Poppy Ott's pedigreed pickles

Mrs. O’Mally got all ready to go to the door, expecting to hear the visitor knock. But instead, after a searching glance at the house, which made us think that he was wishing in his grasping way that he could chuck it into his pocket and make off with it, as another one of his possessions, he continued his stiff-legged walk in the direction of the big cucumber patch.

Rubbering through the kitchen window, we saw him go the full length of the patch on one path and back on another, stopping every few steps to poke around among the green vines with a stick. Once he picked a cucumber and bit into it. Evidently it suited him, for we could see him nod his head. His curiosity satisfied at the patch, he stopped at the car on his return to say a few words to his cute little grandson, who was half asleep in the comfortable seat, after which he came on to the house, rapping authoritatively at the front door.

Poppy and I, of course, kept out of sight. For the banker’s business with Mrs. O’Mally wasn’t our business. So the admitted visitor didn’t know that we were in the same house with him.

“I have been out back inspecting your cucumber patch, Mrs. O’Mally,” the conversation began, and while the speaker was seated out of our sight we could imagine from the tone of his voice how very dignified he looked. This was a trick of his, of course, wealthy man that he was, to make Mrs. O’Mally feel sort of insignificant. “The patch seems somewhat larger to me this year.”

“I added two acres.”

“The same seed, I judge.”

“Yes, sor.”

“You are having unusually good luck with cucumbers, Mrs. O’Mally.”

“’Tis not so much luck, sor, as patience an’ hard work.”

“The vines, I noticed, are set full, with every prospect of a heavy yield.”

“With no bad luck from the weather, I expect to pick at least seven hundred bushels.”

“Seven hundred bushels!” The man made it sound like an ocean full. “How many bushels was it that we bought from you last season?”

“Four hundred an’ fifteen.”

“An increase of almost three hundred bushels!” There was a short silence. “I’m wondering, Mrs. O’Mally,” then came thoughtfully, “if our factory will be able to handle your entire crop. For you realize, of course, that our pickle line is somewhat of an experiment. And hence, at the start, it would be rash for us to go into it too heavily.”

“I was told, sor, that your new pickle line was a big success.”

“Of course; of course. We have nothing to complain of. But, still, we are not established in that branch. Far from it. So we must proceed with proper business caution.”

“Which, I take it, is to the p’int that ye hain’t wantin’ me whole crop.”

“I—ah—would want to confer with my son, Mrs. O’Mally, before definitely committing myself. Still, it is not improbable that Norman will be able to shape his production plans so as to absorb your entire crop of seven hundred bushels or thereabouts, providing, of course, that the price is right.”

“Ah!...” The pickle woman’s voice had a stiffer tone. “Then ye think I’m gettin’ rich too fast at a dollar a bushel.”

“Here is the situation, Mrs. O’Mally: On one hand we have what promises to be an over-supply of green cucumbers, which, of course, is your problem. On the other hand an unwise over-supply of high-priced pickles would be our problem. So, as I see it, the thing for us to do, to your best interests and to ours, is to get together on a price that will enable us to buy your whole crop, to save you loss from waste, and also without risk to ourselves. We can do it in one of two ways: The first four hundred bushels will be priced at a dollar a bushel, as this will be the cream of the picking, the next hundred bushels at ninety cents, and the balance at seventy cents, which will give you, net, six hundred and thirty dollars for the total estimated crop of seven hundred bushels, or an average of—ah—ninety cents a bushel. That is one plan, as I say. The other plan would be to pay ninety cents straight, in which case we would agree to take all you have, even if the crop runs as high as eight hundred or even nine hundred bushels. I trust I am not confusing you with these figures.”

“Oh, I know what ye mean, all right,” came bluntly. “You’re tryin’ to get me cucumbers for ninety cents a bushel.”

“Everything considered,” the oily voice went on, “that is, I am sure, a very fair price. As I say, it protects you from possible loss through waste, and it protects us in case we have to cut our price to the jobber on account of unwise over-production. The question is, will you be willing to accept ninety cents a bushel, with the understanding, of course, that we will absorb your entire crop? Or will you want to look around for another possible market? We have no strings on you, Mrs. O’Mally, and if you can sell your crop elsewhere, for more money than we can afford to pay you, that is your privilege. As a matter of fact, with your best interests at heart, I wouldn’t want to see you lose a penny on our account. It is our misfortune, seemingly, that we can pay you no more, much as we would like to do so. But, as our pickle business is in its infancy, as I have mentioned, we must be properly conservative.”

Poppy and I hadn’t missed a single word of the old geezer’s gab. He sure had a slick line, all right. But he didn’t fool us for one minute.

“What do you think of him, Jerry?” a whisper came in my ear.

“He’s an old liar.”

“Doesn’t it surprise you?”

“I’d like to surprise him,” I gritted, as Mrs. O’Mally’s friend.

“I guess he’d be surprised, all right,” came the grinning reply, “if he knew we were listening.”

In calling the banker an old liar I was thinking, of course, of the business conversation we had overheard in the bank. Not only was the new pickle line a whopping big success, if we were to believe what we had heard, but convinced that this success would keep up, and steadily grow bigger, the company, as we knew, had already made plans to start up a separate pickle factory in Ashton. And here he was letting on to Mrs. O’Mally, in his smooth, oily way, that her cucumbers would be a drag on his hands. Just to get more wealth!

Money is bully good stuff to have. When I grow up I’m going to earn a lot of it and get a lot of fun out of it. But, bu-lieve me, if I ever try to earn a penny by cheating another person—least of all a poor old woman—I hope somebody with decency will meander into sight and crack me a good one on the back of the bean.

So, having separated myself from this little spiel, you know what I thought about Mr. Foreman Pennykorn!

And not a bit sorry was I now that we had the big cucumber crop on our hands, though, as I have written down, when Poppy first sprung the news on me I had taken it as a sort of calamity. It would be fun to turn the cucumbers into money under the banker’s very nose. I hadn’t any idea how we were going to do it. But I had the fighting feeling, all of a sudden, that we could do it. Old skin-flint, as Mrs. O’Mally called him. We’d fix him.

“’Tis glad I am to hear ye say, Mr. Pennykorn,” the pickle woman went on with the conversation, “that ye would like to have me sell me cucumbers where I can get the best price for ’em.”

“Not for one minute, Mrs. O’Mally, would we want to stand in your way,” purred the old fraud, who, of course, was chuckling inside over the smug thought that his factory was the only market that the cucumber raiser had. “For we always want to do what is right and fair to all. That is our policy. Sometimes the farmers think our prices are too low. But it is a fact that we always pay as much as we can. Yet, I know how the farmers feel. Money is money to all of us. And I dare say that a hundred dollars means even more to a poor person, and particularly to an old lady like you, than to a struggling business such as ours.”

A “struggling business!” And he and his son had talked of “cleaning up” fifty thousand dollars in this one year alone! Of all the two-faced old skunks!

“An’ how much was it that the seven hundred bushels would bring me at ninety cents a bushel?” Mrs. O’Mally inquired.

“Six hundred and thirty dollars.”

“An’ it would honestly please ye, ye say, to know that I could sell me cucumber crop for more than that?”

The banker hadn’t expected this question.

“Six hundred and thirty dollars is a lot of money, Mrs. O’Mally. And if you have any thought of looking around—”

“I have no need to look around, sor.”

“Fine! We will use you right, of course. For, as I say, that is our fundamental policy.”

“You misunderstand me, Mr. Pennykorn. I said I have no need to look around. For me entire crop has been sold.”

Right then, I guess, is when old pussy-foot got the surprise of his lifetime.

“Sold?” he choked, springing stiffly to his feet.

“At two dollars a bushel,” says Mrs. O’Mally, as sweet as you please.

For a moment or two the banker hadn’t any voice.

“Madam, is this true?”

“Can ye doubt it, sor, to see me happy face? Fourteen hundred dollars as ag’inst six hundred an’ thirty dollars! Sure, I feel rich. An’ ’tis fine, Mr. Pennykorn, to know that ye are glad with me.”

Well, say! When Poppy and I heard that we almost busted right out. For you can imagine how “glad” the banker was. Oh, yes, he was about as glad as you would be if your folks sent you down town to the dentist on your birthday to have three or four teeth pulled.

“Mrs. O’Mally,” he drew himself up, as we could see by watching him in the kitchen mirror, “you had no right to sell your cucumber crop to an outsider without first consulting us.”

“Sure,” says the woman, pretending innocence, “ye take a strange view of me good fortune, Mr. Pennykorn, considerin’ how anxious ye was a moment ago to have me sell where I could get the most money. ’Tis almost displeased that ye act, sor.”

“You know that we were figuring on your cucumber crop.”

“Well, if the lack of it is goin’ to cripple ye, ye may be able to get the new buyers to divvy up with ye.”

“At two dollars a bushel? We’ll never pay such an outrageous price!”

Here footsteps sounded on the side porch. And wheeling, who should Poppy and I see in the door but young smarty. His eyes sure stuck out when he saw us. Then around the house he went on the tear, tumbling in through the front door.

“Hey, Grandpop! That Ott kid and monkey-face Todd are listening in the kitchen.”

Monkey-face!

“Get me an ax,” says I, rolling up my sleeves.

Poppy showed himself.

“There he is, Grandpop. That’s him. He’s the kid who started that Pickle Parlor in front of our office.”

The banker looked startled for a moment or two. Then his face darkened.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he thundered.

But it takes more than a rumble to scare Poppy.

“The meaning is,” says he, “that you’re an hour and fifteen minutes late. For having gone into the pickle business ourselves, and needing a big supply of cucumbers, we got here ahead of you and contracted for Mrs. O’Mally’s entire crop.”

The banker’s eyes were blazing now.

“Do you realize that you are directly interfering with a hundred-thousand-dollar corporation?”

Poof! A hundred thousand dollars wasn’t anything to excite Poppy.

“What of it?” says he.

The man swallowed.

“What of it!” he boomed, his temper getting away from him more than ever. “Young man, we’ll take this nonsensical business of yours and crush it under our heel like an egg shell.”

“If you go stepping on us,” says Poppy, “you may find that we’re egg shells with hard-boiled centers. And instead of crushing us, you’re liable to skid and jar the kink out of your whiskers.”

Boy, oh, boy, was that man ever furious!

“You’ll pay for this insolence,” he further thundered.

“You bet your boots,” smarty bounced in. “You can’t monkey with us. For we’ve got money.”

“Money doesn’t count for much,” says Poppy, giving the kid a dig, “if you haven’t got brains to go with it.”

“Mrs. O’Mally’s a fool to sell her cucumbers to you kids. For she’ll never get her pay. You with your rotten pickles!” he turned up his nose at us. “A pig couldn’t eat ’em.”

“How do you know?” says I. “Are you the pig that tried?”

The banker now turned on Mrs. O’Mally.

“I’ll give you until to-morrow noon to cancel your silly negotiations with these boys and sign your entire crop over to us.”

“No signature will ye get from me at ninety cents a bushel.”

“Unless we can come to these terms we’ll sue you for breach of contract.”

“We have no contract.”

“We have a verbal understanding. And that will hold good in law.”

Mrs. O’Mally was getting mad now.

“Scoundrel!” she cried. “Get out of me house before I take a broom an’ chase ye out.”

“Try putting us out,” smarty swelled up, “and see what you get.”

“A chip of the ould block,” Mrs. O’Mally handed it to him.

“Why not make it a chip of the old blockhead?” I put in, which wasn’t very nice of me, I know, considering that the crack partly hit an old man. But, ding bust it, I’ve never been sorry to this day that I said it. For what that old cheat tried to do to us!

“I’ll soak you for that,” flared smarty.

“Go ahead and soak,” I dared him.

The banker started off.

“Remember,” he shot at Mrs. O’Mally, “you have until to-morrow noon to come to our office and sign our contract. As for you, you young whippersnappers,” he turned on us, with eyes full of hatred, “I give you your orders now to drop this interference in our business affairs and move that Pickle Parlor of yours back in the alley where it came from.”

“Some Pickle Parlor!” smarty threw at us.

“Yes,” I shot back at him, “and I know a guy about your size who’ll have some hump on the end of his nose if you don’t hurry up and do the evaporating act.”

“Say, kid,” says he, swelling up like a fighting rooster, “let me whisper something to you: Every morning before breakfast I strangle six guys bigger’n you are just to get up an appetite.”

Monkey-face! I couldn’t get that out of my mind.

“When you get to town,” says I, “go around by the undertaker’s and pick out a coffin. For I’m going to get you.”

A few minutes later the car shot out of the yard in a cloud of dust.

“The scoundrel!” cried Mrs. O’Mally, white and trembling, but still mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two. “Me sign his paper? I’ll go to the poorhouse first.”

“You won’t need to go to the poorhouse,” says Poppy, “if we can find the pirate’s treasure.” Then he motioned to me. “Come on, Jerry. Let’s get busy.”