my compliments, and thank you in the bargain for all the pains you have gone to in turning me out a first-class job.”
“Takes your breath away, does it, Frank?” said Buckner, with a friendly nudge. “It will give you some interesting dabbling to do for quite a time to come, eh?”
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Frank, his eyes shining bright with pleasure. He was fairly overcome at the unexpected donation. He seized the hardware man’s hand and shook it fervently. “Sir,” he said gratefully, “I feel that you have given me my start in life.”
“Have I?” laughed his employer lightly. “Glad. Well, the matter’s settled,” he continued, consulting his watch—“I must catch my train.”
“One little matter, please,” said Frank, advancing to the zinc box and throwing back its cover.
He rapidly described what it contained, including the lists of names and the mail order routing cards.
The hardware man listened in a bored, impatient way.
“Don’t want any of the truck,” he said. “Burn it up, do what you want with it. Get that freight on to me quick as you can, Newton. Buckner here will settle your bill for services. Good-bye.”
Frank Newton stood like one in a dream after his visitors had departed.
A great wave of hope, ambition, the grandest anticipations filled his mind.
“Mine!” he said, passing slowly from heap to heap consigned to him as a free gift. “Mine,” he repeated, his hand resting on the zinc box. “At least fifty dollars in cash out of the work I have done, and the basis of a regular business in what that man has given me. Oh, what a royal start!”
CHAPTER X
A VISIT TO THE CITY
“It almost frightens me!” said Frank Newton’s mother.
The speaker looked quite serious, as she sat facing her son, who had just read over to her the contents of several closely-written sheets of paper.
“It needn’t, mother,” answered Frank with a bright, reassuring smile. “Mr. Buckner gave me my motto when I started in at this work. It was ‘Sense and System.’ They seem to win.”
“Yes, Frank, and I am very proud and happy to see you so much in earnest, and so successful.”
“I have over one hundred dollars in hand,” proceeded Frank. “We shall get fully as much more from the sale of our assorted needle packages and the general junk stuff down stairs. Mother, I call that pretty fine luck for three weeks’ work.”
“You have certainly been very fortunate,” murmured Mrs. Ismond.
“Then if it is a streak of fortune solely,” said Frank, “I propose to make it the basis of my bigger experiment. Yes, mother, I have fully decided I shall get into the mail order business right away. The first step in that direction is to see Mr. Morton, the Riverton hardware merchant who was burned out. He has gone into some book concern in the city. I shall go there on the night train, see him, and then I will know definitely where I stand.”
“Is it necessary to see him?” asked Frank’s mother. “Mr. Buckner says that everything he left at the fire was sold as salvage. The Lancaster man made you a present of that old zinc box. I don’t see, having abandoned it, how Mr. Morton has any further claim on it.”
“That is because you have not thought over the matter as much as I have,” observed Frank. “Perhaps Mr. Morton doesn’t know that the papers in the zinc box were nearly all saved. No, mother, I intend to start my business career on clean, clear lines. I feel it my duty to apprise Mr. Morton of the true condition of things. If I lose by it, all right. I have acted according to the dictates of my conscience.”
Mrs. Ismond glanced fondly and fervently at Frank. Her approbation of his sentiments showed in her glistening eyes.
A week had passed by since the Lancaster man had settled up with Frank. It had been a busy, bustling week for the embryo young mail order merchant and his assistants.
Frank had got his employees to sort out the myriad of needles into lots of twenty-four. He bought some little pay envelopes, and had printed on these: “Frank’s Mail Order House. Two Dozen Assorted Needles.”
As said before, this was vacation time. There was scarcely a boy in Greenville who did not take a turn at selling the needle packages, which Frank wholesaled at six cents each.
Most of the boys sold a few packages at home and to immediate neighbors, and then quit work. Others, however, made a regular business of it. Nelson Cady took in two partners, borrowed a light gig, and to date had met with signal success in covering other towns in the county.
“Why,” he had declared enthusiastically to Frank only that evening, when he handed over the cash for two hundred new packages of the needles, which Mrs. Ismond was kept busy putting up, “if the needles hold out, I could extend and extend my travelling trips and work my way clear to Idaho.”
“You are certainly making more than expenses,” said Frank encouragingly.
“Yes, but you see”—with his usual seriousness explained Nelson, “that letter may come any day, and I want to be on hand to get it.”
“Of course,” nodded Frank gravely, but he felt that poor Nelson’s hopes were like those of the man whose ship never came in.
While his young assistants were thus earning good pocket money and Frank was accumulating more and more capital daily, he kept up a powerful thinking.
A limitless field of endeavor seemed spread out before him. The handling of the salvage stock had been a positive education to him.
“I see where the Riverton hardware man failed,” Frank said to himself many times, “and I think I know how I can succeed.”
Frank packed up the contents of the zinc box in a satchel with a couple of clean collars, cuffs and handkerchiefs, and consulted a railway time-table.
“If I take the train that goes through Greenville at three o’clock in the morning, mother,” he said, “I arrive at the city at exactly ten o’clock. Just the hour for business.”
“Well, then, after supper you lay down and sleep till two o’clock. I will busy myself putting up some more of the needles,” suggested Mrs. Ismond. “I will have a little early morning lunch ready for you, and you can start off rested.”
“Thank you,” said Frank warmly. “It’s worth working for such a mother as you.”
Frank reached the deserted railway depot of Greenville in time for the train. Nearly everybody was dozing in the car he entered. He had a seat to himself, and plenty of time and opportunity for reflection.
Frank consulted the sheets of writing he had read to his mother the evening previous. They contained his business plans. He had figured out what two hundred dollars would do towards starting a modest mail order business. However, so much depended on the result of his interview with Mr. Morton in the city, that Frank awaited that event with a good deal of anxiety.
When the train neared the terminus Frank took a good wash, put on a clean collar, and tidied up generally. Leaving the train he bought a satisfactory meal at a restaurant, and was ready for business.
Frank soon located the book concern in which Mr. Morton had invested his money. It occupied four gaudy offices, one of which was occupied exclusively by Mr. Morton. Frank had to wait his turn for an interview. While seated in the anteroom, he learned something of the business going on from the conversation of some callers there.
It appeared that the concern sold book outfits to canvassers on a conditional salary guarantee. From what Frank gleaned very few ever made good, so the chief revenue of the company came from the original outfit sale.
Finally Frank was called into Mr. Morton’s office. The latter looked him over with an urbane smile.
“Came in response to our advertisement for agents, I suppose?” he inquired.
“Not at all,” replied Frank. “It is solely on personal business. I came to see you, sir—about your old business at Riverton.”
Mr. Morton shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as though the reminder was unpleasant.
“Bills?” he growled out. “Thought I’d settled everything—sick of the whole business, and threw it up in the air for good. Go on.”
“Why,” said Frank, “I sort of represent the people who bought the salvage from the fire insurance folks.”
“I have nothing to do with that.”
“Among the debris there was a zinc box with some of your papers in it.”
“Yes, I remember,” nodded Mr. Morton. “Nearly all burned up, weren’t they?”
“No, sir. In looking them over I found some of your old customers’ accounts, and that like. I thought they might be valuable to you, so I came down from Greenville where I live to bring them to you.”
“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Morton with a stare, partly suspicious, partly surprised. “That’s queer.”
Frank said no more. He opened the suit case and removed its two neatly put up packages. One contained the private papers of Mr. Morton. The other contained the mailing lists and mail order system layout.
Frank placed the two parcels on the desk before his host. The latter chanced to open the larger package first. He carelessly ran over the lists and the accompanying literature.
“H’m,” he said rather irritably, “I’ve little use for that monument of my fool-killer experiment!”
Frank was relieved—in fact, pleased, to observe Mr. Morton contemptuously sweep aside the litter before him and inspect the second package.
This interested him. He sorted out quite a lot of bills and receipts.
“Guess I’m a careless business man,” he spoke at last. “That fire so discouraged me I just got out, bag and baggage. There’s some good, collectible bills here. Now then, young man,” he continued, facing squarely about on Frank, “don’t tell me you came way down here from Greenville with that stuff just out of courtesy and kindness.”
“I will tell you the whole story, if you have the time to listen to it,” replied Frank.
“Certainly—fire away.”
Frank recited his experience with the salvage from start to finish. He wound up with the words: “You can see, sir, very plainly that I have hopes of getting those lists. I have a little money, and I will be glad to buy them.”
Mr. Morton studied Frank in a pleased, interested way.
“Young man,” he said, “you have acted very honorably in coming to me the way you have. As to that mail order literature, cart it away. I don’t want it. I might sell the lists, if I had the time—I haven’t—so they are yours. And, look here, these bills—I’ll give you half of what you collect on them.”
“You will?” exclaimed Frank, doubly delighted. “I will gladly meet the trial for ten per cent.”
“No,” insisted Mr. Morton, “there’s some expense and trouble, you not living in Riverton. You’ll have to hire a rig to visit some of my former debtors. I’ve stated the proposition. Here, I’ll write you out an authority to act as my agent.”
Frank arose to leave the office half-an-hour later a satisfied and grateful boy. Mr. Morton had quizzed him considerably as to his future plans. He was down on the mail order business, for he had made a failure of it himself, but he said a good many enlightening things that at least warned Frank of the pitfalls in his business course.
“Please, one more word, Mr. Morton,” said Frank, taking up his repacked suit case—“about those apple corers of yours?”
“Whew!” cried his host with a wry grimace, “have I got to think of that grand flare-up again?”
“There’s a lot of them, you know, among the salvage?” suggested Frank.
“Yes, and there would have been a lot more if the fire hadn’t stopped returns,” declared Mr. Morton. “That was a bad investment.”
“Did you patent the apple corer Mr. Morton?” asked Frank.
“No—yes—my attorney filed the caveat, I believe. I don’t think we ever completed the patent transaction, and of course I shan’t throw away any more good money on it.”
“I was thinking,” said Frank, “that with a little modification—improvement, you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily.”
Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor that Frank was rather startled.
“Young man,” he said, very solemnly, “if you want me to lose all the really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way in which you have managed things, don’t, for mercy’s sake, tell me that you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that you want to invent something!”
“Why,” said Frank, with a smile, “is it as bad as that?”
“Worse!” declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. “Get the patent bee in your bonnet, and you’re lost, doomed!” in a mock-hollow tone observed Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. “Drop it, drop it, or you’re on the rocks.”
“Then,” suggested Frank, “you won’t mind if I experiment with the corer?”
“Mind? I wish you’d sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in it. It’s yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old dreamer of my name ever got dazzled with a toy like that. Stick to the straight business line, lad—mail order, if you must, but cut off the frills. Don’t wreck your ship on gewgaws that are a delusion and a snare.”
Frank left the office of the book concern in a happy, hopeful mood. Everything had come out beyond his fondest anticipations. He was glad he had been truthful and honest in the broadest sense of the word.
He went back to the railroad depot and left his suit case in the check room. A return train for Greenville left at two o’clock, but Frank wanted to see the city. Outside of that, he wished to visit one or two large mail order houses.
Frank employed six hours to grand advantage. He came to the depot feeling that the money he had spent was a good investment.
After a light lunch he sat down on a bench in the waiting room. He counted over the little pile of bank notes in his pocketbook with a pleased smile.
“Just think,” he reflected, “I expected to pay Mr. Morton twenty, maybe thirty dollars for those lists and the routing outfit, and here I am going back home with practically all my original capital. Then, too, the collection of those bills at Riverton: why, it just seems as if fortune has picked me out as a special favorite.”
Frank found the train he was to take would not leave for over an hour. It was already made up and standing on its track, but still locked up and unlighted. Frank went outside and strolled up and down the dark platform alongside the train.
He was full of pleasing, engrossing thoughts, and did not notice a large, shrewd-eyed man who had followed him from the waiting room.
Frank was just returning to promenade back from the front end of the train, when a sharp rustle made him turn half around.
Instantly a pair of brawny arms were stretched out towards him. Both of his hands were imprisoned in the grasp of a sprawling fist.
“Hey, keep quiet, or I’ll smash you,” spoke a harsh voice. “Now then, young man, I want that money you’ve got in your pocket.”