CHAPTER IV
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND ORGAN
Scoop was on hand the following morning at five o’clock. Peg and I were glad to see him. For our stomachs were empty and we wanted to go home to breakfast.
But before we left for home we told the industrious early-riser about our weird experience. At first he refused to take our story seriously. It was a crazy dream, he ridiculed.
Peg soberly shook his head.
“No, it wasn’t a dream. For we both were wide awake. Jerry declares it was a whispering ghost that visited us. And maybe he’s right. I can’t say that it wasn’t a ghost. Certainly it acted queer enough to be one.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” boasted Scoop.
“Neither did I,” I shot back at him, looking him straight in the eye, “until last night.”
“A ghost! You’re funny, Jerry.”
“All my life,” I followed up, waggling, “I’ve carried in my mind a sort of idea of what a ghost’s voice would be like, if there was such a thing as a ghost. And twice last night I heard exactly that kind of a voice.”
“It was a queer voice,” Peg told Scoop, serious. “Sort of hollow, like a whisper in a dark tomb.”
“Jinks! If you fellows keep on talking about tombs, backing each other up in your crazy story, you’ll have me actually believing that your visitor was a ghost.”
“If it wasn’t a ghost,” I said, to a good point, “why did the Strickers scream and run away?”
“The Strickers are likely to do anything.”
“They wouldn’t have been afraid of a man.”
“Maybe,” Scoop grinned, keeping up the argument, “the man had a gun or a sword.”
“Bunk!” I grunted, disgusted with the arguer, who is never so happy as when he is trying, superior-like, to talk some one else down. “They saw a ghost,” I waggled, “and nothing else but.”
My stiff attitude seemed to amuse the other.
“All right,” he nodded. “Have it your own way. It was a ghost, as you say. And what is a ghost? A supernatural thing, if we are to believe the crazy stories that we have heard. And, being supernatural, a ghost, of course, knows everything. It doesn’t have to ask questions. It knows what it wants to know without asking. Isn’t that right?”
I nodded.
“All right!” he came back quickly, a snappier sparkle in his eyes. “If this visitor of yours was a ghost, as you declare, why did it ask you where you were? Explain that, if you can.”
Peg scratched his head and squinted at me.
“That’s a good argument, Jerry.”
But I wasn’t going to back down and let the smart one have everything his own way.
“Huh!” I said, standing by my belief.
Scoop was still grinning, contented, I imagine, in the thought of how very smart he was!
“As I say,” he went on, “I don’t believe in ghosts, and consequently I don’t know very much about them. But from what I’ve heard, I have the impression that a ghost is sort of unfriendly. Of a mean disposition, it delights to sneak up on people. And the more people it scares into fits, the merrier for it. That is my idea of a ghost, Yet, if I am to believe your story, this ghost did you a good turn.”
“A friendly ghost,” grinned Peg, amused in the thought. “Haw! haw! haw!” he burst out, in his rough way. “It isn’t every company of showmen with a friendly ghost on their side. We’re lucky.”
At Scoop’s request I repeated my dream.
“I was in a cave,” I told him. “It was dark. Like the inside of a cistern at midnight. I could feel something near me. A sort of invisible thing. Then I heard a low, whispering voice. ‘Where … are … you?’ I couldn’t see a thing, as I say. But somehow I knew that it was a ghost that was whispering to me. ‘Where … are … you?’ it breathed again. I wanted to run away. But I couldn’t move. I was scared stiff. A sort of paralysis. Every second I expected to feel the pressure of its cold hand on mine. Ough! I was full of shivers. Then, sudden-like, I was wide awake.”
“And the voice that you heard after the Strickers had gone was the same voice that you heard in your dream?”
I nodded.
“Not only the same voice,” I told him, “but the same words.”
He was puzzled.
“I’ve been told,” he said, thinking, “that dreams happen in a flash. And I guess it’s so. For one night when it was storming Mother came into my bedroom to close my window. The creaking of the window pulleys sort of registered in my sleeping mind. And I had a long, crazy dream about burglars. To have done what I did in the dream would have taken an hour or more. Yet it all happened in an instant.”
“If that is the case,” I reasoned out, “I must have heard the whispering voice in my sleep.”
“It was the whispering voice,” the leader declared, coming to a quick conclusion, “that caused you to dream of the ghost.”
“What?” cried Peg, surprised. “Do you mean to say that Jerry heard the whispering voice before the Strickers came?”
Scoop nodded, sure of himself.
“I can’t understand it,” cried Peg, looking dizzy. “Why should a man mysteriously board our boat in the middle of the night? What object could he have had? Who was he? Why did he whisper to us, asking where we were? And where did he vanish to?”
“It was a ghost,” I hung on.
Scoop laughed.
“Let it be a ghost, if you insist. We should worry, as long as it’s a friendly ghost.”
Peg was struggling, in his slow, steady way, to get his thoughts straightened out.
“But if the man was here in advance of the Strickers, as you say, how did he get on the boat? There was no plank then.”
“You and Jerry ought to know more about that than any one else,” shrugged Scoop, “for you were here when it happened.” Then he added, in a lighter voice: “But let’s forget about your mysterious whisperer for the present. If there’s a mystery here, we probably can solve it to-night.”
“You think the man will come back?”
“It isn’t unlikely.”
Peg’s black eyes snapped.
“Gosh! I wish it was my turn to watch.”
“I imagine,” laughed Scoop, “that Red will be tickled pink to let you have his place.”
“Where is Red?” I spoke up, thus reminded of our absent chum. “Why didn’t you bring him with you?”
“What? Get that sleepy-head out of bed before eight o’clock? You must think I know how to work miracles, Jerry.”
“I’ll stop for him on my way back,” I said, starting off abreast of Peg.
“Make it snappy,” Scoop told us. “For there’s a million things to do before we can open up our show.” Then he called after us, laughing: “Don’t forget to look on the front page of last night’s Daily Globe when you get home.”
Peg and I wondered at this remark. And to find out what the leader meant, we quickened our steps toward home. I grabbed the newspaper as soon as I was in the house. And here is the heading that met my eager eyes on the front page:
CLAY SCOW TRANSFORMED BY LOCAL BOYS INTO FLOATING THEATER
Giving our names, the newspaper article stated that we had transformed the old brickyard clay scow into a fine floating theater, with a stage and seats, and were planning to give black art shows, an attraction that undoubtedly would prove popular with both old and young.
“So, why should we care,” the article concluded, in nonsense, “if Ashton has the new county jail? For we have the Sally Ann! And our only editorial regret is that our enterprising young showmen haven’t a motor on their unique craft, for we would delight to have them toot their show horn at Ashton’s canal door, to thus awaken that somnolent community to Tutter’s exceptional enterprise. In Tutter, the town that does things, we start young!”
Well, I stared at the concluding paragraph, reading it a second time. “And our only editorial regret is that our enterprising young showmen haven’t a motor.…”
Jinks! Smart as we were, we hadn’t thought of that. But wouldn’t it be peachy, though? And think of the money we could make! For if we got as far as Ashton with our show, what was there to hinder us from going farther?
Gobbling down my breakfast, with Mother scolding me for eating so fast, I hoofed it to the brickyard dock, forgetting all about my promise to stop for Red.
“Did you put the article in the newspaper?” I asked Scoop.
He nodded.
“Pa suggested it. ‘Go over and tell Editor Stair about your new boat show,’ he told me yesterday noon. ‘Make him publish the story in his newspaper. He gets a lot of money out of me for store advertising. So, as a member of the family, you’re entitled to all the publicity that you can get.’ ”
“ ‘Publicity,’ ” I repeated. “What’s that?”
“The article that you just read in the newspaper is publicity. It tells the Tutter people about our show in a news way. That’s publicity, Pa says.”
“It’s advertising,” I said.
“Publicity and advertising are much the same thing. Only, as I understand it, you get publicity for nothing and you pay for advertising. By the way, Jerry, I told Mr. Stair that we would put an advertisement in his newspaper when we got ready to open up our show. Don’t let me forget about it. We’ve got to order tickets, too.”
“Why not get some more publicity,” I suggested, eager to hang on to our thirty dollars, “and let the advertising go. It’ll be cheaper for us.”
“We need advertising and publicity both,” Scoop waggled. “What we want to do, to make a success of our show,” he added, businesslike, “is to get everybody in town to talking about us. And to do that we’ve got to advertise, and we’ve got to have the newspaper further recognize us and print more news about us. Publicity news. A lot of people will laugh at the idea of four boys starting a boat show, and maybe they won’t pay any attention to us at the start. But after a day or two, knowing that we are still in business, they’ll begin to wonder if our show isn’t of some account after all. They’ll get curious to see it. And then, when they come to the boat to satisfy their curiosity, we’ll get their money. See?”
I had to admit to myself that Scoop was pretty smart.
“Wouldn’t it be darby,” I said, “if we could hitch an engine to our boat, as the newspaper says. We could ride our audience up the canal, instead of giving our show here at the dock.”
Scoop scratched his head.
“That would be a slick stunt.”
“Let’s do it,” I urged.
“Where are we going to get the necessary engine?”
“The junk yard,” I told him, “is full of old auto engines. For the biggest part of Mr. Solbeam’s business is junking cars. Tommy Hegan bought an engine from him for ten dollars. It runs, too.”
Determined, on more lengthy conversation, in which our other two chums took part, to see what we could do in the way of supplying our show boat with an engine, Scoop and I and Red went to the junk yard, leaving Peg on guard at the dock. As I had told Scoop, there were dozens of old auto engines in the yard. We looked them over, picking out the one that we wanted. Then we had a talk with the proprietor.
“Ya,” he said, working his shoulders and screwing up his hairy face, “I sell heem vor a ten dollah. O, ya, ya,” he flourished, “heem vork. Fine, fine. An’ a beeg bargain, boys; a beeg bargain.”
Scoop looked around the cluttered junk yard.
“What’ll you give us,” he asked, to a point, “if we straighten up this mess for you?”
“Vot’s dat?”
“We’ll work for you for the rest of the day, the three of us, if you’ll sell us the engine for three dollars. Is it a deal?”
The junk man scowled. I thought at first that he was going to order us out of the yard. But I was to learn that scowling was just a trick of his. He had to scowl and work his shoulders and flourish his hands in order to talk business.
“I tell you vot, boys, you vork it two days an’ not vun day an’ I sell you heem vor dree dollahs.”
“No,” waggled Scoop, who realized that the other was trying to get the big end of the bargain.
The junk man next offered the engine to us for one day’s work and five dollars.
“No,” Scoop said again. “We made you our offer. You can take it or leave it.”
“Vell,” shrugged the junk man, with a trace of a grin on his face, “you gif me da dree dollahs, an’ with da day’s vork ve vill call it a deal.”
Cleaning up that junk yard was the hardest work I ever did. And as I tugged and lugged I told myself that when I grew up the one thing that I wasn’t going to be was a junk wrestler. By ten o’clock my arms were so lame that it pained me to lift them. I couldn’t step around half as briskly as I had done at the start. I suggested to the other fellows, who were equally as tired as I was, that we better stop and rest. And with Mr. Solbeam’s consent we sent Red home for some sandwiches and doughnuts.
I was glad when the noon whistles blew. As I hurried into the street Dad drove by in our auto, stopping at my signal.
“I never saw you look any dirtier,” he grinned, “so you ought to be happy.”
I told him what I had been doing.
“Hard work, hey?” and he looked at me sort of warm-like.
“I’ll tell the world it’s hard work,” Red piped up from the back of the car, where he was stretched full length on the seat.
“Well,” grinned Dad, “anything worth having is worth working for.” After which little sermon he inquired how the show business was coming along, asking particularly if we had received any congratulatory professional telegrams from P. T. Barnum or Al Ringling.
We would soon open up for business, I told him, paying no attention to his nonsense about the telegrams. Our big job now, I explained, was to get the engine to working and rig up some kind of a propeller.
“I suppose you’re incorporated,” he said, further joshing me.
“Ask Scoop,” I grinned. “He’s the manager.”
“Well, I hope that he proves to be a better manager than he did the night that he had the fire department squirting water on the Meyers’ barn.”
“Scoop’s all right,” I waggled.
That afternoon the thermometer went up to something like one hundred degrees in the shade, only we didn’t know much about what it was like in the shade for the junk that we were working on was piled in the middle of the yard where there were no trees. We lugged castings and steel bars and other stuff around until it seemed to me as though the muscles of my arms would crack and curl up. I never was so dog-gone tired in all my life. But we made progress. The pile of stuff in the middle of the yard began to look more orderly. We put the cast iron in one pile and the steel pieces in another pile. The brass stuff went into a box. Mr. Solbeam explained to us that the brass was worth more than the iron and steel, and at his orders we dragged the box to a shed, the door of which was fitted with a padlock.
The shed, we found, was cluttered with all kinds of odd and interesting things that the junk man had bought, in the probable thought that he would be able to resell the stuff and make a profit.
“What the dickens?…” yipped Scoop. “Here’s some pieces of a merry-go-round. Look at the wooden horses! Some with three legs and some with two legs and some with only one leg. Here’s one without a head.”
“And here’s the merry-go-round organ,” yipped Red, from his side of the shed.
“Wind it up,” I laughed, “and see if it’ll play a tune.”
Scoop came on the run.
“Hot dog!” he cried, sort of draping himself over the dusty organ. “It’s just what we need for our show.”
Mr. Solbeam was out in front talking loudly to a deaf old man who had just brought a load of rags into the yard.
“I’m going to tackle him,” cried Scoop, “and see what he wants for the organ.”
Excited over our find, Red and I quite forgot about our tired arms and legs. We dragged the organ clear of the stuff that had been piled on top of it and dusted it off. It sure was a hard-looker. As the saying is, it had seen better days. But we didn’t care how rickety it was if it would make music. There was a little image on top that was supposed to beat a metal jigger. But it didn’t work. When Red turned the crank the image just jiggled its arm, as though it had a bad case of frazzled nerves.
“Lookit!” I cried, pointing to the organ’s name. “O-r-c-h-e-s-t-r-e-l-l-e,” I spelt.
“I thought it was a hand organ,” Red said, disappointed.
“It is a hand organ,” I grinned. “A plain old hand organ with a fancy name. But that’s all the better,” I waggled. “For we can print the name in our advertising. It’ll sound big. Turn the crank some more,” I instructed. “Let’s see if it’s got any tunes hid away in its ribs.”
The organ, under Red’s spirited winding, let out some awful groans and squeaks. It wheezed and puffed, acting for all the world as though it was gagging on a fish bone or had a hot potato in its musical mouth.
“It needs oiling,” panted Red, straightening and rubbing his back.
Here Scoop came on the run.
“It took two dollars to buy it,” he told us, “but it’s worth it. He asked twenty dollars at the start. But I talked him down. He probably was glad to get the two cart wheels. For he wouldn’t have many chances to sell a thing like this.”
“We may be throwing our money away,” I said. “For Red has been twisting its tail for five minutes, trying to tame it, and it hasn’t done anything except stutter.”
“Oh,” cried Scoop, pleased with his purchase, “we can make it play. I’m not worried about that.”
It was our plan to haul the heavy engine to the scow the following morning in Scoop’s delivery wagon. But in our eagerness to explore the inside of our organ, we took it away with us at the close of our day’s work, carting it down the street on one of Mr. Solbeam’s wabbly wheelbarrows.
It was agreed among us that we were to meet at Red’s house, directly after supper, to find out what was inside of the hand organ and sort of get on the good side of it. Not knowing how many tunes it had, or what they were like, filled us with excitement.
At Red’s suggestion we went up the alley as we approached his house. This was to avoid attention. Putting the organ in the barn, we separated.