Mark Tidd in Business

The Wicksville paper told how there wouldn't be any school for six weeks, on account of somebody getting diphtheria. That same afternoon my father didn't get out of the way of an automobile and got broke inside some place, so he had to go to the hospital in Detroit to have it fixed.

"James," says my mother--that's my real name, but the fellows call me Plunk--"I've--I've got to go with--your father." She was crying, you see, and I wasn't feeling very good, I can tell you. "And," she went on, "I don't know what--we shall ever do."

"About what?" I asked her, having no idea myself.

"The store," she says.

I saw right off. You see, my father is Mr. Smalley, and he owns Smalley's Bazar, where you can buy almost anything--if father can find where he put it. With father gone and mother gone there wouldn't be anybody left to look after the store, and so there wouldn't be any money, because the store was where money came from, and then as sure as shooting the Smalley family would have a hard time of it. It made me gloomier than ever, especially because I didn't seem to be able to think of any way to help.

Mother went up-stairs to father's room, shaking her head and crying, and I went outdoors because there didn't seem to be anything else to do. I opened the door and stepped out on the porch, and right that minute I began to feel easier in my mind, somehow. The thing that did it was just seeing who was sitting there, almost filling up a whole step from side to side. It was a boy, and he was so fat his coat was 'most busted in the back where he bulged, and his name was Mark Tidd. That's short for Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd, and you maybe have heard of him on account of the stories Tallow Martin and Binney Jenks have told about him. Yes, sir, the sight of him made me feel a heap better.

"Hello, P-plunk!" he stuttered. "How's your f-f-father?"

"Got to go to the hospital," says I, "and mother's goin', too, and there won't be anybody to mind the store, and there won't be any money, and we don't know what we're a-goin' to do." I was 'most cryin', but I didn't let on any more than I could help.

"W-what's that?" asks Mark.

I told him all over again, and he squinted up his little eyes and began pinching his fat cheek like he does when he's studying hard over something.

"L-looks bad, don't it?" he says.

"Awful," says I.

"M-must be some way out," he says, which was just like him. He never bothered fussing about how bad things looked. As soon as they began looking bad he started in to find some way of fixing them up so they'd be better. Always. He kept on thinking and then he turned to me, and I saw right off he'd seen something to do.

"N-no school for six weeks," says he.

"I know," I says, not seeing what that had to do with it.

"G-gives you and me and T-tallow and Binney all the t-time to ourselves," says he.

"Sure," says I, not seeing yet.

He wrinkled his pudgy nose sort of disgusted at me.

"D-don't you figger," says he, "that four b-boys is 'most equal to one m-m-man?"

"Maybe," says I.

"Even if the man is your f-f-father?"

Then I saw it, and it sort of scared me. It looked to me like a bigger job than Mark ever tackled yet.

"You don't mean for us boys to run the store?" I says.

"Sure," says he.

"But runnin' a store's business," says I.

"B-b-business," says Mark, "hain't nothin' but makin' m-money out of somethin' you like to do. P-poor business men is them that tries to make money out of somethin' they d-don't like to do."

"Um," says I.

"We'll enjoy runnin' the Bazar," says he, as if the whole thing was settled.

"I'm afraid," says I. "S'pose we was to bust the business."

"We won't," says he. "L-let's talk to your ma about it."

We went in, and after a while my mother came down-stairs. I felt sort of foolish when I told her Mark's idea, and it didn't get any better when she said, "Bosh!"

But I was forgetting about Mark. He started in to talk to mother, and he spluttered and stuttered along for fifteen minutes, arguing and wiggling his stumpy fingers, and explaining to her how easy running a bazar was, and just why he and Tallow and Binney and I were a lot better able to do it than anybody else on the face of the earth. Why, I began to believe him myself! So did mother. Mark knew just how to go at it. At the start, when she didn't want to listen, he talked so fast she couldn't find a chance to tell him to keep quiet, and by the time he was beginning to slacken up mother was bobbing her head and almost smiling, and saying, "Yes, yes," and, "Do you honestly think you could?" and, "I don't see why I didn't think of it myself," and things like that.

"Why," says Mark, "you d-d-don't need to worry about the Bazar a minute. Just look after Mr. Smalley."

"I wish I could ask your father's advice," mother said to me, finally, "but I daren't. I'll just have to decide myself. And it seems like there wasn't but one way to decide. I won't say a word to father about it.... You can try, boys ... and it will be a--miracle--a blessed miracle if it--comes out all right." Then she started to cry again.

Mark, he waddled over and patted her on the back and says, soothing-like, "Jest you t-t-trust me, Mrs. Smalley--and don't worry--not a mite."

It ended up by mother giving me the keys to the Bazar, and kissing me and Mark, and telling us she was proud of us, and--hurrying out of the room so we couldn't see her cry any more.

Mark looked at me and scowled. "Looky there, now," he says. "Looky there. Guess we g-g-got to make a go of it. Calc'late she's got trouble enough without us makin' it worse.... C-come on."

We went out and found Binney and Tallow. At first they wouldn't believe us when we told them, but when they did believe they set up a whoop like somebody'd up and given them a dollar to spend for peanuts. Anybody'd think running a bazar was some kind of a circus, which it isn't at all, because I've worked for dad holidays and Saturdays sometimes, and I know.

"When do we start?" asks Tallow.

"F-f-first thing in the mornin'," says Mark.