“Now,” says he to Silas, “you stir around and get a crew here to start up to-morrow. We’re a-goin’ to manufacture, and we got to manufacture before I kin do any f-f-figgerin’. Maybe there’s experts could figger costs without startin’ to manufacture, but I’m dummed if I kin. We’ll run a week or so and then we’ll start to f-f-figger.”
“Jest as you say,” Silas roared, like a boiler was busting, and out he went, grabbing at his whiskers and hanging on like they were some kind of a balloon that carried him through the air. The rest of his long, lank body kind of trailed behind like the tail of a kite.
“Now,” says Mark, “l-let’s start in.”
“How?” says I.
“Gittin’ ready. I studied some bookkeepin’ in school this year, and I guess Clem Brush down to the bank will give me some p-pointers. I’ll git him to help buy a set of books. I want you fellers should hustle around here and sort things over, and make a list of everything in the m-m-mill. And while you’re doin’ it you might clean up some. Never seen sich a dirty mill. Looks like Silas never cleaned any sawdust out of here from the day he started to run. As full of sawdust as an ice-house. Two of you go at that—Plunk and Binney. Tallow, you go to the office and see if you can’t m-m-make it look more l-like an office and less like the place where a boiler exploded.... If you kin f-f-find a stock-room, take an inventory of it.”
Off he went down-town, and we set to work with shovels and brooms and paper and pencils. Looks like a fellow gits more ease and quiet and comfort out of a lead-pencil than he does out of a shovel. Binney was willing to do all the listing if I’d do all the cleaning; and I was willing to wear my brain out with inventory if he’d crack his back shoveling sawdust. When we saw neither of us was going to give in, we made the best of it and divided up. Tallow didn’t have anything to double up while he was working in the office; shovel up was his job, and we guyed him some.
I was cleaning up around the saw-carriage when I looked up and saw a man standing there, looking at me kind of surprised, like the sight of me actually at work was more ’n he could bear. I couldn’t see why he should feel that way, because I never seen him before, and, anyhow, I wasn’t any lazier ’n Tallow and Binney, though they hid it easier.
The man wore one of them stovepipe hats, and he had a cane, and there was a sparklish stone in his necktie, and he had things over his shoes that were kind of gray and had buttons on ’em—spats, Mark said they were. I calc’late he had on brand-new pants, because the crease wasn’t wore out of them, and a kind of a perty vest, and one of them coats like the minister wears Sundays. He wasn’t big, and he wasn’t little. He wasn’t what you’d call terrible old—maybe forty—and he wasn’t fat or lean. Just one of them in-between sort of men. He wore a little stubby mustache that looked like he could take it off and use it for a tooth-brush if it was loose, and he had two eyes, one on each side of his nose. His nose wasn’t much to speak of, just a reg’lar nose—the kind you can blow, but not very loud. That reminds me: did you ever hear Uncle Ike Bond blow his nose? Well, lemme tell you you missed something. When Uncle Ike hauls out that red bandana of his and grabs a-hold of his nose with it and lets her go, you’d think the train was whistling for a crossing. Wow! I’ve seen him scare horses so they ’most jumped out of their harness. Why, when Uncle Ike drove the bus to somebody’s house he never got out to ring the bell—he just blowed his nose. Sometimes, if he was in a hurry, he blowed it when he was a block away, and the folks would be all out and ready, standing waiting for him when he got there. Once there was a motion before the selectmen to hire Uncle Ike to be the fire department, so’s they could use his nose for the fire whistle, but somehow it never went through.
This man here didn’t blow his nose at all. He just stood there looking at me a minute, and then he picked his way over, taking a lot of pains not to get any dust onto his pants; and when he got clost he says:
“Where is the proprietor?”