I felt so sorry for myself that tears came to my eyes and I began to bawl. I’d made a dollar and forty cents selling soap. I had to give Frankie a dime of that. I’d paid Tom three dollars and a half. That meant I was out two dollars and twenty cents.
“What is the matter, John?” Mr. Prichard, the owner of the Sheepmen’s Hotel, asked.
I hadn’t seen him come out of the hotel. I looked up and quickly wiped the tears from my eyes with my sleeve.
“Nothing,” I said.
“There must be something wrong to make you cry.”
“I’m crying because I’m so dumb,” I told him. “I’m so dumb I make a donkey look like a wise man.”
Although I didn’t think it was funny, because it was true, Mr. Prichard laughed. “Now, John, don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said. “What are you doing with all that soap?”
Mr. Prichard seemed so sympathetic and nice that I told him how Tom had swindled me, and how dumb I was to let it happen.
“Well, John,” he said when I finished, “you said you have tried to sell soap to everybody in town, but that is wrong. You didn’t try me. Is the soap any good?”
“It is supposed to be,” I said. “I never tried it.”
He picked up a bar of the soap. “Suppose we find out,” he said.
I followed him into the hotel lobby and from there to the men’s rest room. He took the wrapper off the soap and began washing his hands.
“It makes a good lather,” he said. Then he held up his hands and inhaled. “It smells nice too. Not too strong a scent and not too weak. Seems like a good bar of soap to me.”
He rinsed off his hands and left the bar on the washbasin. At least I’d sell one more. Mr. Prichard couldn’t very well ask me to take it back after using it.
“Tell you what I’m going to do, John,” he said. “I’ll take the soap off your hands. I can use it here in the hotel.”
I had sudden visions of becoming the king of soap salesmen, selling Mr. Prichard soap for his hotel.
“I can get more,” I said. “Lots more.”
“No, John,” he said. “I buy my soap wholesale for less than half the price of this soap. It just happens the housekeeper forgot to order some and we are a little short. This will have to be a one-shot deal.”
I didn’t know if Mr. Prichard was buying the soap just because he felt sorry for me or if he was telling the truth. Anyway, I wasn’t going to argue with him. We went out and got the box of soap. Mr. Prichard had the desk clerk give me three dollars and sixty cents. I thanked him and went home.
I could hardly wait to let Tom know his swindle had backfired. He didn’t say a word about soap during supper, but Mamma did as we ate dessert.
“Did you sell all your soap?” she asked. “I noticed you didn’t bring any home with you.”
I swallowed a mouthful of apple pie. “It is all sold,” I said.
“At ten cents a bar?” Mamma asked. I nodded.
Then I looked across the table at Tom. He was so surprised, he was holding his fork with a piece of apple pie between his mouth and the table.
“You mean to tell me you sold all fifty bars of that soap at ten cents a bar?” he asked.
“Every last one,” I said, really enjoying his astonishment.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear you admit it,” I told him.
That shut him up until we were doing our homework on the dining room table after supper.
“I was just thinking, J.D.,” he said, “since you are such a super salesman, maybe I’d better order another case of soap.”
I’d been waiting all of my life to turn the tables on Tom and his great brain.
“Go ahead and order another case if you want,” I said.
“I’ll make out the order right now,” he said.
A week passed before the soap arrived. Tom gave me that old business of arm around the shoulders as we sat on the back porch steps with the case of soap in Frankie’s wagon.
“Same deal as before. Right, partner?” Tom said. “You give me three dollars and fifty cents and the soap is all yours.”
“No deal,” I said.
“But you told me to order another case,” Tom protested.
“I told you to order another case if you wanted to,” I said. “I didn’t tell you to order another case for me.”
“But you made a dollar and a half on the last deal. How can you turn this deal down?”
“Easy,” I said. “I don’t want any part of it. It is your soap and you sell it if you can.”
“If you can sell fifty bars with your little brain,” Tom said, and was he ever angry, “I know I could sell a hundred with my great brain.”
“You’ll soon find out it takes more than a great brain to sell soap for a dime a bar when the Z.C.M.I. sells it for a nickel a bar,” I said.
“I’ll ask Papa to give me Saturday off,” Tom said, “and I’ll bet I sell all fifty bars during the weekend.”
“How much do you want to bet?” I asked.
“You seem so darned sure of yourself,” Tom said. “Do you swear on your word of honor that you sold all fifty bars of that soap for ten cents a bar?”
“I swear on my word of honor,” I said.
“Then I’ll just bet you fifty cents that I sell all fifty bars of this order,” Tom said.
“It’s a bet,” I said.
Papa gave Tom Saturday off. When he came home at noon for lunch, he looked as if he’d lost a ball game.
“I don’t know how you did it, J.D.,” he said, “but everybody says a dime is too much to pay for a bar of soap. I didn’t sell a single bar.”
“Maybe I’m just a better salesman than you are,” I said, really enjoying having put one over on him.
“Only one thing to do,” Tom said. “I’ll sell it for a nickel a bar. That way I’ll get my money back.”
Of course Tom didn’t have any trouble selling the soap for a nickel a bar. He sold the fifty bars at five cents a bar that Saturday afternoon and the following afternoon. He looked tired when he came home just as Frankie and I were getting ready to do the chores. I couldn’t resist rubbing salt in his wounds.
“You worked all day yesterday and this afternoon for nothing,” I said. “I guess that proves you don’t have such a great brain after all.”
“You put one over on me, J.D.,” he admitted.
“How does it feel to be on the receiving end of a swindle?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a total loss,” he said. “I sold all the soap and you owe me fifty cents.”
“Wait a minute,” I told him. “You didn’t sell the soap for a dime a bar.”
“That wasn’t the bet,” Tom said. “I bet you fifty cents that I’d sell fifty bars of soap, and I did. Let’s go up to our room so you can give me the fifty cents from your bank right now.”
Boy, oh, boy, what a dumbbell I was for betting. All my life I’d waited to put one over on Tom and when I did I had to open my big mouth and bet.
We went upstairs and I gave him fifty cents from my bank.
“You had better shake out some more money,” Tom said. “You are going to need it.”
“For what?” I asked.
“I called on some people you’d sold soap to for ten cents,” Tom said. “I told them you’d made a mistake and should have charged only five cents. I told them you would be around to refund their money. If you don’t, they will tell Papa and Mamma that you cheated them.”
Boy, oh, boy, what a catastrophe that would be. I knew Papa and Mamma would insist I refund the money on the fourteen bars of soap. I congratulated myself that at least I’d sold thirty-six bars to Mr. Prichard, and Tom didn’t know it. Then he caved the roof in on me.
“I was smart enough to know a hotel uses a lot of soap,” he said.
“So I went to see Mr. Prichard. He told me he’d bought thirty-six bars from you for ten cents a bar. I told him that was a mistake, and you’d be around to refund him the dollar and eighty cents you owe him.”
“You did it just to get even with me,” I said.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you put one over on me and my great brain,” Tom said. “I know Papa and Mamma will insist you refund the money so no one can say a Fitzgerald went around cheating people.”
Not only would I lose all the money I’d made selling the soap, but I was also out the fifty cents I’d bet Tom and the ten cents I’d paid Frankie. I really was stupid as a donkey to think I could ever put one over on The Great Brain. You cannot fool a brother with a money-loving heart.
CHAPTER TWO
The Numbers Game
AFTER LOSING SO MUCH money on the slippery soap deal, I was ready for things to go back to being dull in Adenville, but it was too late. Tom had returned to his conniving ways.
It wasn’t long before he began playing his silly numbers game. I thought the game was silly because he played it during his spare time, night and day. He got so interested in it that he didn’t even go to sit with Polly Reagan on her front porch swing every evening.
I couldn’t figure out what kind of game it was. I did know Tom used Frankie’s blackboard, chalk, and eraser. He’d take them and a notebook and a pencil up to his loft in the barn and just sit there writing down numbers on the blackboard and erasing them. He did the same thing in the parlor after supper.
One night Papa asked him, “What are you trying to do with all those numbers?”
Tom looked up from the blackboard he was holding on his knees. “A priest at the Catholic Academy told me one time about a magic square with numbers,” he said. “I’m trying to figure it out.”
Tom had gone for the seventh grade at the Jesuit Catholic Academy for Boys in Salt Lake City. That was before the Adenville Academy was built. Now Tom was an eighth-grader there.
“It must be some trick,” Papa said. “You’ve been at it for three nights.”
“And days,” I said, remembering Tom working on the numbers while I dressed in the mornings.
“I know it can be done,” Tom said, “because the priest said so. With my great brain, I’ll figure it out.”
• • •
Wednesday morning when I woke up, Tom had a big grin on his face.
“I did it,” he said. “And now to make some money after all my hard work. J.D., when the kids are at Smith’s vacant lot after school, you tell them to come to our barn after supper if they want to play the numbers game. Tell them it will cost them ten cents to win fifty cents. And tell them I’m taking twenty half dollars out of the bank before I go to work this afternoon.”
“Some kids won’t be able to come to our barn after supper on a school night,” I said. “That’s when they finish their chores and homework.”
“For fifty cents, they’ll be there,” Tom said. “Just you wait and see.”
• • •
Seth Smith’s father owned a big vacant lot that he allowed us kids to use as a playground. In return, we kept it cleared of weeds. There were about twenty fellows at the lot when I arrived that afternoon. When I said I had some important news, they all crowded around me.
“Tom says if you fellows want to play the numbers game to come to our barn after dinner tonight,” I told them. “It costs ten cents to play, and you can win fifty cents.”
Parley Benson pushed his coonskin cap to the back of his head. “Is this another swindle Tom is pulling?” he asked. Parley always wore his coonskin cap except when he went swimming.
Danny Forester’s left eyelid flipped open. He had something the matter with that eyelid. It was always half closed unless he was angry or excited.
“Sounds fishy to me,” he said.
Herbie Sties, who was a poet and as wide as he was high, spoke in rhyme.
“So Tom has got a numbers game
Another plan of his great brain.
It ain’t strange and it ain’t funny
He wants to swindle us out of our money.”
“All I know is that Tom went to the bank to get twenty half dollars,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like a swindle to me.”
Danny Forester put his face up close to mine. His eyelid was back at half-mast. “You sure, J.D.?” he asked.
“Why don’t you come to the barn and see for yourself?” I said.
Well, that did it. All the fellows decided to see if Tom really did have twenty half dollars. Most of them went right home to start their chores.
• • •
Every one of them showed up at our barn after dinner that night.
Tom was waiting outside the barn. He held up his hand and then counted the kids. There were nineteen of them, and I made twenty.
“I just wanted to make sure I had enough half dollars to pay if all of you happen to win the numbers game,” Tom said. “Step right into the barn, fellows, and I’ll explain the game to you.”
After Tom said he’d been worried about having enough half dollars to pay everybody if they won, nobody wanted to be left out. We all trooped inside.
On the big wooden box that Tom had once used for a magic show was a stack of twenty half dollars. Next to it on an easel was Frankie’s blackboard. On the blackboard was drawn the following:
“Here is how you play the game,” Tom said, pointing at the blackboard. “You can use each number only once. The idea is to place the numbers in the squares so they total fifteen across the squares, and fifteen from the top to the bottom of the squares, and fifteen from corner to corner from the left and the right. It is very simple. All you have to do is to find the right number to put in each square.”
Tom picked up a notebook. “I have here a picture of the magic square and the numbers on a sheet of paper for each of you. J.D., pass them out.”
I took the notebook and tore out a page for each of the fellows.
“Now,” Tom said as he picked up another notebook and then pointed at a paper bag on the box. “Line up. As you pay your dime to play, I’ll put it in the paper bag and write down your name in the notebook. Then I’ll put in a half dollar for each player.”
Parley Benson asked, “How much time do we have to figure the magic square out?”
“Today is Wednesday,” Tom said. “You have until Friday after supper to figure it out. That is two whole days. You should be able to put the right numbers in the magic square by that time. And,” he said, “to make it even better for you, you can get your parents to help if you want.”
That did it. There wasn’t a kid in the barn who didn’t think he could figure the numbers game out in two days himself, let alone with the help of his parents. They couldn’t wait to get in line and hand over their dimes to Tom. Tom put the dimes in the paper bag, along with a half dollar for each dime. Then he wrote down all the kids’ names in his notebook.
I knew Tom had been working with those numbers for three days but that didn’t stop me. It seemed so easy, only having nine numbers to put in the nine squares, that I got in line to play myself. Besides, I had an ace in the hole. Papa was a college graduate and would be able to figure out the magic square one, two, three.
After the other kids went home to finish their chores and do their homework, Tom went over to sit on the porch with Polly Reagan. I got my sheet of paper with the magic square and went to the parlor. I walked over to Papa.
“What have you got there, J.D.?” he asked, laying aside the magazine he’d been reading.
“The puzzle Tom calls the numbers game,” I said. “The idea is to put the nine numbers in the nine squares so they total fifteen across and up and down and from corner to corner.”
“So that is what T.D. was doing,” Papa said. “Well, J.D., if you start out just trying to put numbers in
the squares, you will have more than a thousand combinations. You have to do it by elimination. First you make a list of all the numbers from one through nine that total fifteen. For example, nine and one and five are fifteen. And nine and two and four are fifteen. Eight and two and five are fifteen. You have to list all the combinations that add up to fifteen.”
“Then what?” I asked as Papa stopped talking.
“Then you have to keep trying the different combinations until you get the right answer,” Papa said, “but it won’t be easy because there are so many combinations, even when you eliminate those such as nine and three and three that use a number more than once.”
I got my notebook and pencil and went into the dining room so I could write on the table. By bedtime, I had all the combinations, which looked like this:
As I looked at the numbers, I told myself that Tom’s fifty cents was as good as mine. I was so excited that I stayed awake until Tom came to bed at nine. I showed him the list.
“Get your half dollar ready,” I said. “I’m going to solve your puzzle.”
“Saying it and doing it are two different things,” Tom told me. “But how did you figure out to do that?”
“Papa showed me,” I said, “and you told us we could get our parents to help.”
“I want you to do me a favor, J.D.,” Tom said. “Don’t tell anyone else about the combinations of fifteen.”
“I’ll show it to everybody and bankrupt you,” I said, thinking of all the times Tom had swindled me and the other kids.
“There isn’t another kid in town or his parents who have brains enough to figure out the combinations,” Tom told me. “They will all go crazy trying to put numbers in the squares. But with the combinations some of them might accidentally hit on it. I’m asking you as a brother not to show anybody or tell anybody about the list.”
What could I do after that “brother” business? I gave Tom my word of honor that I would keep mum.
Tom wasn’t joking when he told me that saying I’d solve the puzzle and doing it were two different things. The next day during lunch and after school I worked and worked on the combinations, but I didn’t get anywhere. I worked until Mamma reminded me it was time to go get a haircut and to take Frankie with me.
The Great Brain Is Back Page 2