Copyright 1927, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

To
AUNT DELL

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I Poppy’s Pickle Parlor[ 1]
II Our “Silent” Partner[ 16]
III Whose Pickles[ 27]
IV A Busy Day[ 36]
V Butch McGinty[ 46]
VI Poppy’s “Aunt Jemima” Scheme[ 57]
VII Mrs. O’Mally’s Peculiar Fright[ 65]
VIII Ready for Business[ 73]
IX The World Tips Over[ 87]
X The Gold Cucumber[ 96]
XI The Cat Killer[ 106]
XII Mrs. O’Mally’s “Ghost”[ 114]
XIII The Banker’s Threats[ 126]
XIV Underground[ 139]
XV Midnight Excitement[ 152]
XVI The Man in the Cave[ 161]
XVII Uncle Abner’s Story[ 174]
XVIII Poppy’s Pedigreed Pickles[ 188]
XIX Dark Days[ 203]
XX Poppy Springs a Surprise[ 214]
XXI In the Shadow of the Chimney[ 226]
XXII Guests of Honor[ 235]

POPPY OTT’S
PEDIGREED PICKLES

CHAPTER I
POPPY’S PICKLE PARLOR

When Poppy Ott jumps into a thing he usually knows where he’s going to land. For he’s a pretty smart boy for his age, as you probably will agree with me if you have read the earlier books that I have written about him. But, bu-lieve me, his wits sure were tangled up the day he got that “Pickle Parlor” idea! Or, at least, that is what I told him when he first sprung his brilliant little scheme on me.

In arguing with him, to bring him down to earth as it were, I tried to convince him that a Pickle Parlor was about as sensible as a barber shop for hairless poodles. No one, I said, referring to the people who bought groceries, would buy their sugar and other truck in one store and then walk a block to buy their pickles in a pickle store. That would be just extra work for them.

“They will,” says he, sticking to his scheme, “if we have better pickles to sell them than they can buy in the average grocery store.”

“Pickles is pickles,” says I.