It was close to eleven o’clock now. And thinking that maybe Mrs. Clayton would want her pickles for dinner, we filled a bottle of the same size as the one that had been broken and hurried down the street to the factory district, where we saw young Pennykorn’s classy car, together with several others, parked in a vacant lot across the street from the canning company’s office. Just beyond was an old-fashioned house well shut in by untrimmed trees and ragged bushes, a familiar place to Poppy, for he had worked here painting porches when he first came to town. At sight of the sleepy-looking house it suddenly popped into my head who the old man was whom I had noticed in the bank. It was old Mr. Weckler, the widower who had so generously and unexpectedly put up the money for the big assembly cabin in our Boy Scout camp. I had seen him once or twice in camp. So in a way it was strange that I hadn’t recognized him right off. Still, a fellow can’t remember every face that he sees. I’ll never forget the joy of the Scouts when the newspaper announced Mr. Simon Weckler’s donation. And were the Tutter people ever surprised! For it was the general public opinion that on top of being something of a miser the old man hated boys, which goes to show how easily one can be misjudged.
The housekeeper’s face broke into a smile when she saw us at the back door.
“I hardly knew whether to believe your silly talk or not,” she told Poppy, taking the pickles that we had brought her.
“Try one,” beamed the pickle specialist, as he caught her looking curiously into the jar, “and if they aren’t what I represented them to be I’ll run down town and buy you a tubful of the other kind.”
“Oh ...” she cried, biting into one of the pickles. “Aren’t they perfectly delicious! Did your mother make them?”
Poppy shook his head.
“No,” he explained quietly, “my mother is dead.”
Here old Mr. Weckler, himself, pottered into the kitchen, thumping along with his heavy cane, a huge yellow cat tagging at his heels. At sight of us he gave a dry smile, which showed clearly enough that he hadn’t forgotten about the pickle oration that our walking dictionary had so nobly squeezed out of his system in front of the cashier’s window.
“Found a store yet?” the old man inquired.
“No, sir,” was Poppy’s polite reply.