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. [4]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. [4] 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. [5] [5] “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.”
Prev.
Back
Top