CHAPTER XII
SO BEAUTIFUL!
“I wonder,” reflected Scoop, when we were on our way home, “if the Chicago manufacturer knows that his spy is putting in the most of his time treasure hunting.”
“Why do you say that?” I inquired, trudging abreast of my companion along the dusty country road.
He didn’t answer for a moment or two.
“If I were Gennor,” he said, absorbed in his thoughts, “I’d send another man here or come myself.”
“To help the spy?”
“To find out why the spy didn’t get busy.”
“He is busy,” I said.
“Treasure hunting—yes. But he wasn’t sent here to drill holes in stone walls.”
“He probably would get busy in a hurry,” I reflected, as we walked along, “if he knew that Mr. Ricks was on his way to Washington.” [115]
“Gennor knows it,” Scoop said quickly.
“What makes you think so?”
“The dress patterns were stolen from Mr. Ricks on the train. That was the work of another spy. And surely the radio man knows what his spies are doing.” There was a moment’s pause in our conversation. “Yes, sir,” Scoop waggled, “it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to have Gennor ship another spy down here to check up on the first one.”
I had a sudden worried feeling.
“Evidently,” my companion continued, thinking, “the soap man knows that the hidden treasure is his biggest stake. That’s why he’s giving it his first attention. Um.… I wonder how he found out about the hidden money.”
“Maybe,” I suggested, “he got hold of one of Mrs. Kelly’s letters.”
“I wonder if he didn’t.”
We were now within sight of the whispering pine trees and the lonely brick house.
“There goes the mail man,” I pointed. “He’s stopping at the Ricks’ mail box. Let’s speed up.”
But Scoop was pressing on his thinker and didn’t seem to hear me.
“To-night,” he said, speaking to himself, sort [116]of, “we’re going to find out,” and he gave his head a sharp, decisive bob.
I was instantly uneasy.
“Find out what?” I inquired, regarding him steadily with narrowed eyes.
He raised his face and grinned.
“Have you got a lot of grit, Jerry?”
“That all depends,” I returned, on my guard. “What are you planning to do?” was my cautious inquiry. “Hold up a bank?”
“To-night,” he said, “you and I are going to visit the old mill.”
“That’s what you say.”
“We’ve got to do it,” he waggled.
“It’s a nice, easy way to commit suicide.”
“ ‘Ten and ten,’ ” he mused. “What does it mean? What is the spy doing? Has he found the hidden fortune yet?… I wish it was dark.”
“Too risky for me,” I told him.
“The soap man, of course, won’t know that we’re there.”
“You told the truth,” I waggled. “He won’t know that I’m there, for I don’t intend to be there.”
My companion gave me another odd grin.
“What’s your scheme?” I inquired, curious. [117]
“Let me give it some more thought,” he laughed.
Coming to the Ricks’ mail box I fished out a letter that the rural carrier had just delivered.
“Is it from Aunt Polly?” Scoop inquired, squinting over my shoulder.
“It can’t be,” I said, staring at the Atlanta, Georgia, postmark.
However, the letter was from Aunt Polly. And when we had read it, the four of us, and were made to understand the situation, our minds were suddenly depressed. For the absent-minded inventor was lost. He had vanished from Springfield in the time that it had taken Tom’s aunt to get there. And now, in possession of certain vague clews, the little old lady was trying desperately to locate her brother in Atlanta.
“If you get word from him, wire me immediately,” was the letter’s concluding injunction.
Tom turned to us with a burning face.
“Isn’t Pa the big dunce!” he cried, his lips trembling with mortification. “I never knew anybody like him.” Then he stiffened, sort of proud-like, and his mouth went grim in its expression. “But if you fellows are thinking to yourselves that he’s ‘soft’ in his head, you’re dead wrong. It’s just his queer way,” he concluded. [118]
“Shucks!” said Scoop loyally. “We understand.”
Here Tom’s forehead clouded over.
“Ding bust it!” he cried. “We aren’t safe from Gennor by a long shot. And we won’t be until Aunt Polly and Pa are in Washington.”
We had dinner. Then Scoop and I and Tom went to the old mill to get our supply of beauty soap.
“Um …” scowled our disgruntled employer. “I thought you boys was plannin’ to come around early this mornin’?”
“We had other business,” said Scoop.
“A half day, I suppose, is better than nothin’. Think you kin sell ten boxes apiece this trip?”
“Easy,” said Scoop.
“I’ll be lookin’ fur you after supper,” the old man told us as we started away with our supply of beauty soap. “But come before dark,” he instructed sharply.
Scoop squinted back at the old mill, a gaunt, ungainly structure with a flat roof. Then he turned to Tom.
“Have you got a kite?” he inquired.
Our new chum shook his head.
“I’ll ask Peg to make one,” Scoop decided, and he started back toward the brick house, where [119]the fourth member of our gang was standing guard over the buried talking frog.
Tom and I went ahead, leaving Scoop to his own devices. Pretty soon we came to Miss Prindle’s house on Church Street. At sight of her dressmaking sign I grinned.
“It must have been an awful blow to her,” I told my companion, “not to have been able to change her homely face.”
I had no sooner said this than the front door opened and the dressmaker herself appeared on the porch. She looked up and down the street, nodding to us and smiling.
Gosh! I was struck dumb, sort of. It was her face! I blinked my eyes. I must be dreaming, I told myself.
“Pinch me,” I said to Tom.
“What for?”
“I want to see if I’m awake.”
“You’re awake all right,” he laughed.
“Do you see what I see?” I asked him.
“I see a house.”
“Is there a woman on the porch of the house that you see?”
“Sure thing.”
I took another look at the porch’s occupant, a sort of protracted, staring look. It couldn’t be [120]Miss Prindle, I told myself. No. It was some other woman, a very beautiful woman, dressed up in the homely one’s clothes.
Still, it looked like Miss Prindle, all but the face.
“Good afternoon,” I said, touching my cap.
“Good afternoon,” she returned, smiling.
It was Miss Prindle’s voice all right. But that face!
“How is Mr. White?” I inquired, to a purpose.
“Mr. White?”
“Your husband,” I said glibly. “Is he feeling well to-day?”
“You are confusing me with some other woman,” she said. “For my name isn’t White. I am Miss Prindle.”
For a moment or two I was dizzy.
“I—I didn’t recognize you,” I fumbled. “You—you look different.”
“Oh! Do I?” and she laughed.
“You look very beautiful,” I told her.
She made no reply. And when she had gone into the house I drew Tom into a seat on the curb. I had to sit down for a few minutes. For a crazy wabble had come into my knees. It was an awful shock to me, let me tell you, to learn [121]that our beauty soap wasn’t a fake as we had suspected.
Then I thought of Red. I wondered if his mother had used any of the beauty soap on him. It was hard for me to imagine my red-headed chum with a beautiful face. I wondered what he would look like without his freckles and his red nose.
I got up, telling Tom that I had to go over to Red’s house, and together we hurried down the street. As we came within sight of our freckled chum’s home, his mother appeared on the front porch and beckoned to us.
“Donald wants you to come around to the east bedroom window,” she told us, when we came into the yard. “He has a surprise for you.”
I knew what she meant. She had used some of the beauty soap on Red, and now our formerly freckled chum had a Rudolph Valentino face.
“Hello, fellows,” Red called to us from the bedroom window. “Do I look any different to you?”
Did he! The sight of him sickened me, sort of. Not until this moment had I realized how very dear to me his freckles were. Now they were gone! His red nose was gone! He would never be the same to me again. The chum I had loved [122]and traded neckties with had vanished forever. And here in his place was a wax-faced doll.
“You—you don’t look like the same kid,” I told him.
“It’s your beauty soap,” he grinned.
“Such wonderful soap,” put in Mrs. Meyers, beaming at us. “Can I use it on the cat, Jerry? I thought I’d wait and ask you.”
When Tom and I were in the street I opened one of my pink boxes and squinted at its contents sort of reverent-like. And I flushed with shame in the thought that only recently I had regarded this wonder soap—this miracle soap—as a fake.
While we were standing there, a familiar pottering figure came into sight in the street. It was the old soap man. He was awfully excited. His eyes bulged and his mouth was open. He was panting, sort of. And his stiff legs were going up and down like a jumping jack’s.
“I just got a letter,” he heaved, “from a Tutter lady by the name of Mary Prindle.” He focused his bulging eyes on us, “Do you know her, boys?”
I nodded.
“Yesterday,” I told him, still bewildered, “she was as homely as a warty cabbage; and to-day she looks like Mary Pickford on parade.” [123]
“It’s my soap,” the old man waggled, breathing hard. “My wonder soap. She used it last night, an’ now she’s goin’ in the movies.”
Miss Prindle in the movies! I stared at him.
“She says so in her letter. Read it.”
I did. Here it is:
Dear Mr. Posselwait:
I feel in duty bound to tell you what excellent results I have gotten from your wonder soap, Bubbles of Beauty. In just one night your soap has transformed me into a dream of beauty. I am seriously thinking of going into the movies.
Miss Mary Prindle.
One time the Stricker gang wrote us a fake note, signing Miss Prindle’s name to it, asking us to drop twelve of our cats into her basement window. That was the time that the cats got into her crab-apple marmalade.
If I hadn’t seen the beautified dressmaker with my own eyes, I probably would have suspected that this letter of Mr. Posselwait’s was another trick of Bid Stricker’s. But I knew that the letter was no fake. For I had seen the transformed one with my own eyes. Tom had seen her, too. It was no case of imagination with us. [124]
“You kin take it along with you,” the soap man told us, “an’ show it to your customers. It ought to help you make sales. Work hard, boys,” and he rubbed his hands together like an old miser.
Tom and I went to a house where I had been turned down the preceding afternoon.
“Well?” Mrs. Larson said sharply, coming to her front door. She didn’t act very glad to see me. You could have imagined, from the way she looked at me, that I was an alley cat with a choice assortment of smallpox germs.
“Yesterday,” I said, in proper dignity, “you told me that my beauty soap was a fraud. In justice to my goods,” I concluded, handing her the letter, “I think you ought to read that.”
She took the letter and read it through.
“As you know,” I said, getting in my selling talk, “Miss Prindle was not a very beautiful woman before she used our beauty soap. But in just one night Bubbles of Beauty, the wonder soap, has transformed her into a dream of beauty. Of course,” I added, in good tact, “I realize that you have no use for the soap yourself. It is only for women who are not beautiful. But you may know of some woman who is homely and who wants to become beautiful. And in your kind-hearted way——” [125]
“Excuse me,” she laughed. “I have a cake in the oven,” and she closed the door in my face.
We went to another house where I had been turned down. Mrs. Macey took my letter and read it.
“Oh!” she laughed. “This is so funny.”
“What’s the matter with all of the women?” Tom said, puzzled. “Why do they say ‘Oh!’ when you show them the letter, and act as though they were gagging on something?”
“Search me,” I returned, digging at my hair.
Returning to Church Street, I started Tom in where Peg had left off the preceding afternoon, then hurried back to Main Street, my own territory. I called at all of the houses, the full length of the street, making a number of sales. One of the women that I called on was telephoning in the front hall when I came to the door. I courteously waited until she was through talking, then rang the bell.
Her face broke into smiles when she saw me. And she wanted to know if I were the boy who had Miss Prindle’s beauty letter.
“I just heard about it over the ’phone,” she explained. “May I see it, please?”
She was called back to the telephone before I could locate the letter in my pocket. [126]
“This is one-seven-one-nine,” she said sweetly. “Oh!… Is it you, Mrs. Bardan? I didn’t recognize your voice. No, really I didn’t. What was that? Oh, yes! No, I haven’t used any of it myself. I suppose we’ll all be using it soon! Did you hear—— Yes, Mrs. McLennigan ’phoned to me. She heard about it from Mrs. Larson. Isn’t it killing! Go-o-od-by!”
Returning to the door, she took my letter and read it through.
“Oh!” she gurgled, leaning against the door casing, one hand pressed on her heart. “This is the funniest thing I ever heard of. Going into the movies! Oh!”
I told myself on the moment that women were queer in some ways. Certainly it didn’t take much to amuse and interest them. Miss Prindle’s letter wasn’t funny to me.
I quit work at five o’clock, having sold nine boxes of soap. Tom was waiting for me at the corner of Church and Main. He had sold seven boxes. We hadn’t gone very far before Scoop overtook us.
“I had quite a talk with Deacon Pillpopper,” he told us. “He remembers the ten-ring puzzle. Says it’s worth a lot of money and that we ought to try and find it.” [127]
“I didn’t know,” I said, “that puzzles were valuable.”
“He seems to think,” Scoop said, “that the Matson model could be sold to some toy company for several thousand dollars.”
“Where do you suppose the puzzle went to?”
“It’s probably hid with the money.”
“Did you tell the deacon about the marked verses in the Bible?”
“Sure thing. He agrees with me that there is some connection between the ten-ring puzzle and the ‘ten and ten’ markings in the Bible. I’m to have another talk with him soon. And in the meantime he’s going to drive out to Mrs. Kelly’s house and see the Bible himself.”
I fished Miss Prindle’s letter out of my pocket, explaining to our leader how the letter had come into my possession.
“A trick of the Strickers,” he said promptly.
“Nothing of the kind,” I told him. “For I saw her myself. So did Tom.”
“Rats! A woman can’t become beautiful over night.”
“Miss Prindle did,” I waggled. “And so did Red.”
“Red? Do you mean Red Meyers? Oh, ho, ho, ho! That’s rich!” [128]
“His mother used the beauty soap on him,” I said, “and his freckles have all disappeared. His skin is like peaches and cream.”
“I’ve got to see it,” said Scoop, “to believe it.”
So, to convince him, we went around by Red’s house, learning from Mrs. Meyers that the beautiful one was sleeping.
“Has his freckles really disappeared?” Scoop quizzed.
“Ask Jerry and Tom,” the woman smiled. “They saw him.”
“Golly Ned!” cried Scoop, tugging at his hair. “I can’t understand it. It doesn’t seem possible to me. But it must be so if the three of you say so.”
We started for the brick house.
“I wonder,” grinned Tom, as we turned the corner, “if the soap will beautify all of our customers.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” I countered.
“If it does,” he laughed, “this is going to be a badly mixed-up town. For half of the husbands won’t be able to pick out their own wives.”
It was indeed a laughable situation. We enjoyed talking about it. I guess, though, we would have been less hilarious if we had known the real cause of Miss Prindle’s and Red’s sudden beauty. [129]