CHAPTER I
THE “SALLY ANN”
It was summer vacation when this happened. We had been swimming in the fourth quarry and had stopped at Dad’s brickyard canal dock on the way home.
Scoop Ellery, our leader, reached for a rock the size of his fist and sent it crash-bang! against the side of an old clay scow that was moored to the dock.
“If I had money enough,” he grinned, “I’d buy that old tub and have some fun with it.”
Red Meyers scratched his freckled nose.
“What kind of fun?” he wanted to know, wondering, I guess, what use one could make of the weather-beaten old scow.
“Well,” considered Scoop, cocking his eyes at the scow, “it would make a swell houseboat, for one thing.”
“Let’s do it,” I promptly encouraged, picturing to myself the dandy fun that we could have in the Tutter canal with a houseboat. Hot dog! “Dad won’t care,” I hurried on. “Honest. For he told me that he was going to drag the scow out of the water and knock it to pieces.”
Here Peg Shaw, our big chum, came into the conversation.
“If your pa’ll let us use it,” he said to me, with an ear-to-ear grin, “I know how we can earn some money with it.”
Well, that sounded darby. For boys like to earn money. And if we could have fun doing it, as seemed very probable, so much the better.
Then Peg told us that it was his scheme to get up a boat show, patterned after the boat shows that used to travel on the Mississippi River years ago, only, of course, our show was to be a small one as compared to the early river shows. We could easily make the audience seats, our chum explained in reciting his scheme, and build a stage at one end of the boat.
Red wanted to give a picture show.
“I’ve got a peachy moving picture machine,” he told us.
“What’s the matter with our black art show?” Scoop suggested.
“The black art show,” Peg said, waggling, “is what I had in mind.”
“Oh, baby!” I cried. “Won’t we have fun?”
Scoop had been studying sleight of hand tricks and his book of instructions told how to stage an amateur black art show. Black art is a good magic trick. Anybody can do it, as I will explain later on in my story. In June we put on the show in Red’s barn. It was fun. We took in ninety-five cents, which was pretty good for the first time. If Peg, the big cow, hadn’t stumbled over a lantern, thereby setting fire to one of Mrs. Meyers’ sheets that we were using on the stage, we probably would have made a lot of money giving black art shows. But we had to go out of the show business when Mr. Meyers put a padlock on the barn door.
Now we were going to be showmen again! We were glad. The more we talked about the boat show scheme the better we liked it. In the first place it was different. People who had laughed at our barn show, calling it a kid affair, would be interested in our boat show. And we wouldn’t have any competition, because we would be the owners of the only flat-bottomed boat in town . Other boys might envy us, but they wouldn’t be able to take any of our business away from us by starting a rival boat show. Certain of success, we were eager to begin. But first I had to gain Dad’s consent.
The old clay scow is a part of his brickyard outfit. I guess it was built years and years before I was born. Anyway, I remember it as one of the first things in the brickyard that drew my attention. I was sorry when they quit using it. For it was fun to ride up the shady canal to the clay pit and back again to the factory where the clay was made into bricks. It took two men to manage the scow when it was in use. One man drove the team of mules that did the towing and the other man handled the big rudder, thereby keeping the loaded scow in the canal’s channel. As you can imagine it was rather slow traveling, for the mules never moved faster than a walk; but, as I say, it was fun nevertheless.
Nowadays all of Dad’s clay comes into the brickyard on big motor trucks. And it was because he had no use for the scow that he had told me that he was going to knock it to pieces.
That evening at the supper table I told my folks about our swell show scheme. They laughed.
“What won’t you and that Ellery boy think up next!” Mother said.
“It’s a dandy scheme,” I told her. “We’ll make a lot of money. It’ll be fun, too.”
“I only hope,” she said, when I had gotten permission to use the old scow, “that the boat won’t spring a leak and sink in the middle of the canal during one of your shows.”
“No danger of that,” laughed Dad, who knew how well built the scow was. He caught my eyes. “Did I understand you to say,” he quizzed across the table, “that it’s going to be a magic show?”
“The same as we put on in Red’s barn,” I nodded.
“Who’s the magician?—Scoop?”
I gave another nod.
“He’s also the general manager of our show company,” I informed.
Mother smiled.
“What are you,” she inquired in fun, “the traffic manager?”
I told her, with dignity, that I was the treasurer, which was a very important and trustworthy position, and handled the money.
“Peg’s the secretary,” I further informed, “and Red’s the ticket agent.”
Dad considered.
“How would it be,” he suggested, starting his nonsense, “if you put on a trapeze act? Mother and I are crazy to get our names on the program; and trapeze stuff is our specialty.”
“The very idea!” sputtered Mother, who knew, of course, that Dad was trying to bother her. He likes to tease people. I’ll tell the world that I get my share of it!
After supper I picked up Red and the two of us went in search of Peg and Scoop to tell them the good news that the scow was ours. They were at Peg’s house, where Scoop was importantly lettering a fancy cloth sign. Here it is:
THE “SALLY ANN” SHOW COMPANY
Mystery and Magic
To-night at 8:30
Admission, Including War Tax, 15c.
Children 10c.
Red hates girls.
“Who’s ‘Sally Ann’?” he scowled, letting out his freckled neck at the sign.
Scoop quickly read the other’s thoughts.
“You’ll like Sal,” he grinned.
“If you’re going to have a gurl in it,” Red balked, “you can count me out,” and he hitched up his pants and started off.
“Hey; come here!”
“Nothin’ doin’.”
“ ‘Sally Ann,’ ” laughed Scoop, “is the name of our show boat.”
Red gave a disgusted snort.
“Named after a gurl! Huh! Why don’t you name it after a boy?”
“A boat,” explained Scoop, “is usually a ‘she.’ Anyway,” he defended, “ ‘Sally Ann’ is a good name. I’ve got it printed that way and I’m not going to change it.”
Like Red, I didn’t think very much of our leader’s choice of a name for our show boat. But I kept shut. For you can’t argue Scoop down.
“I’m going to make two of these signs,” he explained to us. “One for each side of the boat. I can finish the job to-night. And to-morrow we’ll put up the stage and build the seats.”
“Hot dog!” I cried, thinking of the fun we were going to have.
“It will take a lot of coin to get started,” he went on, “so we better check up and find out how we stand on the money question. I can put in seven dollars.” He looked at me. “How much are you good for, Jerry?”
I knew that I could depend on Dad and Mother to help me out. It would be a loan, sort of. Later on, when the show was earning money, I could pay them back out of my share of the profits.
“I’ll bring ten dollars to-morrow morning,” I told our leader.
“So will I,” promised Red, who has more truck than any other kid in Tutter. If he took a sudden notion to start a circus all he would have to do would be to whistle and his folks would stock him up with a baby elephant and a flock of camels.
Peg was silent.
“I don’t like to ask Pa for money,” he finally spoke up. “For he has to work hard for what he gets. If I could sell some of my rabbits.…”
“Don’t sell the white one,” grinned Scoop, “for we need it in our act. Remember?—I wave the magic wand over the empty teacup and out jumps a white rabbit.”
“Tommy Hegan wants to buy a pair of rabbits,” I told Peg, who promised to call on the Grove Street kid the first thing in the morning.
Scoop was adding in his mind.
“If you can get three dollars,” he told Peg, “we’ll have an even thirty. That ought to be enough to start with.”
“Thirty dollars,” repeated Red, thinking of his stomach. “That will buy—um—three hundred ten-cent dishes of ice-cream; or six hundred ice-cream cones; or three thousand penny sticks of licorice; or——”
Scoop gave the hungry one a contemptuous up-and-down look.
“Good-night!” he groaned, throwing up his hands. “It’s a hopeless case.”
Red grinned. For he likes to get Scoop’s goat.
“I can’t work,” he strutted around, holding his freckled nose in the air, “if I can’t eat. And if you expect me to put in ten dollars——”
“Your ten dollars is an investment,” explained Scoop, who has learned a lot about business from his father. “It gives you a quarter interest in the company.” He paused, then added with a grin: “If we take in a million dollars, you get a quarter of it.”
“I’ll be satisfied,” Peg spoke up in his sensible way, “if we make a hundred dollars … twenty-five dollars apiece. I’ve been wanting a bicycle.”
“You and me both,” I put in.
“Well,” grinned Scoop, “it’s a bit unlikely that we’ll get to be millionaires. Still, you never can tell.”