“Well,” says I, “the pickles did it. So if you had eaten them you would have been poisoned, too.”
He scratched his head.
“What pickles are you talkin’ about?” says he.
“Why, our pickles, of course.”
“But it wasn’t your pickles that poisoned the people. It was them stuffed olives that they had at the church supper last night. I hear, too, that they hain’t expectin’ old Miz Higgins to pull through. Too bad! Too bad! That’ll give church suppers a black eye fur the next ten years.”
Poppy and I blew in a dollar and seventy cents that night celebrating. Oh, boy, did we ever have a grand and glorious feeling! First we stocked up with candy and popcorn. Then we went to the movie show. After the show we had three dishes of ice cream apiece and two malted milks. That is, I had two. Poppy, though, kind of petered out on his second one.
But when we got home we sort of parked our hilarity under the bed. For it wasn’t to be forgotten, the leader said, serious again, that our pickle business was none the less of a fizzle. And to find out just how heavy our loss was he got out his expense book. Here is a list of the money that we had spent:
| Lumber | $ 3.00 | Store stuff | $ 2.00 |
| Paint | 2.00 | Butch’s wages | 21.00 |
| Newspaper ad | .50 | Moving store | 10.00 |
| Cucumbers | 8.00 | Celebration | 1.70 |
| Pickle stuff | 11.45 | Total paid out | $ 68.00 |
| Tubs (2) | 1.70 | ||
| Barrel | .40 | ||
| Bottles | 3.00 | Money in bank | $100.00 |
| Bottle labels | .75 | Money paid out | 68.00 |
| Handbills | 2.50 | Money left | $ 32.00 |
“It might have been worse,” says I, trying not to feel downhearted over the loss of our money. “We’ve got thirty-two dollars left and the two tubs.”
“But you don’t know the worst,” says Poppy, sitting on the edge of the bed with his chin in his hands.