Kilgour & Co Read online

  All-Story Weekly, June 8, 1918

  THE last time old Pop Treadwell canned me like to pass the lagging hours playing the and Jim Caldwell we plunged into a vortex of ancient game of poker, and they said it would commercial activity, but the next time we are make things brighter and better if a couple of fired off the ranch for general disobedience neighborhood yokels could be drawn into the and insane behavior we will carefully refrain pastime to make a holiday for them. Jim from doing anything at all and just sit still Caldwell and I heard about it. We volunteered until Pop takes us unto his bosom again.

  to go and be the local suckers, and pretty soon Every so often the boss seems to get

  the game commenced.

  tired of seeing me and Jim. Then he

  That was on Monday morning. On

  discharges us from the pay-roll, with some of Wednesday afternoon we were still playing, the most profane and scandalous language that though a trifle groggly. We hadn’t paused for ever fell from the human tongue. We always food, sleep, baths, shaves, or fresh shirts, and know we will recover our jobs if we wait long among the other things we neglected was our enough, because down in his heart Pop loves job out on Pop Treadwell’s ranch. When Pop us. Sometimes you can’t tell by his conduct or heard about us and our poker-game he said manner of speech that he loves us, but he some words you can’t find even in the Bible.

  does, nevertheless.

  The boss had told us on the previous

  We broke off diplomatic financial Saturday that he wanted Jim and me to take a relations not long ago and soon after the big busted tractor into Tulena. We didn’t do it on poker-game at the Tulena Hotel. That is, we account of those three traveling persons and didn’t break them off, but Pop did. There their poker-game, and by Wednesday

  came a cigar drummer from Chicago and an afternoon Pop Treadwell was so mad you

  insurance agent from Omaha and a horse-

  could light a cigar on him.

  buyer from Phoenix, and when these three The game ended from personal and

  gentlemen arrived in Tulena and saw what physical exhaustion. When we local suckers-kind of a town it was they began to get meaning Jim and me—looked over the uneasy. The fell clutch of monotony finished results, we found we had won four threatened them, and they inquired.

  hundred and ninety dollars, which we split They stated in public that they would

  about even. The traveling salesmen were

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  mildly annoyed, because they had figured on expect to leave among us. We won’t starve. In something else, but when it ended Jim put his time the boss will return our jobs to us and money into one pocket, I folded the rest into a shake hands, like he always does. We’ll take neat bundle, and then we went out into the air.

  rooms at the Tulena Hotel and spend the time

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if Pop was a

  having our shoes shined.”

  little anxious about us.” Jim said to me. “This That’s what we should have done. And

  is Wednesday. What was it he said about a we would, too, except for Jim. Every so often tractor?”

  his mind begins to ferment and he regards the

  “I won’t go back to the ranch,” I give-off as thought. Furthermore, he remarked. “You can go on up if you feel you sometimes fools me into regarding it likewise.

  want to meet the boss, but I prefer to stay here After we had idled away some days Jim began in Tulena, where things are comparatively to look restless. One of these ideas of his was calm. Somehow or other I have a feeling that crawling over him and making him

  when Pop sees us he’s going to try to restrain unexpected.

  himself without success. You go ahead, and

  “Shorty,” he said to me, “you know

  I’ll linger.”

  I’ve always thought I’d like to dabble in Being a person of little judgment, Jim

  business and ventures. Now that we are

  wandered on out to the ranch, while I surrounded with a little time and the necessary remained behind in the Tulena bar. When I money, why can’t we embark upon

  saw Jim again he told me about it. He said he commercial enterprises?”

  walked right up to Pop Treadwell, smiling a

  “Meaning what?” I asked, thinking

  friendly smile and pretending that nothing was apprehensively of my three hundred fish, the matter, and that Pop lit into him like nine which represented my entire corporeal wealth.

  million bricks falling on a passer-by. In no

  “I’d like to be a business man,” Jim

  time at all Jim lost his wage-earning position went on, with that dreamy look in his eye and mine, too.

  which I always ought to fear. “I would like to

  “And tell that frog-faced, no-good son

  wear a neat brown suit and a gold watch-chain of a sand-lizard that if I see him around here across my vest, and write something in a little I’ll hang a whipple-tree on his dome,” said book at intervals. Pop ain’t going to hire us Pop in closing his remarks. The person he back to chase cows for quite a while, judging referred to was me, although I am not what he by his rage, and we ought to improve the said, nor anything like it.

  time.”

  Thereupon Jim left the Treadwell

  “I don’t mind improving the time, but I ranch with a pained and embarrassed hate to have anybody start improving my expression, while Pop walked behind him as money,” I argued. “My money don’t need any far as the garage, pouring out what you might improvement whatever. It’s good money, and call invective. Pop is one of the world’s I can spend it anywhere without questions.”

  champion invective-pourers, and Jim said

  “Yeah,” Jim rejoined, “but here’s a

  afterward he could feel the hide gradually chance to invest in a going business and get to peeling off his spinal column.

  be a stable citizen. Maybe we won’t want to

  “So,” concluded my partner in crime,

  go back to those ranch jobs, when Pop offers winding up his report, “you can see for them.”

  yourself that we ain’t got any jobs left.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll listen. What is

  “Correct,” I agreed, “but we’ve got

  this thing that’s got you so feverish?”

  some funds, which those traveling gents didn’t

  “The Desert Haberdashery,” Jim

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  3

  explained as though it was something to be I recognized, of course, that what Jim

  proud of.

  said about Jig Spooner was perfectly true. Jig

  “The Desert Haberdashery?” I wasn’t fitted by Nature to be the elegant and repeated with a question in my tone, and my genteel boss of a haberdashery store, because left hand on my pants pocket, wherein reposed Jig wears long, confused whiskers and chews my untouched and virgin roll. “Go right ahead fine-cut. His own manner of dressing leads explaining, because up to this point I feel no you to believe that he collects his garments at wild enthusiasms.”

  night, after people have thrown out the refuse.

  “This is it,” Jim said earnestly. “The

  In a well-conducted haberdashery people Desert Haberdashery is on its last legs, and old expect the clerks and the proprietor to look Jig Spooner is trying to sell out. He realizes immaculate, like the magazine pictures. Jig that he ain’t fitted to run a haberdashery, didn’t look like any magazine picture, except seeing he spent most of his life in the Tulena maybe a war scene.

  Livery. He’s got a fancy stock of neat and Hurrying over the financial and

  nobby gents’ goods in his store, and he wants com
mercial details, Jim slipped our six to dispose of the business. There’s our hundred to Mr. Spooner, and we received chance.”

  large, ruled papers, stating that we now owned

  “You call that a chance, do you?” I

  the Desert Haberdashery, in fee simple. Jig asked, very frigid. “You ain’t been hitting took the fee without any comment, and Jim your head on some hard substance?”

  and I remained just as simple as ever. The

  “Sure,” said Jim with warmth. “The

  very first crack Jim wanted to change the Desert Haberdashery, in the hands of hustlers name of the going concern.

  like us, ought to produce a monthly profit of a

  “The Desert Haberdashery is a poor

  hundred dollars each. We’ll put some ginger title,” Jim stated. “Anyhow, it has a bum into it. Jig tells me his stock is worth a reputation among the people. Let’s call thousand, and he’ll sell for six hundred. You ourselves Caldwell & Co.”

  have three hundred and I have the other three.

  “No,” I said; “not a chance. I never

  Is that a chance, or not?”

  liked Caldwell, and I don’t now. Somehow, I’ll say one thing for Jim Caldwell.

  Caldwell makes you think of undertakers and When he warms up to a thing, he warms up all the last sad rites. We want a good, cheerful-over. He told me excitedly about the present sounding name, so let’s call us Kilgour & and expected population of Tulena proper, Co.”

  although Tulena isn’t particularly proper, at It took me a long time to win that

  that. He informed me that the surrounding argument, because Jim is a vain cuss and likes county would supply us with a steady influx to see his name in print, even if it’s on a sign-of trade and that nobby young men would board. But I won. In fact, I threatened to come hurrying in from adjacent towns to get resign and sue for damages, so Jim gave in, our New York neckties. Jig must have given and we had Ollie Drake make us an ornate and Jim the figures, because he had an armful of expensive sign. He sprinkled it with

  them; and finally he talked me into it. I fell granulated black gravel and got some near-reluctantly, but in a downward direction. After gold letters, and presently “Kilgour & Co.”

  a long time I removed my wad from my hip looked down on Main Street. I spent quite a with a sigh and handed it over to Jim.

  lot of time walking up and down, looking at it,

  “All right,” I said. “I got it easy, and while Jim stayed inside, unpacking boxes.

  it’s going the same.”

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  4

  II.

  Tulena may contain a lot of eager

  young men who yearn to look like matinee THE first week we were in business I met Pop idols, but you’d never have guessed it, to Treadwell on the street and bowed to him stand in Kilgour & Co.’s store. Our nobby politely. I tried to act dignified, as befits a New York pajamas attracted nothing except a solid business man, but it is difficult with a little dust. Our stand-up collars stayed in our guy like Pop Treadwell.

  window so long that they finally had to sit

  “You two insane polliwogs can come

  down. The gay blades of the town seemed to back to work whenever you want to,” Pop be getting on fine without our silk underwear, said, just as though we weren’t the budding so I started wearing it myself, on the theory necktie and suspender kings of Tulena. “You that a thing had better wear out than rust out.

  hear me. You can come back to work on my

  “Listen,” I said to Jim, after I saw how ranch any time.”

  things were heading. “We ain’t going to make

  “Yeah.” I said, some of my dignity

  a hundred dollars profit per month. We ain’t leaving me. “But evidently you don’t know going to have any profit at all. There’s about me and Jim. We’re in business. Look at something violently wrong with your figures.”

  our sign.”

  “I know what’s the matter,” Jim said,

  “I know all about you,” Pop said removing a splinter from his thumb.

  grimly. “That’s why I’m saying you can come

  “You always know what’s the matter,”

  back to work. I’ll be expecting you. GoodI answered gloomily, “but what good does it by.”

  do me? I go broke just the same.”

  He walked away, leaving me with the

  “The trouble is,” Jim went on, “the

  impression that somehow or other he didn’t men of this community are only what you’d take our commercial enterprise very seriously.

  call fair dressers. They don’t know enough yet Later on he said he hoped none of his friends to crave the latest Fifth Avenue styles in had loaned us any money.

  socks, neckwear, gloves, and so forth, and When we bought the Desert consequently business is comparatively light.”

  Haberdashery, we found that Jig Spooner was

  “It is,” I agreed.

  a sort of a sybarite. He had fixed up two large

  “But,” said Jim, “the spot where we’re

  rooms over the store, furnishing them in a weak is this: We have no women’s

  most barbaric and splendorous manner. Jim department. We ought to sell dry goods for and I moved into these sleeping quarters, and women, because they do all the real buying.

  the first night I felt like that picture of We ought to start a ladies’ department.”

  Cleopatra. Anyhow, we slept there and we

  “On what?” I inquired. “We’ve got just

  also began wearing pajamas and taking daily enough money left to keep us on eating terms baths, clean or not.

  with food at the Busy Bee.”

  In the mean time business went on, but

  “We could begin slow,” Jim argued.

  it didn’t go any too briskly, even after Kilgour

  “We have plenty of space for a ladies’

  & Co. took charge of Tulena’s nobby dressers.

  department.”

  We offered them our new neckties, silk socks,

  “Sure,” I said, having a sudden

  and zebra shirts, but the daily cash receipts thought. “I’d look slick, wouldn’t I, selling didn’t overwhelm us. Jim got a hair-cut and a those things females wear where you can’t see shine and became the head clerk, while I put them? Suppose a young woman came in here on my good suit and when customers came in and asked me to show her something and then I pretended to know more than they did.

  talked about it! You’re foolish.”

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  “I thought about those details,” Jim

  young Tulena men had set their caps at her, went on, without even blushing. “Of course, but they might as well have set the family we’d have to hire a lady salesman.”

  clock.

  There was more talk on this subject,

  Now and then I used to nod to Marie,

  with Jim pointing to the plain fact that we and she had nodded back, right friendly, but weren’t doing so well with gents’ goods, romance went no further than that. Jim had although we might do better in the future.

  also approved of her in the past. It happened There was no other haberdashery in Tulena, that Marie wanted a job about the time we Jim contended. There was no dynamite determined to fix up the female part of the factory, either, I told him, yet we didn’t see population with high-grade goods, and so we anybody rushing in to start one.

  went after her.

  In the end Jim won another argument,

  “I’ll tend to hiring Marie.” Jim said to because I saw my three hundred en route, me, taking the task on himself casually and anyhow. We decided to put in a ladies’ without effort. “I’ve got to tell her what we—

  department.

  want in our women’s department, and how we

  “Now,” I ventured, “who shall we hire

  want it run.”

  to run it
?”

  “I can tell her as well as you can,” I

  “I’ve thought that all out,” Jim said,

  argued, “seeing neither one of us knows with a pleased look.

  anything about it.”

  “You don’t seem to be having

  But Jim insisted, and he conducted the

  anything but thoughts lately,” I returned, “and negotiations with the fair Marie with such each time you think, I move nearer the poor-success that within ten days you could step farm. Who is the lady?”

  into Kilgour & Co., Main Street merchants,

  “Marie Newlands,” said Jim. “I’ve and buy your wife things you could describe discussed the subject with her, and she’ll work but not name, except in a hesitating manner.

  for eight dollars a week.”

  Behind the counter of the ladies’ department

  “Marie Newlands!” I repeated, and for

  Marie Newlands welcomed the trade, and I’ll the first time Jim’s idea began to look say one thing right here. Marie was a mighty plausible. “There’s the first sane thing you’ve smart girl.

  said since we left off ranching.”

  She had a brisk way about her, she

  Jim and I have known Marie Newlands

  pleased the buyers, and she worked fast. She ever since she came with her mother to live in looked intelligent, and she acted intelligent, Tulena. The mother had something the matter and if you don’t think she was intelligent, with her, which was why she came West. But keep on plowing through this sea of words and there was nothing the matter with Marie. The observe the manner in which she used her longer you looked at her, the surer you felt head, besides making it hold up her curls.