“Sure thing.”
“Isn’t it a fact that pedigreed is the mark of quality in cows, horses, dogs and almost everything else?”
“Even nanny goats,” I nodded.
“All right,” says he, “we’re going to manufacture pedigreed pickles. Or, if you think it’ll help to stretch the name out, we’ll call them ‘Poppy’s Pedigreed Pickles.’ That’s what they are—pickles with a pedigree. For you heard what Mrs. O’Mally said about her recipe having been handed down in the family for a hundred years or more. There’s where the pedigreed part comes in. It’s a proven recipe, in other words. The quality of the pickles is guaranteed. Do you like the name, Jerry?”
I beamed at him.
“Do I like it? Kid, I’m crazy over it.” Then, running off into my usual line of bunk, I got in some big gestures. “What a difference one day makes in the history of the world,” I orationed. “Yesterday pickles were pickles. But to-day pickles aren’t pickles unless they’re Pedigreed Pickles.... Let’s send a telegram to Mr. Heinz, telling him that we’re in the pickle business, too,” I wound up. “Maybe he’ll be so scared that he’ll beg us to buy him out at two cents on the dollar.”
Putting all nonsense aside, though, I saw that old Poppy had a real idea. The job now was to make it work.
CHAPTER XIX
DARK DAYS
Two—three days passed. And were Poppy and I ever the busy little bees! Oh, boy! We were here, there and everywhere, with the president of the Ladies’ Aid pulling our coat tails one minute for more cucumbers and the kid from the Western Union office zigzagging after us the next with a peck of reply telegrams from keg foundries, bottle factories, and I don’t know what all. There were trips to the printing shop, too, where we were having labels printed, small ones for bottles and big ones, printed in red and green, for the ten-gallon kegs that were being zipped to us by fast freight. Between jobs Poppy squeezed out a business letter, which later on was run off in quantities at the printing office and then mailed to wholesale grocers all over the state.
Poppy’s Pedigreed Pickles! With so much lively pickle making going on in town, which, of course, created wide talk, and with so much mail going out of town, it seemed to me that everybody within a radius of a thousand miles ought to know about our wonderful new pickles. I felt pretty big, let me tell you. For here we were with twenty women working for us. And us nothing but boys! It was a feather in our cap, all right. I was crazy, too, to get the kegs filled, so that we could do the shipping act. For then, of course, the money would come rolling in. Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along! The little old jack couldn’t roll in any too fast to suit me. How wonderful it was to be rich!