People living in small towns usually keep pretty close tab on their neighbors. So, after Poppy’s two wild “pickle” spiels, first in the bank and again in front of the Parker grocery, it soon got noised about that a new local business was about to blossom forth. A Pickle Parlor! Kids who heard what we were doing came and rubbered at us over the fence that inclosed Mr. Weckler’s neglected garden. And older friends of ours smiled at us when they met us in the street. The general opinion was, as I had told Poppy in the beginning, that such a store would fizzle out for want of business. Of course, there was a “secret” side to our plans that our friends didn’t know about. And, to that point, I was to learn later on that my brainy partner had still other dope in his head that he hadn’t dished out to me. Not for one instant had it occurred to me that something bigger and better equipped than an ordinary kitchen would be needed to cook the big wad of pickles that we hoped to sell. But, as I say, old Poppy already had dreams of a pickle factory in the back part of his mind. That kid! First it was stilts and now it was pickles. I never saw the beat of him. And what is more I never expect to.
At six o’clock we knocked off for the day, telling Mr. Weckler that we would be back the first thing in the morning. Mother nearly had a cat fit when she saw me. And no wonder! For so “stuck up” was I from my painting job that it took me an hour to get the green and yellow paint out of my hair. But what was that to upset a young business man!
At the first chance I got the evening newspaper away from Dad and skimmed up and down the columns to find our ad. Here it is:
WHOSE PICKLES
Something of great value was found in a quart jar of cucumber pickles purchased last Saturday at the Presbyterian missionary food sale in Drake’s store.
Seven diamonds worth ten thousand dollars.
Were they your pickles? It will pay you to find out. Address, Box 9, Tutter Daily Globe.
I read the ad a second time, hardly able to believe my eyes. Seven diamonds worth ten thousand dollars! What in Sam Hill was Poppy’s object in telling a lie like that? I had helped him write the ad; and it was my understanding that the “something of great value” that had been found in the pickles was the idea that my chum had of selling the pickles in great quantities, which, of course, would bring riches to the pickle maker. But there had been no mention of “diamonds” to me.
“Say, Jerry,” my chum called up on the ’phone, “did you see our ad in to-night’s paper?”
“Yes,” I shot back at him, “and if you want to know the plain truth of the matter I don’t think much of it, either. For it isn’t on the square.”