Mark Tidd, Editor

"It's money you have to keep your b-business runnin'. Right now we have to buy ink and p-paper and things. We aren't t-takin' in enough money to do it, and to pay rent, and such...

About all we could do now until Jethro was safe in bed was to sit around and wish he'd go early. If I was going to pick out the worst job in the world, it would be a waiting job...

The first thing that happened was the coming of the Man With the Black Gloves. All of a sudden we looked up and there he was standing in the door, squinting at us with his disag...

Next morning Mark and Plunk and I went out to the Wigglesworth farm to see Rock. We walked right into the yard like we always do, now that Jethro thinks we're working for him, b...

"Nothin' but a s-snack," says he. "Didn't put in a thing but six pieces of apple p-p-pie and eight ham sandriches and a few fried-cakes, and three-four bananas, and a l-little h...

The first thing we did when we got home was to hunt up Plunk and Tallow to find out if anything had been heard of Rock, but he was still just as missing as ever--and even more so.

"Mark," says I, "here we're goin' out to Center Line Bridge to meddle with somethin' that don't concern us. It 'u'd serve us right if this Man With the Black Gloves caught us an...

During the next few days we were pretty busy getting ready for the next issue of the _Trumpet_, so we didn't get to see Rock, and Mark didn't have a minute to study out that puz...

I'll bet you've forgotten all about Spragg, the Eagle Center _Clarion_ man. If you have, you want to remember him again, for the time was coming fast when he would be right on h...

My, how those Home Culturers and Literary Circlers did work to get subscriptions for us. I never would have believed it, and how any of them had time to cook their husbands' mea...

"Yes--once," says I, "but not more 'n once. That hain't any record. If I'd been gettin' out a paper fifty-two times a year for twenty years I bet I could 'a' made more 'n one of...

Next afternoon late Mrs. Strubber came in with a challenge to the Home Culturers, all drawn up and ready to print. Mark had sent her picture away to have a cut made, and as soon...

We found out we were in a big attic that covered the whole of the house. Part of it was floored over and part of it was just joists with the lath and plaster showing on the unde...

Mark was around at my house, whistling for me, before I was through breakfast, so I gobbled down my last four pancakes and hustled out. He had another lunch as big as a trunk, s...

We had to forget about Rock for the next day, anyhow, and go to the county-seat to see about that political printing. It was two hours' ride on the train, but we enjoyed that an...

Mr. Tidd went along with us when we took possession of the Wicksville _Trumpet_. He headed straight for the room where the machinery was, Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ sticking ou...

Next day what Mark Tidd called the _mended_ Wicksville _Trumpet_ gave its first toot. It didn't break our backs carrying to the post-office the copies we mailed to regular subsc...

So we went off to the hotel and asked questions, but we didn't find out anything. Seems like the man never stayed there overnight and didn't register. Nobody we could find had e...

"Yes," says he, "but what's it g-gettin' us? We're p-payin' our bills and not r-runnin' in debt, but that's about all. No use havin' a b-business if you don't make money out of...

Next morning Mark and Tallow and Plunk and I were in the office just after the train from the city came in. A strange man came slamming through the door like he figured out his...

We heard Jethro and the Man With the Black Gloves dash up-stairs, and they hadn't hit the top step before Mark and I began clearing away the door so we could get out. It didn't...

There wasn't anything for us fellows to do but to go through with the thing now. We couldn't very well duck out and then ever show our faces again in Wicksville. So right after...

In the newspaper was another piece that was interesting to a lot of people, besides the piece about Rock. It was one Mark wrote about a daily newspaper such as Spragg was trying...