Part 4

He used to sleep in his clothes because it was easier than dressing in the morning, but his Ma walloped that out of him. Then he had the bright idea of putting a sign with the price marked on it on most of the articles in his Pa's shop and going to the ball game, when the old gentleman went over to Bristol Centre Saturday afternoons on business. This worked all right at first for the Epping folks were honest, but one Saturday some strangers carried off about $100 worth of goods and Freddy got his from his father and got it good.

I could tell you a lot about the messes Freddy got into trying to do things the easiest way, but the super. is hanging around with a lot of inventory sheets so I'll have to cut this short with Freddy's prize performance. One summer morning Freddy's Pa and Ma went away for the day, but before they started Half Baked led Freddy out into the yard, shoved an axe into his unwilling hands and ordered him to cut down an oak that stood close to one side of the house, and was growing so big it was shutting out a lot of sunlight.

Now there wasn't a boy in Epping at that time who hadn't had considerable experience in chopping wood, unless it was Sammy Smead and he never counted anyway except on the afternoon we initiated him into the Brothers of Mystery, and there wasn't one of us who didn't hate it; but Freddy loathed it more than anything else, principally I guess, because there wasn't any easy way out. If you had to cut wood you had to cut it, and that's all there was to it.

Along about two that afternoon, a crowd of us boys bound for the swimming hole happened by Freddy's house, and found him pretty limp and blistery. He'd only hacked about half through the tree, but I think his mental anguish was worse than his physical exhaustion, because scheme as he might he had hit on no easy way to fell that oak, and the job looked as though it would last till sundown.

Freddy was a good diplomat, and he tried all the Tom Sawyer stuff on us he carried, but not a chance. There was not one of us who would chop wood when he didn't positively have to, and it looked as though Freddy was going to chop until the job was finished, when Dick Harris said something about blowing it up with some gunpowder his father had stored in a keg in his corn crib.

There was not one of us who would have helped Freddy cut down the tree, neither was there one of us who would refuse to help him blow it up, and Freddy, because he saw an easy way out, was the most enthusiastic of all.

We did it. First we dug a hole about four feet deep at the foot of the tree and buried the keg of powder after boring a hole in the top for a fuse. We packed the dirt down tight all around the keg leaving just enough loose to run the fuse through. Then Freddy as master of ceremonies lighted the fuse and we stepped back to wait results.

We didn't wait long. There was a roar and we found ourselves on the grass in the midst of what resembled a volcano on the war path. Dirt, stones, grass, sticks, and heaven knows what else were milling around us in clouds, and out of the corner of one eye I saw Ma Bean's geranium bed sail gaily across the street and drape itself over Mrs. Harry Brown's front gate. Glass was falling around us like shrapnel, for every window in the Bean's house shivered itself out onto the lawn. The tree--well, Sir, it fell on the house, knocked off a chimney and broke down the piazza roof, and the next day Half Baked had to hire Jed Snow's team of oxen to pull it clear before they could even start cutting it up.

I've a very vivid recollection of what my father gave me, and I rather think Freddy's was the same only more so, in fact none of the crowd slid bases for some time, and Half Baked made Freddy cut six cords of wood during the next month.

I don't know what has become of Freddy, but I have never seen his name in the headlines, so I guess he's still hunting for easy ways to do things, but you can bet he's left gunpowder out of his schemes for the last forty years.

Now Ted you just mail me those "trots." I'll enjoy them, and you give those old timers a fair show from now on. It's not sporting Ted to pull a "pony" on them, for they can't win any way if you don't want them to. Play the game.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

LYNN, MASS., _January 27, 19--_

DEAR TED:

That notice from Professor Todd stating that you had been taken off probation was the most welcome bit of news I've had in a long time, and the enclosed check is my way of saying thank you.

I knew if you once stopped fooling and got right down to cases, that none of those old best sellers like J. C. or Virgil could hold you for downs, and as for Quadratic Equations, your instructor writes me that if you'll take 'em seriously you can make 'em eat out of your hand.

Now you're again on speaking terms with your lessons, you can keep their friendship by visiting with them a couple of hours a day, and when they once learn you mean business they'll follow you around like a hungry cat follows the milk man.

There's nothing succeeds like success, whether it's getting respectable marks in your studies, or selling shoes, and if you don't believe it ask Charlie Dean.

Probably you've always thought of Charlie as my star salesman and you're right, but it wasn't many years ago Charlie couldn't have sold five dollar gold pieces for a quarter, even if he gave a patent corn cutter away with each as a premium.

Charlie came to work for me right out of the high school, and as he was always willing to do a little more than his share around the office, I decided to give him a try on the road, where he'd have a chance to make real money. So when a younger salesman left me one New Year's, I put Charlie through a course of sprouts in the factory to be sure he knew how the "Heart of the Hide" line was made, gave him a couple of trunks full of new samples, and shipped him out to the middle west.

Charlie was gone three months and he didn't sell enough goods to pay the express on his samples, but realizing a cub salesman's first trip is always his hardest, I swallowed my tongue and sent him out again.

I couldn't understand it. Charlie was no loafer, and I felt sure he was working hard each day, but he had no more success in persuading buyers to stock "The Heart of the Hide" line than old King Canute had in bossing the sea around. If he had done fairly well, I'd thought he was just green and would develop, but when he had been out six months and his sales record sheet was as white as a field of new fallen snow, I decided too much was enough, and wired him to return to the factory, for Fair Bros. were getting more solid in that territory every day, and I simply had to have distribution there.

When Charlie arrived in Lynn, I was going to fire him, for I never believed in putting a man back in the office who has been on the road. He's too liable to be down on the house, and afflict all the other clerks with the same poison; but Charlie pleaded so hard to stay, I finally gave him back his old job, and, as he showed no signs of being a trouble maker, I paid him no further attention.

The next winter, I had a hunch that women's fall styles would run heavy on calfskin, so I loaded up with a hundred thousand pairs of heavyweight cut soles and patted myself on the back that I had put one over on the trade. A few weeks later, the buyers made so loud a noise about Vici Kid a deaf mute could have heard 'em.

There I was, caught flatfooted with a hundred thousand pairs of soles stored in the basement, and the market on them dropping every day so fast I got dizzy when I tried to figure out how much I stood to lose.

I tried to take a loss and turn them back to the manufacturer. Nothing doing, nor would any other cut sole house take them except at a price that would have come near to busting me. Next I tried the manufacturers of women's shoes, not a chance. Then as the soles ran pretty heavy I tried boys' makers, again nothing doing.

I was getting desperate, for I had a lot of money tied up in those soles, and so far as I could see I was liable to own 'em for some time unless the sheriff took 'em.

One morning, I happened to think of Al Lippincott. You know his factory in Dover, the red one you can see from the station? Al makes a line of boys' and youths', but he is the hardest buyer in the whole trade, a regular rip tearing snorter who begins to yell the minute a salesman steps into his office, and keeps it up until the salesman either wants to lick him or to beat it.

I got Al on the long distance, and finally, after his usual outburst that nearly melted the wire, he allowed he was going to be in Lynn that afternoon and would drop in.

I went home feeling somewhat better, but while I was eating lunch the telephone rang, and I learned your Ma had been badly smashed up in an automobile accident, and had been taken to the Salem Hospital.

I never thought of Al again until I was going to bed that night, and then I was so worried about your Ma I didn't care much whether he'd called or not.

The next morning, when I rolled back the top of my desk, I found an order for the whole hundred thousand pairs of cut soles made out in Charlie Dean's handwriting and billed to Al Lippincott at two cents a pair more than I had paid for 'em.

I never asked Charlie how he made the sale, and he never told me, but when he asked for another chance on the road he got it, and knowing he'd sold the toughest man in the United States he made good from the kick-off.

I only mention Charlie because when you were on probation you were in the same kind of fix he was before he sold Al Lippincott. Now you know you can lick those studies of yours. I want you to crowd 'em so hard the teachers will mark down at least a B for you when you get up to recite.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

LYNN, MASS., _February 10, 19--_

DEAR TED:

This trouble you seem to be having with your eyes, is causing your Ma a great deal of worry. She has visions of a blind son tapping his way through life with a cane and I expect in a few days, she'll have reached the dog on a leash stage. I'd be more worried, if I hadn't happened to remember that the mid-years are only two weeks off, and that eye trouble is one of the best known alibis.

Your suggestion of coming home early Sunday, so you can give your eyes a rest, I agree to most heartily. We'll go into Boston and have an oculist examine you. Then if you need glasses, I'll see that you get them, and if you don't, you're out of luck if you're trying to establish an alibi for flunking your exams.

Eyesight is a mighty curious thing. Some folks get so nearsighted they'll step over a ten dollar bill to pick up a nickel, and others can see a dollar a pair profit in a shipment of shoes the ordinary manufacturer would be glad to sell at cost. It takes pretty good eyesight to be a successful shoe manufacturer nowadays, for it's the ability to see profits where they don't exist, and then handle your output so that you make two little profits grow where only one grew before, that buys new tires for the car, and sends sons to "prep" schools.

Somehow, your reports don't make me feel you've strained your eyes studying. If you had, you wouldn't have made the break you did in your oral English exam. when according to Professor Todd you stated that Ben Johnson was president of the American League. Then, too, I haven't had an excess electric light bill from the school, so it's hard for me to believe your eyesight has been ruined by your burning the midnight electricity.

I remember a clerk I once had in the office, who had a terrible time with his eyes, especially, when he was about due for a bawling out for some fool mistake. He once made out a lot of shoe tags with the specifications calling for eight iron soles on comfort slippers, and when I was about to claw his hide for such a blunder, he claimed his desk was so far from a window he couldn't half see. I remembered that a lot of folks can read real well by electric light, and there was a hundred candle power bulb right over him; but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and moved him over beside a window.

Two weeks later, he made a mistake in a bill that cost me several hundred dollars, and then it was the bright light that dazzled him. I was suspicious, but he pleaded so hard for a day off, to rest his poor eyes in a darkened room, I told him to go ahead, and the next noon as I was driving home along the boulevard I spotted him fishing from some rocks, in a glare that would have made an Arab see green.

I meant to fire him, but I was so busy I forgot it, and for a month he went along without making a noticeable mistake. Then he came to me one day for a raise. I told him that his eyesight was so poor, that if the cashier put any extra money in his envelope he'd never even see it, and that he'd better strain his eyes a little looking for another job, as I couldn't have the responsibility on my shoulders of his going blind while working for me.

The old man wasn't born yesterday, Ted, and having had considerable experience with eyesight alibis he's a bit gun shy.

Perhaps one reason I'm a little suspicious of this eye trouble of yours, is that I have a very vivid recollection of your Uncle Ted the first year he was at boarding school. Ted started out like a whirlwind that fall, all A's and B's in his studies, until along in November he began to get more interested in wrestling with a flute he was trying to learn to play, than with his lessons, so that in December his marks had a striking resemblance to those of the present-day Germany.

In January, he developed serious eye trouble. He wrote home that his eyes were so bad he couldn't study, and was sure to fail at mid-year. Whether my father believed the first part of his wail I never knew, but I'm sure he did the second. Anyway he collared Ted one Saturday afternoon, and drove him over to the oculist at Bristol Centre taking me along as ballast.

Ted put up some pretty good arguments against going, claiming a terrible headache and a violent pain in his stomach. My father made him though, and when we finally reached the oculist, Ted really did look sick enough to have had not only eye trouble, but about all the other known diseases, as well.

Doctor Boggs, who was a queer little scrap of a man, as quick tempered as gunpowder, plumped Ted down in a chair, and began to peer at his eyes through a magnifying glass. The more he looked, the more nervous Ted became. Finally, the doctor asked him if his eyes felt any better, and Ted allowed they did.

Then the doctor put a lot of charts up about twenty feet away, and asked Ted to read the letters on them, which he did so quickly the doctor couldn't change the charts fast enough. I grinned, for by then I was sure Ted was faking. Ted also realized that for a boy whose eyes had been causing him so much trouble, he'd been giving a remarkable exhibition so when Doctor Boggs began trying different glasses on him, Ted protested that he couldn't see a thing with any of them.

The doctor was very patient, trying on pair after pair, Ted groaning louder with each new one. At last, the old fellow stopped for a few minutes and rummaged around in a desk drawer where he kept a lot of his eyeglasses. Suddenly, he turned to Ted clapped a new pair on his nose, and stood back smiling sweetly at him.

"There my boy," he said, as sweet as honey. "Those are much better, aren't they!"

I took a look at Ted and almost choked. Then I realized what was coming to him, so I tried to pass him the high sign. It was too late.

"Those are the only ones I've been able to see through, doctor," Ted chirped innocently.

The next instant, the doctor with one word "Fraud!" grabbed Ted by an ear and marched him to the door, while father followed looking about as pleasant as a thunder storm.

You've probably guessed the reason why already. There was no glass in the last frames. After we got home, father and Ted retired to the woodshed and I heard the most heartrending sounds. When Ted returned to school his marks began to improve at once, and they kept on getting better and better until the end of the year, and since that day Ted has never had on a pair of glasses. It was one of the quickest and most complete cures of eye trouble ever recorded, and it also proved that old Doctor Boggs knew his job.

Faking is mighty poor business Ted, whether it's trying to establish an alibi for flunking your school exams, or making army shoes with paper soles for the government. The first is apt to get you into the habit of shirking your work, and the second is mighty likely to land you in jail. Some business men, not many, by faking the quality of their goods shoot up like a sky rocket, but when the time for repeat orders comes along, they come down like the stick, and if there's anything any more useless than the spent stick of a sky rocket, it's a man who tries to ease his way through life on alibis.

Do your best and stand by it. If it is your best, you have no cause to be ashamed no matter how it turns out, and remember that a man who never made a mistake never made anything.

My boy, if there really is something the matter with your eyes, we can't have them attended to any too quickly, and if there isn't I somehow feel a little frankness now, on my part, may effect almost as rapid a cure as your Uncle Ted's and without any painful ending.

Your affectionate father,

WILLIAM SOULE.

LYNN, MASS., _February 20, 19--_

DEAR TED:

My boy, I owe you an apology for doubting you had eye trouble. It was hard for me to believe you were faking; but the circumstantial evidence against you was pretty strong. I should have known better, though, for you have always played fair with me so I ask your pardon.

That letter from the oculist, in Portsmouth, saying you needed glasses was a relief and a disappointment. A relief, to know you weren't trying to slip one over, and a disappointment to learn you must wear glasses. Don't let wearing glasses disturb you. You won't need them when you are playing football, and if you only wear them when you read your nose won't be disfigured by the strain.

It's funny how a young fellow like you, who has the time and the education to appreciate them, don't seem to care about reading good books, while an old rough and ready like your dad, can't have enough of them. When I was your age, I was too busy trying to help support the family, to find time to read much besides the Epping Bugle, whereas, you seem to be too busy figuring out how to have a good time, to care what the biggest men of the world thought about things.

You've wanted to know why I am always buying so many books, and although I never realized it before, I guess it's because I couldn't have them when I was young.

Yes, on that house party at Manchester, Ted, go ahead and have a good time and while I remember it here's a check that may come in handy for a few extras. If I were you, I'd take all the extras in the way of clothes you can cram into a suit case.

Forewarned is forearmed you know, and it's just as well when going to a house party, or to a fight, to carry all the heavy artillery you muster, for you never can be sure you won't need it.

I've been to only one house party, and I don't expect I shall ever go to another; but if I do even if it's only for a week end, I'm going to take every rag of clothing I own from oilskins to dress suit, not forgetting rubber boots and pumps, especially the pumps.

I believe a person is supposed to have a good time at a house party, but my only offense was about as enjoyable as the time I had typhoid.

Perhaps you remember the summer your Ma and I went to Pittsfield for two weeks, and left you with your Aunt Sarah over at Marblehead.

Well anyway we did, and I haven't thought much of Pittsfield since. We got there on a Friday, and the next morning I went down town for something and ran slap into Jack Hamilton.

Jack and I were boys together in Epping, and used to do considerable business trading rabbits and whatever live stock we happened to own.

Jack left Epping when he was seventeen, went to work for a stock broker in Boston, and made barrels of money, incidently marrying a Philadelphia girl who had callouses on her thumbs from cutting coupons.

Jack has always been my broker and handled all my finances, but for a good many years we hadn't seen much of each other socially, so when he suggested your Ma and I go out that afternoon to his cottage in Lenox, and stay over Sunday, I was glad to accept, thinking we'd have a chance to talk over old times. I went back to the hotel and told your Ma, and then promptly forgot all about it, for there was an old fellow living in Pittsfield who'd just invented an extension last that looked good to me.

I spent most of the afternoon in the old inventor's shop and when I returned to the hotel along about five, I found a high-wheeled cart outside which Jack had sent over to get us, and your Ma having duck fits for fear I wouldn't show up.

She said she'd put everything in my suit case I'd need, so I only slicked up a bit and we were off.

It was a mighty pretty ride over to Lenox, but when we turned in at the gate to Jack's cottage, I thought our driver had made a mistake, for the place looked bigger than the Boston Public Library, and about as homelike as a New York apartment house.

A frozen-faced individual in brass-buttoned red vest and a waiter's uniform met us at the front door, and when I told him I was William Soule of Lynn he led the way into the hall and disappeared.

We hung around for some time. Then a maid came along and showed us to our rooms. It was a mighty nice room I had, with pink silk wall coverings and gray wicker furniture, and with a tiled bath off it, that gleamed like a Pullman porter's smile. I looked the bed over carefully, decided it was comfortable, and then thought I'd go out in the yard and walk around. As I stepped on to the piazza, a haughty-faced woman disentangled herself from a group of ladies who were playing cards, and came towards me murmuring, Mr. Soule?

I pleaded guilty, and she extended two cold fingers, that had about as much cordiality in them as a dead smelt, and said she was pleased to meet me. From her tone, I judged she wasn't going to lead any cheers over the fact, so I bowed politely and marched on out to the stables in front of which I saw a boy exercising a mighty likely-looking colt. Jack had some fine horses, and a wonderful herd of Jerseys. His head groom was a real human sort of chap, who knew more about cattle than any man I ever met, and we were having a real good visit together when a gong like a fire alarm started somewhere in the house.

I made the piazza in three jumps, tore through the hall and up the stairs determined to get your Ma out before the house burned down, for what I'd seen of the Lenox Fire Department, sitting in his shirt sleeves before the door of the hose house as we drove over from Pittsfield, hadn't inspired me with any great amount of confidence in his ability to put out anything bigger than a bonfire.

As I rushed into the upper hall, I thought it funny I didn't smell smoke, so when I ran smack into a maid I grabbed her and asked her where the fire was.

"Fire!" she squealed.

"Yes," I answered, "wasn't that a fire gong?"

Ted, you should have seen her face. I thought she'd choke. She did her best to keep it straight, and not laugh, but it was some struggle.

At last she managed to stammer, that the gong wasn't for fire at all, but to let the guests know it was time to dress for dinner.

I felt as big as a man on Broadway looks from the tower of the Woolworth building, so I slipped her a dollar and ducked for my room.