Mark Tidd, Editor Part 32

"Reg'lar carpenter, hain't you? I didn't know but a man with a name spelled like yours would even things off with a b.u.t.ter-knife, or maybe a nursin'-bottle."

"You better move away from here," says he, "before I lose my temper."

"Huh!" says I, moving off where I'd have a good start if he came after me. "Folks that loses their temper in Wicksville gen'ally gits all the help they want findin' it ag'in."

"Go ahead," says he; "get all the laugh you can out of it now. In another day or two you'll be laughin' crossways of your mouth. What would you smart newspaper kids say to a daily in Wicksville, eh? Reg'lar city daily. Guess that would sort of put the lid on that old weekly of yours, wouldn't it? Spragg is my name. Begins with a capital S, remember that."

I wasn't going to let on to him that what he said worried me, so I said to him: "You'd have to be spryer 'n you be now to git out a daily. The way you move around I guess a monthly's about _your_ speed."

He made a move after me and I scooted down the street to tell Mark. He wasn't in, though, and Tallow said he and Plunk had gone out to see Rock at the farm.

"When he comes back," says I, "he'll have all the rock he wants, and it looks to me like it would be rock bottom. We're goin' to be up against a daily paper here."

An hour after in comes Mark and Plunk.

"B-been studyin' the yard there at Rock's," says he, "and I c-c-can't make head nor tail to that message of Mr. Wigglesworth's. Found the cat, all right, and w-w-walked where she l-looked. M-measured off a hunderd and six feet, but there we come to n-ninety degrees in the shade.

Stumped us. Found the shade, all right, but it wasn't ninety degrees.

Held a t-thermometer, and it wasn't but sixty-seven."

"It's goin' to be ninety degrees in the shade of this office," says I.

"Spragg's back and is goin' to start a daily to run us out of business."

"How d'you know?" says he.

"Spragg says so," I told him.

"Hum!" says he. "I sort of d-doubt it. Spragg don't look like he had money enough or gumption enough."

"Maybe somebody's backin' him," says I.

"Might be," says he. "Guess I b-b-better look into it."

So he and I went out together, leaving Plunk and Tallow to mind the office.

"A d-daily," says he, "would have hard sleddin' here. Don't b'lieve it would make a go. But while Spragg was t-tryin' it he might hurt us a lot. Two newspapers in a little town l-like this can't m-make money."

"Neither can one," says I. "Anyhow we hain't got rich. Might as well be two as one, so far's I can see."

"The _Trumpet's_ goin' to pay," says he, and he shut his jaw tight, like he does when he's made up his mind to do something or bust. "Spragg or no Spragg, we're goin' to make a reg'lar paper of the _Trumpet_-and git money out of it. Don't go gittin' limp in the s-s-spine," he says.

It don't take long in Wicksville to find out what's going on, because there isn't much going on, anyhow, and as soon as something turns up and one man hears of it, why, he can't rest or eat till he's run all over peddling it to everybody he sees. And every man _he_ tells has to start out the same way, so in a half-hour from the time a thing starts almost everybody in town is out looking for somebody to tell it to. That's what makes it so hard to run a newspaper. Everybody knows everything he reads in the paper as soon as the editor does. I guess about the only reason folks subscribe to the _Trumpet_ at all is to see if their own name is mentioned, or to say to somebody else: "Huh! There hain't never no news in this paper. I knew every doggone thing printed in it two days before the paper come out."

Well, that's why it wasn't hard for us to find out that Spragg really was planning to start a daily paper in town, nor to figger out that he didn't have much money to start it with himself. He was trying to start what he called a co-operative paper. Co-operative means that one man gets a lot of other men to put their money into a thing with the idea that they'll all get some good out of it, whereas n.o.body gets anything but the fellow that starts it.

Spragg's notion was to put in a little money himself and to have the merchants and business folks in town put in the rest. His argument was that there was money in running a newspaper, and the money was made out of the advertising. So, if the men that put in the advertis.e.m.e.nts and paid money for them owned the newspaper themselves, why, they would just be paying the money to themselves, and the subscribers would pay the cost of getting out the paper. So the advertisers would be getting their advertis.e.m.e.nts practically for nothing. It sounded dangerous to me.

I guess it worried Mark some, too, for if merchants could get their advertising in a daily practically without costing them a cent, what would they spend any money in the _Trumpet_ for?

Spragg was just talking the thing up, but he was talking a lot, and it looked like he had the business men interested. Where Spragg came in was that he was to be the editor and have a salary and a share of the profits.

Mark went and sat down on my steps and began to whittle like he always does when he's got a puzzle on his mind. He whittled and whittled and didn't say a word for an hour. Then he looked at me out of his twinkling little eyes that you could hardly see over his fat cheeks and says:

"I guess Spragg's idee is to get these f-f-fellers all into the paper.

They'll p-put their money in to start it, and p-perty soon they'll see that their advertis.e.m.e.nts hain't free. Not by a big s-sight. And p-perty soon they'll get disgusted and along Spragg'll come and buy their shares of the paper dirt cheap. He f-f-figgers to come out at the other end with a daily p-paper that didn't cost him hardly anything. And then he'll be where he can m-make some money."

"Yes," says I, "because by that time, with all the stores not givin' us any advertis.e.m.e.nts, we'll be busted."

"That," says he, "is how Spragg f-f-figgers it. But," says he, "I figger it some d-different."

"How do you figger it?" says I.

"I f-f-figger," says he, stuttering like a gas engine just starting up on a cold morning, "that he hain't ever g-goin' to start any paper at all, and that we're goin' to keep all the business we've got, and that Mr. Spragg'll wisht he never heard of Wicksville or of the _Trumpet_ or of us."

"Sounds good," says I, "and I've seen you pull out of a lot of deep holes, but this one looks to me like it would be too much for you. I guess this time, Mark, you're up against it hard."

"Binney," says he, "if Spragg b-beats us then you can p-paint a sign sayin' 'idiot' and pin it on my b-back, and I'll wear it a month."

You notice he said "us." That was just like him always. He wasn't what you'd call modest, but he was square with us other fellows that didn't think as quick and as shrewd as he did. We all got the credit for what was done if he could fix it that way. But I don't believe many folks were fooled by it. They knew Mark Tidd and they knew us.

"You can always catch f-f-folks with a scheme," says he, "that makes 'em think they're gettin' somethin' for n-nothin'. But," he says, "I hain't ever seen anybody git somethin' without pay in' about what it was worth."

"Yes," says I, "if you coop a watermelon out of Deacon Burgess's garden, why, you pay for it by tearin' your pants on his barb-wire fence, or by gittin' the stummick ache."

"That's about the idee," says he.

"What you goin' to do first?" I says.

"Haven't f-figgered it out yet," says he. Then he went to talking about the contest.

"How many subscriptions have we got in?" says he.

"Lemme see," says I, "this is the third day it's been goin' and yesterday we had seventy. Tallow said we got in twenty-six this morning.

That makes ninety-six."

"Huh!" says he. "They hain't got warmed up yet. But we'll get 'em good perty soon. They'll start comin' strong."

We walked down the street and in front of the post-office was a crowd standing around a couple of men that was arguing so you could have heard them in the next township. Mark and I ran over to see what was going on, because newspaper men always ought to be right where things are happening. We edged into the crowd and found out it was Mr. Strubber and Mr. Bobbin, and they was quarreling about how smart their wives was.

"Huh!" says Strubber. "Your wife wouldn't never have dared to git into a contest with my wife if she hadn't been forced. She was cornered and da.s.sen't back down."

"Strubber," says Bobbin, "I hain't denyin' your wife has her p'ints.

There's ways where she can beat my wife all holler. Why, when it comes to takin' the broom and chasin' her husband around the house Mrs. Bobbin wouldn't even tackle the job at all. She knows without tryin' that Mrs.

Strubber kin beat her good and plenty there."

"You mean," hollered Strubber, "that my wife chases me with a broom? You dast say that? Why, you miserable little swiggle-legged, goggle-eyed, slumgullion, Mrs. Strubber's as gentle as a lamb! Yes, sir, she's all brain, that's what she is. If you was to take Mrs. Strubber's brain out and lay it on top of that thing _your_ wife calls a brain, it 'u'd be like coverin' a pea with a bushel basket."

"Sure!" says Bobbin. "It's big all right, but you're right when you compare it to a bushel basket. It's as thin and empty as any bushel basket in Michigan."