my name is martin—james briggs martin—but almost everybody calls me tallow, because once when i was younger i saw old uncle ike bond rubbing tallow on his boots to shine them, and then hurried home and fixed mine up with the stub of a candle and went to school. i guess it couldn’t have smelled very good, for everybody seemed to notice it, even teacher, and she asked me what in the world i’d been getting into. after that all the boys called me tallow, and always will, i guess.
i tell you about me first only because i’m writing this account of what happened. mark tidd is really the fellow i’m writing about, and mark’s father and mother, and the engine mr. tidd was inventing out in his barn, and some other folks who will be told about in their places. i helped some; so did plunk smalley and binney jenks, but mark tidd did most of it. mark tidd sounds like a short name, doesn’t it? but it isn’t short at all, for it’s merely what’s left of marcus aurelius fortunatus tidd, which was what he was christened, mostly out of gibbon’s decline and fall of the roman empire, a big book that mr. tidd was so fond of reading that he never read much of anything else except the papers.
mark tidd was the last of us four boys to move to wicksville. i was born there, and so was plunk smalley, but binney jenks moved over from sunfield when he was five. mark he didn’t come to town until a little over a year ago, and plunk and me saw him get off the train at the depot. i guess the car must have been glad when he did get off, for he looked like he almost filled it up. yes, sir, when he came out of the door he had to squeeze to get through. he was the fattest boy i ever saw, or ever expect to see, and the funniest-looking. his head was round and ’most as big as a pretty good-sized pumpkin, and his cheeks were so fat they almost covered up his eyes. the rest of him was as round as his face, and plunk said one of his legs was as big as all six of plunk’s and binney’s and mine put together. i guess it was bigger. when plunk and me saw him we just rolled over and kicked up our legs and hollered.
“i hope he’s goin’ to live in wicksville,” says plunk, “’cause we won’t care then if a circus never comes.”
a fat boy like that is a good thing to have in a town, so when things sort of slow down you can always go and have fun with him. at any rate, that was what we thought then. it seemed to us that marcus aurelius fortunatus tidd was a ready-made joke put right into our hands for us to fool with, but afterward we changed our minds considerable.
mark’s father and mother got off the train after him, and his father said something to him we couldn’t hear. mark waddled across the platform to where uncle ike bond’s bus stood waiting, and plunk and me listened to hear what he would say.
“d-d-do you c-carry p-p-p-passengers in that b-bus?” yes, sir, he said it just like that!
well, plunk he looked at me and i looked at him, and he soaked me in the ribs and i smashed his hat down over his eyes, we were so tickled. if we had been going to plan a funny kid we couldn’t have done half so well. we’d have forgot something sure. but nothing was forgot in mark tidd, even to the stutter.
old uncle ike looked down off his seat at mark, and his eyes popped out like he couldn’t believe what they saw. he waited a minute before he said anything, sort of planning in his mind what he was going to say, i guess. that was a way uncle ike had, and then he usually said something queer. this time he says:
“passengers? what? me carry passengers? no. i’ve just got this bus backed up here to stiddy the depot platform. the railroad comp’ny pays me to do it.”
mark tidd he looked solemn at uncle ike, and uncle ike looked solemn at him. then mark says, respectful and not impertinent:
“if i was to sit here and hold down the p-p-platform could you drive my folks? i could keep it from m-m-movin’ much.”
uncle ike blinked. “son,” says he, “climb aboard, if this here rattletrap looks safe to you, and fetch along your folks. we’ll leave the platform stand without hitchin’ for wunst.”
at that me and plunk turned to look at the fat boy’s father and mother. mr. tidd was a long man, upward of six foot, i guess, and not very wide. his shoulders kind of sloped like his head was too heavy for them, and his head was so big that it was no wonder. his hair was getting gray in front of his ears where it showed under his hat, and he had blue eyes and thin cheeks and a sort of far-off, pleasant expression, like he was thinking of something nice a long ways away. he was leaning against a corner of the station reading out of a big book and paying no attention to anybody. afterward i found out the book was gibbon’s decline and fall, and that he always carried it around with him to read in a little when he got a spare minute.
mrs. tidd wasn’t that kind of person at all. as soon as plunk and me looked at her we knew she could make bully pies, and wouldn’t get mad if her fat boy was to sneak into the pantry and cut a slice out of one of them in the middle of the afternoon. you could tell she was patient and good-natured, but, all the same, she wasn’t the kind you could fool. if you came home with your hair wet it wouldn’t do any good to tell her somebody threw a pail of water on it. she was looking around to see what she could see, and i bet she didn’t miss much.
the fat boy he motioned to her to come to the bus, and she spoke to her husband. he looked up sort of vague, nodded his head, and came poking across the platform, holding his book in front of him and reading away as though he hadn’t a minute to spare, and clean forgot all about the valise he’d set down beside him.
“jeffrey,” says mrs. tidd, “you’ve forgot your satchel.”
he shut his book, but kept his finger in the place, and looked all around him. pretty soon he saw the satchel and nodded his head at it. “so i have,” he says, “so i have,” and went back to get it.
then all of them got into uncle ike’s bus, and he stirred up his horses who had been standing ’most asleep, with heads drooping, and they went rattling and banging up the street. when uncle ike’s bus got started you could hear it half a mile. i guess it was all loose, for it sounded like a hail-storm beating down on a tin roof.
“wonder where they’re goin’?” says plunk.
“you got to do more’n wonder if you’re goin’ to find out,” i says, and started trotting after the bus. it wasn’t hard to keep it in sight, because uncle ike’s horses got tired every little while and came to a walk.
they stopped at the old juniper house that had been standing vacant for six months, ever since old man juniper went to chicago to live with his daughter susy’s oldest girl that had married a man with a hardware store there. the yard was full of boxes and packing-cases and furniture all done up with burlap and rope.
“they’re goin’ to live here,” plunk yells; and i was as glad as he was. the benefits of having a stuttering fat boy living near you aren’t to be sneezed at by anybody.
we found a shady place across the street and watched to see what would happen. it’s always interesting to watch other folks work, especially if what they’re doing is hard work, and i guess carrying furniture and trunks and boxes is about as hard as anything.
mrs. tidd was ready for work before anybody else. she came to the door with a big apron on and a cloth tied around her hair, and the way she sailed into things was a caution. it seemed like she jumped right into the middle of that mess, and in a minute things were flying. mr. tidd came next with his book under his arm and stood in the stoop looking sort of puzzled. mrs. tidd straightened up, and then sat down on a packing-box.
“jeffrey tidd,” she said, not sharp and angry, but kind of patient and rebuking, “go right back into the house and take those clothes off. i knew if i didn’t stay right by you you’d get mixed up somehow. will you tell me why in the world you changed from your second-best clothes to that sunday black suit to move furniture?”
mr. tidd he looked pretty foolish and felt of his pants as though he couldn’t believe they were his best ones.
“that does beat all,” he said. “it does beat all creation, libby. i wonder how these clothes come to be on me?”
“if you didn’t have ’em on under your others, which ain’t impossible, you must have changed into ’em.”
“my best suit!” he said to himself, shaking his head like you’ve seen the elephant do at the circus, first to one side and then to the other. “my best clothes!”
“maybe i’d better come along and see you get into the right ones this time,” mrs. tidd suggested.
“i guess you don’t need to, libby. i’ll take these off and hang ’em in the closet, and i’ll hang my second-best ones up, too. then i’ll put on what’s left. that way i can’t go wrong.” he went off into the house, and mrs. tidd flew at the piles of stuff again.
pretty soon the fat boy came around the side of the house with a quarter of a cherry pie in his hand and the juice dripping down faster than he could suck it off.
“marcus,” his mother called, “take holt of this bundle of bed-slats and carry ’em up to the front room.”
mark he grabbed them with one hand and hunched them up under his arm so that one end dragged on the ground, walking off slow and eating pie as he went. it took him quite a while to get back. i could see him look across the street at plunk and me as he came down the steps. he stopped a minute, sort of thinking.
after a while mr. tidd came back again.
“put the decline and fall down somewheres so you can use both hands, jeffrey,” his wife says. and he did it as meek and obedient as could be. between them they carried a hair-cloth sofa in after she had told mark to fetch along some medium-sized boxes.
mark stooped over one, and we could hear him grunt.
“hello, skinny,” plunk yells. “git your back into it and h’ist. that’s the way to lift.”
the fat boy straightened up and looked at us quite a while. then he sat down on the box and called, “i bet the two of you can’t l-l-lift it.”
“i’ll bet,” says plunk, “we kin lift it. i’ll bet we kin carry it from here to the standpipe and back without lettin’ her down wunst.”
“braggin’ don’t carry no b-boxes.”
the way he said it sort of made me mad. “come on, plunk,” i says; “lets show this here hippopotamus whether we kin carry it or not.” and we went running across the street.
“where d’you want it put?” i says.
“no use you tryin’. you couldn’t g-git it up.”
“git holt,” i says to plunk. “now, mister what’s-your-name, where’s it go?”
“up-stairs in the hall; but you b-b-better not try. it’s too heavy for you.”
plunk and me took that box up-stairs a-flying and ran down again.
“there,” i says. “now kin we carry it?”
he stuck up what there was to his nose. “one ain’t nothin’. i carried the hull twelve out when we was movin’ in fifteen mum-minutes.”
“if you did,” i says, “plunk and me can carry ’em in in twelve.”
he just laughed.
“doggone it,” i says, “we’ll show you, you’re so smart.”
“can’t d-d-do it.”
“you ain’t the only kid that can carry things,” plunk says, with a scowl.
mark he pulled out a little silver watch and held it in his hand. “twelve m-minutes, was it? can’t do it. i’ll keep time.”
well, plunk and me went at those boxes like sixty, and the way we ran them up-stairs was a terror to cats. when the last one was up we were panting and sweating and most tuckered out. mark looked off his watch when we came out with a sort of surprised expression. “you kids is stronger than i figgered. you did it in eleven minutes and a half.”
“sure,” i says.
“but them boxes wasn’t very heavy. you can’t carry that big box, by j-jimminy!”
plunk and me was good and mad, and if anybody’d seen the way we hustled that big box in they wouldn’t have believed their eyes.
“that’s perty good,” says mark. “wouldn’t thought it of you kids. must be stronger here in wicksville than over to peckstown where i come from.” he stopped a minute. “i can’t lift that big rockin’-c-c-chair myself.”
“huh!” snorted plunk. “that’s a easy one.” and in we wrastled with the chair.
we weren’t going to have any strange kid think we weren’t up to all he was, so we stayed right there all the afternoon, and i guess we proved pretty conclusively we could carry. and that wasn’t all: we proved we could last. i bet we carried two-thirds of the tidds’ furniture in. when it was all done we sat down on the fence to pant and rest. mark’s mother called him.
“i got to go to s-s-s-supper,” he says. “come again when you feel s-s-strong.” and then he went into the house.
plunk and me sat still quite a while. i began to think about it and think about it, and i could see plunk was thinking, too. in about fifteen minutes i looked over at him and he looked over at me.
plunk and me was good and mad
“how many things did that fat kid carry in?” i says.
“i didn’t see him carry anythin’.”
“neither did i.”
we thought quite a spell more. then i said to plunk, “i guess maybe we better not do too much braggin’ about how much an’ how long we kin carry.”
he grinned kind of sickly. “this here mark tidd,” he says, “ain’t nobody’s fool—leastways, not on mondays, which is to-day.”
when we got better acquainted with mark tidd he read a book called tom sawyer to us. i guess he got his idea of making us work out of that; he was always taking schemes out of books.
