Skiddyunk was a nice town only, one thing, there were industrial disturbances there. Maybe you know what those are, hey? The boy that delivered the newspapers was on a strike. He was on a sympathy strike, that"s what the man in the candy store told us. He was on a sympathy strike on account of the steel strikers. He read in a book that car wheels are made out of compressed paper sometimes, and as long as some of them were made out of steel, too, he decided he wouldn"t deliver the papers that Sat.u.r.day, on account of the newspaper being printed on paper. Gee whiz, I don"t see how a paper could be printed on anything else except paper. That paper only came out twice a week, because there wasn"t much news in Skiddyunk.
As long as we only had forty-two cents we decided it was best to buy five ice-cream cones, because then we"d have only seventeen cents left and we couldn"t send a telegram. Pee-wee said it was best not to have any temptation to send a telegram.
We asked the man in the candy store if he thought the people who lived in Skiddyunk would come to a movie show in Ridgeboro that night. He said they would if they knew about it, only he didn"t see where we could have it there. So then we told him about our car.
He said, "Is it a movie theatre?"
"You said it," I told him; "it moves all over. Even the Strand Theatre in New York doesn"t move so much. And anyway," I said, "are there any fish in that lake?"
He said if there were only as many people up there in Ridgeboro as there were fish in the lake that Ridgeboro would be as big as New York.
"Good night!" I said.
He said they just stood in a row up there waiting to be caught. He said n.o.body had to starve around that way, if he had a fish-hook.
I said, "I wouldn"t eat a fish-hook no matter how hungry I was."
He was a nice man, that fellow in the candy store. He started to laugh and he said he guessed we wouldn"t starve, because he could see we were a wide-awake lot.
"You ought to have seen us last night," Wig said; "we reminded ourselves of Rip Van Winkle."
So then he told us it would be good for us to see Mr. Tarkin who printed the Skiddyunk _News_. First we got some fish-hooks and a ball of cord and then we had five cents left--a cent each. Never laugh at poverty.
Then we went to the place where the Skiddyunk _News_ was printed and asked for Mr. Tarkin. He was in a little bit of an office with papers all over the floor.
I said, "We"re boy scouts and our railroad car that we"re going to use for a troop room is on a side track up at Ridgeboro, because it was brought there by mistake and we want to have a movie show in it to-night." I told him all about the whole thing, just how it happened, and I asked him if he thought the people would come.
Pee-wee piped up and said, "We have pictures of Temple Camp where we go in the summer, and they show scouts doing all kinds of things--rowing and cooking and hiking and climbing trees and eating."
Mr. Tarkin said, "And eating, eh?"
"Sure, and snoring," Pee-wee said. Cracky, I could hardly keep a straight face.
"There"s a picture showing me peeling potatoes and another one where I"m stirring soup," the kid told him, "and a lot of other peachy adventures."
Mr. Tarkin said, "I should call the soup picture a _stirring_ adventure.
I"m afraid that potato peeling scene would be too thrilling for our simple people."
"Anyway," I said, "if we could help you on account of the strike maybe you"d be willing to help us let the people know--maybe."
"If they don"t know they can"t come, can they?" Pee-wee said.
Mr. Tarkin just sat back and laughed and laughed and laughed. Jiminies, you wouldn"t think he had labor troubles, the way he laughed. Then he began asking us a lot of questions about the scouts and he asked us if most of them were like Pee-wee. He said they didn"t have any scouts in Skiddyunk.
After a while he kind of sobered up and he said, "I wonder if the boy scouts would make good strike-breakers?"
"Sure we would," Pee-wee shouted; "breaking things is our middle name."
"He even breaks the rules," I said.
"When there isn"t anything to break, he _makes_ breaks," Westy said.
Then Mr. Tarkin told us how the boy that delivered the papers was on a strike. He said it wasn"t much of a sympathy strike, because n.o.body had any sympathy for him. He said that boy wanted a one-hour day and an hour and a half for lunch. I couldn"t tell whether that man was jollying us or not. Anyway, the papers weren"t delivered, that was one sure thing, and he told us that if we would deliver them for him, he"d boom our movie show, so that people would be standing up in that car.
"Believe _me_," I told him; "they _usually_ stand up in the cars down our way."
Then he told us that the boy that was on a strike could deliver all the papers himself because he had a flivver, but that he"d let all five of us do it because we had to walk and because we didn"t know the streets in that town.
I said, "You leave it to us."
So then he gave us a list of all the people that had papers delivered at their houses and we made five routes. I took all the papers for Main Street and Westy took all the papers for three other streets and Connie and Wig took the rest, all except a few scattered around in different parts of town, and Pee-wee took those, because he makes a specialty of scout pace. I thought that maybe we"d have trouble about finding some places, but what did _we_ care? It was early.
While we were planning all about how we"d do, Mr. Tarkin called me into the room where they did the printing and showed me a handbill he had made up. He said, "As long as you"re a scout I guess you"d better write the copy for this yourself, and I"ll have it set up and run off while you"re getting ready to start out. Then you can slip one into every paper you deliver. How does that strike you?"
"Oh, it"ll be great!" I said.
Then he said I mustn"t write too much, because there wasn"t much time to set it up. This is what I made up and I could have made a better one only I was in such a hurry. First I was going to take it out into the office and ask the fellows about it, but I decided I wouldn"t because they were busy mapping out their routes. Anyway, I didn"t want Pee-wee to know what I said about him.
_ATTENTION!_
Big Movie Show in Boy Scout Traveling Theatre Opposite Store in Ridgeboro.
TO-NIGHT.
ADMISSION TEN CENTS.
See the Boy Scouts in Their Native Haunts.
Swimming, Tracking, Racing, Eating, Diving, Stalking, Snoring!
See Scout Harris in His Stirring Soup-Stirring Feat!
ONLY TEN CENTS!
TO-NIGHT.
CHAPTER IX
SANDWICHES
When we got back from delivering the papers, Mr. Tarkin said he had a good idea but that he was afraid that maybe we wouldn"t like it. He said, "Do boy scouts believe in advertising? What is your opinion of sandwiches?"
I said, "We eat "em alive. Do you want us to advertise some new kind of ham?"
"No, sir," he said; "I"m going to suggest a plan for advertising your movie show. Something _striking_."
Then he began laughing and he brought out a couple of big placards about as big as window-panes. They had fresh printing on them, all in great, big letters, and this is what they said: