Which was a perfectly sound scheme, of course ... granting that we had oceans of time. But here we were within a week or ten days of heavy cucumber harvest.
No, we never could hope to get the necessary pickle supply started, for early business, by going about it in that way. And in twisting the matter around in my mind I began to wonder if we couldn’t sort of save our proposed business by changing it into a Popcorn Parlor. We could sell peanuts, too; even put in a stock of chewing gum and candy. Of course, a store like that hadn’t the originality, as you call it, of a Pickle Parlor, and hence wasn’t as exciting to think about. But it would be a store—our store, in fact. And as long as the business was ours what difference did it make to us what we sold? Certainly, was my further thought, it would be no trick to change the sign from “Poppy’s Pickle Parlor” to “Poppy’s Popcorn Parlor.”
Doc Leland had dished out the order that I was to stay in bed. But I got up and dressed the following morning, feeling quite like myself again except that the thought of pickles still gagged me. The letters now had stopped coming in. So we hadn’t any of the follow-up work to do. Nor was there anything we could do at Mr. Weckler’s house except to walk around our green and yellow store and admire it. Boy, we sure were the proud little peacocks. Our store! Of course, we didn’t own it; and, to that point, Mr. Weckler hadn’t told us just how long we could use it. But he was our “silent” partner. And having a warm interest in us, as we could see, our opinion was that he would let us use the store as long as we needed it.
That morning we took a trip into Zulutown, which is the name that the Tutter people have for the tough end of town beyond Dad’s brickyard, to talk with Mr. Butch McGinty about moving our store. I suppose Mr. McGinty has some other front name besides “Butch.” But that’s the only name I ever heard him called by. And it sure fits him to a “T”—big ox that he is, so hairy and red-nosed. An old bachelor, his home in Zulutown is the dirtiest place I ever set eyes on. He does his own cooking and housekeeping. It isn’t anything surprising to go into his house and find the cat sleeping in the middle of the dinner table. I’d hate to live that way.
Mr. McGinty’s business is “towing,” for which purpose he keeps a mule. He also moves small houses and hauls ashes. If you live near a canal you know what I mean by “towing.” It is much the same as house moving, only the thing that is “towed” isn’t a house, but a barge or flatboat. With all of his “towing” and house-moving work old Butch hasn’t much to do, for in a small town like Tutter the houses usually are left where they’re built. But when a job of this kind bobs up he usually gets it.
We found him in the kitchen baking cookies.
“Howdy, boys,” he welcomed us, acting so friendly about it that I could almost imagine that he knew we had a job for him. “Jest dump that stuff off them chairs,” he pointed, “an’ make yourselves homely.” Then he gave a leap for the oven, which was smoking out of its cracks like a volcano with a dozen craters. In his hurry to throw open the oven door he forgot to grab a cloth holder ... and thus burning his fingers maybe you think he didn’t explode! “Drat the luck! That’s the second batch of cookies that I’ve burnt to a crisp. Jest look at ’em!” and he dumped the junk into the middle of the kitchen floor.
You can’t be around Mr. McGinty without grinning. For he’s funny. And we grinned all the harder when he scratched his head with the cookie cutter.
“This thing of bein’ a bachelor,” he complained, disgusted with his poor work, “hain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Fur it never was intended nohow that a man should be his own cook. Me?—outside of makin’ pickles an’ pancakes I kain’t cook fur two cents. As fur sweepin’ an’ dustin’, they’s a way of doin’ it proper, I s’pose, but I’ve never yet found it.”
“Why don’t you get married?” laughed Poppy.