When Mark and Tallow came back, Mark says, “F-fellers, keep your eyes p-peeled for a strange man. We want to know it the m-minute this Pekoe strikes Wicksville.”
So, not having anything else to do but run a paper, and dodge folks that wanted to lick me, and help with the contest, and do the chores at home, and play some, and a few other little things, I had to help keep my eye open to find a man I’d never saw and didn’t have any idea what he looked like. Mark was always reasonable about what he wanted you to do. He never asked anybody to do more than twict as much as it was humanly possible for anybody to manage.
CHAPTER XVI
I’ll bet you’ve forgotten all about Spragg, the Eagle Center Clarion man. If you have, you want to remember him again, for the time was coming fast when he would be right on hand like a case of mumps. Not that mumps are generally on hand. When I had them they reached from one ear right around to the other, and Mark Tidd didn’t have half so much face as I did.
Well, one day about the time the contest was getting nicely started up I saw Spragg in town. He’d waited till things cooled down, and was there at the hotel, nosing around just as if nothing had happened.
“Howdy-do, Mr. Spragg!” says I, with my face as sober as a judge. “Hope you’re feelin’ well and gittin’ all the exercise you need.”
“I’m feelin’ well,” says he, “but I’m short of exercise. I’ll git it, though, and don’t you lose sight of that. You kids think you’re pretty smart, but my name’s spelled S-p-r-a-g-g, see?”
“No,” says I, not seeing at all. What did that have to do with it, I wondered; but, just for luck, I thought I’d josh him a little. “I thought your name was spelled M-u-d. Looked like that awhile back.”
“Go on,” says he. “Keep heapin’ it up. Perty soon I’ll have enough ag’in’ you boys to make it worth my while to git even. And when I set out to git even I do it with a plane,” says he.
“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 butter-knife, or maybe a nursin’-bottle.”