During these helter-skelter days there were moments when I stopped, winded, to sort of stare at Poppy in appreciative wonderment. That kid! No matter what came up he always seemed to know just what to do and how to do it. It was his earnest lingo in the first place that had won Mother over to our scheme, and through her the other members of the Ladies’ Aid. If we took in a total of eight thousand dollars, he said, in presenting the proposition to them, that would mean eight hundred dollars for the church. So, finding that the Commercial Bank was backing us, which proved that our scheme wasn’t just a crazy kid notion, there was a general call throughout the Methodist circles for workers, and by the time our first wagonload of cucumbers was delivered at the church kitchen twenty women were there to do the receiving act.
As Mrs. O’Mally was now kept busy at the church from eight in the morning till five in the afternoon, Uncle Abner took charge of the picking. And, boy, oh, boy, did the cucumbers ever roll in! Bushels and bushels and bushels of them! As I have explained, they first had to be soaked in salt water for two days, and at one time Poppy and I counted two hundred and fifteen borrowed tubs in the church basement, every one of which was filled to the brim. It began to look as though the workers would have to start parking filled tubs upstairs in front of the pulpit. Then the kegs arrived, in the nick of time, and as fast as they were filled we piled them outside at the curb. One old lady in passing was horrified by the thought that they were beer kegs. Can you imagine! Later the filled kegs were trucked to a barn near Poppy’s place, which we called our “warehouse.”
We also opened our store, putting Tom in charge. His first job was to get rid of the other junk on the shelves, after which the glass jars were washed clean and filled with new pickles.
In starting out in the pickle business our original plan had been to sell only in Tutter. But now, with such a tremendous wad of pickles on our hands, and more coming, we realized that we had to reach out for a wider market. And that is why Poppy had written to the Illinois wholesalers.
Over four hundred dollars of our money had been paid out. And every mail brought us a bill for something or other. But to our great disappointment the orders that we had expected didn’t come in. Even worse, the one order that Poppy had gotten in Rockford was canceled.
What was wrong? Was the Pennykorn gang bucking us with some secret influence that we didn’t know about? Poppy got his Rockford cousin on the telephone, thus learning that the canning company had written to all of their dealers, warning them against our pickles. Later Henny sent us the letter. Here it is:
Wiggins & Wakefield,
Rockford, Ill.
Gentlemen:
It is our duty, we feel, to inform you that a somewhat absurd attempt has been made in Tutter, by two inexperienced boys, to start up a rival pickle concern.
You, of course, can imagine what kind of “pickles” two boys would make! To us, though, it is not a humorous situation, for we feel, owing to their use of the “Tutter” name, that you and other dealers, whose good will we value highly, might confuse the new product with ours.
Enclosed is a newspaper clipping, secured through the courtesy of the Chicago Daily Tribune, which pertains to a recent local epidemic of ptomaine poisoning. We are unwilling, of course, to state openly that the so-called “pedigreed pickles” now being canned by these misguided boys were responsible for the community poisoning. However, as the boys scattered samples of their “pickles” throughout town on the same day the poisoning developed, you can draw your own conclusion.