The earlier editions of this book did not contain a “Chatter-Box.” But so popular has this department become (I started it with my sixteenth book) that my publisher asked me to prepare a brief “Chatter-Box” for all of my early books.
The boys and girls who read my books supply the material for this department. As the author of the books, all I have to do is to assemble the material. If you are one of the many hundreds of boys who have written to me, it may be that your letter was incorporated in the “Chatter-Box” in one of my other books. Writers of accepted poems receive, as a reward, a free autographed copy of the book in which their poem appears. The fine poems (all written by boys and girls who call themselves Jerry Todd fans) contained in the “Chatter-Boxes” in my recent books will interest you. But if you can’t write poetry, built around the characters in my books, be sure and write me a letter. If you make your letter interesting I’ll try hard to find a place for it in a future “Chatter-Box.” I doubt if I could fully express the pleasure that I derive from the many letters that I receive. My boy pals! That is the way I regard the writers of these dandy letters. So the more letters I receive the more pals I’ll have. And I sure like pals!
LETTERS
“One day,” writes Oswell Patout, Jr., of Jeanerette, La., “our gang (I’m enclosing a picture showing the three of us reading Jerry Todd books) began receiving mysterious maps and letters informing us about missing pearls. Here was a fine chance, we thought, to solve a mystery like Jerry Todd and his gang. So we set to work in regular Juvenile Jupiter Detective style. But, alas, the pearls were a fake. The letters and maps were a trick of boy [[x]]friends of ours who know how ‘bugs’ we are about your peachy books.”
“I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to be a book writer like you,” writes Charles Jordan of Chicago, Ill., “or at least try to be. If all men were like you it sure would be a swell world for us kids. I sure do appreciate your books. Yes, sir, I do. My cousin and I have tried many times to do things like Jerry. But what can a fellow do here in this big city! Boy, Jerry and his gang sure have peachy times, if you ask me. Whenever I read a Jerry Todd book I have the feeling that I’m right there, going through all the adventures the same as the other boys.”
“I belong to a gang of Boy Scouts,” writes Billy Johnston of Little Rock, Ark. “We have bully good times. One time we had a cave, to get into which we first had to raise a trapdoor and then crawl through a dark tunnel.”
Boy, that sounds hot! And I’m reminded, too, of the cave that Trigger Berg and his pals built. Did you, Bill, like Trigger and his gang, catch a robber in your cave? This episode of Trigger’s, I believe, took place in the Treasure Tree book.
And as though in answer to Bill’s letter, Joe Griffith of Allegan, Mich., writes: “Our cave, built back of our barn, didn’t last long. For a boy walked across the top and two boards fell on the kid’s head who was inside. Ouch! I was glad it wasn’t me.”
Also from Allegan comes this interesting letter from Jack (Yam) Hale: “As the leader of our gang I am called Jerry Todd. Don Garlock is Peg. Zeb Jones is Scoop. And Si Herrington is Red. Having a raft with a big slingshot on it we frequently dress up like pirates, using wooden swords. Also we built a lean-to in the woods and made a totem pole—not so good, though, as the one in Poppy’s book. Nor must I forget the ‘Stricker gang’ that we have battles with. That’s the name we have for a rival gang near us. They’re hard, like Bid.”