Читать книгу Poppy Ott's Seven-League Stilts - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 3

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Poppy Ott had me guessing. Every time I went to his house I caught him with his nose in a thick-backed book. Or if he wasn’t up to his ears in the new book he was fiddling with a home-made drawing board. Curious to know what he was doing, I tried to get a peek at his work. But he kept his drawing board hid. Nor would he let me see his book until I cornered him about it one day.

“What is it,” says I, “an arithmetic?”

“What’s what?” says he, pretending not to understand what I was driving at.

“The book that you’re packing away on the inside of your head,” says I.

“Oh! . . .” says he, looking out of the window at a yellow tomcat. “Isn’t it a nice day?”

“Of course it is,” says I. “But I wasn’t talking about the weather. I was talking about the book that you hurried out of sight when you saw me coming. What kind of a book is it?”

He grinned. For he saw that I had him cornered. But instead of answering me he picked up a copy of a weekly magazine.

“Just notice the hundreds of advertisements,” says he, letting the pages run through his fingers.

“What of it?” says I, wondering if this was another trick of his to sidetrack me.

He stopped at a full-page radio advertisement.

“What do you suppose it costs the advertiser,” says he, “to get an advertisement like that printed in one issue of the magazine?”

“A hundred dollars?” says I.

He looked at me as though I had said something dumb.

“A hundred dollars! Jerry, it costs five thousand dollars.”

“Back up,” says I.

“It’s a fact. I’ve been reading about it.”

“Ah-ha!” says I, sort of triumphant-like. “So that’s what you’ve been studying, hey? An advertising book!”

I wasn’t surprised. For he’s naturally a deep kid. And I could understand easily enough how an advertising book would strike his fancy.

“I’ve always been interested in advertising,” says he earnestly. “I like to read the advertisements in the magazines. With so much money being spent on advertising each year—millions and millions of dollars—it seems to me that there ought to be some fine chances for a young fellow in the business. And it’s work I’d like to take up. I’m quite sure of that.”

“You’re a funny kid,” says I.

“Funny!” says he, looking at me.

“An old advertising book wouldn’t interest me,” says I. “Besides, this advertising stuff that you’re spouting about is a man’s work. And you’re nothing but a boy.”

“I’m growing up fast,” says he, in his steady, thoughtful way. “And a fellow has got to look ahead if he’s going to amount to anything.”

I yawned.

“Let’s go swimming,” says I. “That’s more fun than studying advertising.”

“Wait a minute,” says he, as I started for the door. “I want to show you something.”

He got out his drawing board then in further confidence in me.

“What is it?” says I, squinting at his work.

“An advertisement,” says he proudly.

I didn’t make fun of his work. For I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But it’s a fact I didn’t know whether the picture that he had drawn in his advertisement was a cow or a nanny goat. Furthermore, I didn’t care.

He seemed to read my thoughts.

“I’m not very good at drawing,” he admitted. “However,” he added quickly, “that isn’t important in advertising work. What really counts is the idea. Once you have the idea it’s easy enough to explain to an artist what you want done.”

“And do we go swimming now?” says I, acting bored.

He laughed and dug me in the ribs.

“Jerry, I like you. . . . Sure thing we’ll go swimming, if you want to. Come on, old funny-face.”

On our way through town Lawrence Donner tried to shove us off the sidewalk in front of his father’s shoe store. He’s a mean kid. And it makes me disgusted the way he brags about the big fortune that he’s going to get when his rich uncle dies. I suppose it’s all right to inherit money, but I don’t think a fellow should run around talking about it ahead of time. That looks disrespectful to me. And if I ever get to be a rich old man, and it comes to my ears that my younger relatives are waiting around for me to die so that they can ram their greedy hands into my fat money box, bu-lieve me somebody is going to get fooled.

Lawrence Donner, Sr., the shoe-store proprietor, is a younger brother of the old retired manufacturer who lives in the lonely three-story brick house on Main Street. I have been told that Mr. Herman Donner is very wealthy. In Dad’s boyhood the big brick house was looked upon as one of Tutter’s finest residences. But to-day the place is run down and out of date, like its shambling, old-fashioned owner. And the rambling carriage factory that once gave steady jobs to several hundred men now stands idle, its machinery rusting and its water wheel rotting away. One time I asked Dad why things were so dead around the Donner carriage works. And he explained to me that there was no market for carriages. People were buying automobiles instead, he said. Consequently the factory had been compelled to close down for want of orders.

While Lawrence’s father isn’t rich, like his older brother, he has a good, paying shoe business, though how he can hold the trade is more than I can understand, for everybody in Tutter knows that he’s tricky. Mother won’t go in his store to buy a penny’s worth. I don’t go there either. When I need anything in the shoe line I go to Mr. Harper’s store, on the other side of the street.

Lawrence is the only kid in the family. And, bu-lieve me, he sure has a big opinion of himself. You should see him at school petting his pretty Glo-co pompadour and fussing with his necktie. He has the conceited idea that all of the high-school girls are wild over him. Every time I see him doing his sheik stuff I feel like soaking him with a ripe egg. For he’s a snob and a smart Aleck. More than that, he’s a great big bully.

Dressed up in style this morning, wearing long white trousers and a silk sports shirt set off with a flashy red necktie and green silk socks, he looked us over when we were passing his father’s store as though we were hunks of dirt.

“Hello, trampy,” says he to Poppy, sort of sneering-like.

“Soak him one,” says I to my indignant chum.

But Poppy held back, though his eyes flashed fire.

“I would like to take a crack at him, Jerry. But I don’t want to start a fight and have the people think I’m a rowdy.”

Here the shoe-store king motioned for us to move on.

“You don’t own the whole street,” says I, scowling at him.

“Git,” says he, important-like.

Poppy got my ear.

“Jerry,” says he, excitedly, “take notice of what he’s doing. He’s putting up a sign.”

“Huh!” says I, growling. “I’m not interested in his old shoe sale.”

“But don’t you catch on? It’s a scheme of his to cut in on Mr. Harper’s sale. Read the sign.”

I did. Here it is:

Be Wise! Buy Your Boys’ Shoes on This Side of the Street and Get Bigger Bargains. For What We Save in Newspaper Advertising Goes Into YOUR Pocket.

“Last night,” says Poppy, who can stow away more stuff in his head than any kid I know of, “Mr. Harper had a full-page advertisement in the Tutter newspaper telling about his new low prices on boys’ shoes. He’s having a sale today. The Donner kid saw the advertisement. See? And this sale of his is a scheme to cut in on the other store.”

“I like Mr. Harper,” says I, after a moment.

“So do I,” says Poppy warmly. “I’ve worked for him and I’ve found out that he’s a good man.”

I remembered then that Lawrence’s father was in New York City on business. I had read about it in the Tutter newspaper.

“Hot dog!” says I. “If we could only think up a scheme to switch all the shoe customers into Mr. Harper’s store. That would put a crimp in young Donner.”

“I’d like to see Mr. Harper get the business,” says Poppy earnestly.

Here a thought popped into my head.

“Say!” says I, excited. “How about that advertising stuff of yours? Can’t you use it now?”

The other’s eyes danced.

“Gee! I wish I could.”

“Go ahead,” says I, crazy to get him started. “I’ll help you.”

Well, he did some quick thinking. And pretty soon he let out a tickled yip.

“Jerry! . . . I’ve got it!”

“Hurray!” says I.

“Have you got any money?”

“Sure thing,” says I, jingling my wealth.

“Fine! Don’t ask me any questions, but run down to the variety store and buy a dollar’s worth of ten-cent horns. Or, if you haven’t got a dollar, buy as many horns as you can. Get some real loud ones. And hurry back.”

Well, I didn’t know what his scheme was. But I had a lot of confidence in him. For he’s smart. Besides, I was willing to lend a hand to any kind of a fair scheme that would fix young Donner. So down the street I went on the gallop. And soon I was back in the shoe store with eleven ten-cent horns.

Poppy met me at the door. He had been talking to the proprietor. Everything was hunky-dory, he grinned. Giving my horns the quick once-over, he hung them up in the front part of the store. Sort of on display. I saw then that in the short time that I had been away he had printed a paper sign. Here it is:

Toot! Toot! Buy Your Shoes Here, Boys, and Get a Swell Horn FREE!

“Now,” says the world’s coming advertising genius, handing me one of the horns, “take this outside and do some tooting.”

Say, maybe you think we didn’t have a barrel of fun that morning! Every time we saw a man or woman heading for the Donner store with a kid in tow we tooted our heads off. And then, in almost every case, the kid made a bee-line for our store. Our free horns were a big attraction, I want to tell you.

A jolly, easy-going man, Mr. Harper wasn’t taken up with our scheme at first, though, in his interest in Poppy, he had consented to let us go ahead and try it out. So you can imagine how surprised and pleased he was when the customers began pouring into his store.

Well, the more business we got for him the harder we tooted. Once I did the tooting all alone While my chum ran down the street to the ten-cent store for more horns. When he came back his arms were loaded. He told me, with a broad grin, that he had bought up all the horns the storekeeper had.

Young Donner, of course, was wise to what was going on. He ridiculed us at first, calling us names across the street. But we kept on tooting. And when he saw that he was losing out he began to prance around like a mad bull.

“Say,” says he, coming across the street, his pretty face all clouded up, “if you kids don’t beat it I’ll have you arrested.”

“Don’t answer him,” says Poppy, red in the face, “but toot as hard as you can toot.”

So we tooted. I even shoved my horn in smarty’s face and tooted. He tried to grab the horn away from me, but I was too quick for him. Boy, it tickled me to get the best of him. Angrier than ever, he ran down the street to the police station. But we knew he was bluffing, so we weren’t scared. Anyway, we had Mr. Harper back of us.

We learned afterwards that the other shoe store, in seeking to pattern after our clever scheme, had tried to buy a supply of horns like ours. But right there is where the swelled-up young proprietor got left, for, as I say, Poppy had been ahead of him and had bought up all the horns in town. Long before noon we could hear kids tooting in every direction. Mr. Harper gave each of us a dollar. We were smart boys, he said. And he hired Poppy to work in the store that afternoon.

“Hot dog!” says I to my chum, when we were walking home to dinner. “This is fun.—I’d like to do it every day in the week.”

There was a dreamy far-away look in the other’s eyes.

“Yes,” says he, “this is fun. But I want to do something bigger than this, Jerry. I want to handle millions of dollars. I won’t be satisfied until I have the biggest advertising job in the country.”

“You’ll never get it in Tutter,” says I, thinking of the town’s small population.

“Probably not. But a fellow can get a start here.”

I laughed as I thought of how we had trimmed young Donner.

“If you want to go into the advertising business,” says I, “why don’t you get a patent on your horn scheme? It sure earned a lot of money for Mr. Harper. And it ought to work just as well in other stores.”

“Giving away premiums to boost sales is an old scheme,” says he, “so I couldn’t get it patented, even if I wanted to. Still,” he added, reflective-like, “I might be able to work the old scheme in a new way. I’ll think about it.”