Mark Tidd, Manufacturer

by Clarence Budington Kelland

We had lunch, and then we went to work waiting again, and we waited and waited and waited. It seemed like Tod Nodder was going to spend the whole day right where he was, and that is exactly what he did. I wished we could fish or something, but we didn’t dare. We could hardly talk, and what talking we did had to be in whispers. Besides, we were afraid all the time that somebody would be sneaking around in the woods behind us like somebody was behind the man that was spying on Tod. If somebody was watching him, why, somebody might be watching us. We got to thinking about that until Mark got me to climb that tree again.

I shinned up it and stayed about an hour, but nobody was in sight or came in sight but Tod Nodder and the man that was watching him and the man that was watching him. Nobody was behind us, and, so far as I was able to discover, nobody had any notion that we were anywhere near the bayou. When I was sure of it I came down again, and we settled ourselves to watch. It was pretty tedious, I can tell you, and no amount of pertending about Injuns or anything else seemed to make the time go faster. Fun is fun and work is work, but laying around just waiting is a nuisance and nothing else. I’d rather split wood than wait. I’d rather study grammar than wait, and when I say that I’ve said about all I can say.

Mark Tidd went and sneaked a nap while I wasn’t looking. He can always manage to take a nap. I couldn’t have slept if I was paid for it, and I made up my mind he shouldn’t sleep, either, so I took to catching big black ants and setting them on his neck so they would crawl down under his clothes. I didn’t get much fun out of it, but it was some comfort to know he wasn’t getting any, so I kept it up. I was hot and sweaty and itched all over, and I guess as many ants crawled on me of their own accord as I managed to sic onto Mark. I wished Tod Nodder was swallowed by a whale or something, and I made up my mind that the next time Mark Tidd had any watching to do he could count me out. My stummick was full of watching.

It got five o’clock and six o’clock, and still Tod didn’t budge. It began to look like he had taken root and was going to grow there. It turned out later that he was asleep with his back against a tree and had been asleep all the afternoon. He hadn’t stayed because he wanted to, but because he went fast asleep and didn’t wake up. A man like that ought to carry an alarm-clock around with him. If it didn’t do him any good, it would be a lot of help to boys like Mark and me that had to sit and watch him.

It was after seven o’clock when Tod finally stretched and gaped and twisted around and pulled in his fish-line and started for somewheres. Now it’s easy to follow one man, but to follow a man when he is followed by some one else and his follower is followed by a third man, is another kind of a thing altogether. We had a tough job cut out for us to find out where Tod was going without having one of those other fellows finding out that we were following him. But the only thing to do was to do our best.

We waited for Tod to leave, and then we waited for the first man to sneak after him, and then we waited for the second fellow to sneak after him, and then along we traipsed at the tail of the procession. It was a regular parade.

We hadn’t had a good look at the last fellow, because he had been quite a ways off, hiding behind bushes, and we didn’t get a good look at him now because it was getting dusk and we had to wait till he got quite a distance off before we mogged after him. We kind of skirted around town. After we had gone along about a mile we saw the fellow ahead scrooch down all of a sudden, and we scrooched, too. We figured out it meant that Tod had stopped somewheres ahead and everybody was settling down to wait for him to move on again.

We crept up a little closer to try to get a peek at the one ahead, but it was getting real dark by now and all we could see was just a black blob where he crouched. Then he started up again and we took after him, but right there we got a good scare, for, all unexpected, there popped up a third fellow and he acted like he was following the second. Anyhow, he was following somebody and joined right in the parade ahead of us. That made quite a string, with Tod leading off and a man on his heels and another on his heels and this third one that came from nowheres all of a sudden, and Mark and me bringing up the tail.

On we went past the edge of town and headed for the river. We took along the bank toward town again, and anybody could see that Tod had been sneaking roundabout to get some place without being seen.

“Wonder where they’re headin’?” says I.