JERRY TODD SAYS:

What you will particularly like about this book, I believe, is our money-making canal-boat show. We fixed up Dad’s old clay scow swell, with a stage and audience seats and everything. We even had a sort of “orchestra.” Oh, boy! The way that old merry-go-round hand organ gurgled out its tunes when we twisted its tail! And the fun we had!

Scoop was the magician, advertised in the Tutter newspaper as the Great Kermann. Red was the ticket agent. Peg and I were officers of the show company and stage hands.

It was plain to us that we were going to make a wad of money giving black art shows. A million dollars, Scoop said, in fun. Peg said steadily that he would be satisfied with the price of a new bicycle. He got the bicycle, all right. But when you have read this story of fun and money-making and hidden mystery to its exciting final climax, you will say that he earned what he got … all of us, for that matter.

There is a new kind of ghost in this story. The Stricker gang, our enemy, tried jealously to [vi]break up our show, but the “friendly ghost” helped us out. Was it a real ghost? Or was it some unknown man playing ghost? We didn’t know.

Buried treasure, a lonely island, alternately cloaked in the blackest darkness and the brightest moonlight, a mysterious piano leg, a crazy-acting, talkative piano tuner—these are a few of the unusual high lights in an adventure story more exciting, I think, than my two earlier books, JERRY TODD AND THE WHISPERING MUMMY (Book No. 1) and JERRY TODD AND THE ROSE-COLORED CAT (Book No. 2); and as mysteriously bewildering as my later books, JERRY TODD AND THE WALTZING HEN (Book No. 4) and JERRY TODD AND THE TALKING FROG (Book No. 5).

Having read this story, treat yourself to some more hilarious fun with the “Whispering Mummy” book, a detective story that probably a million boys have laughed over. Mummy itch! Ever have it? We did.

In my “Rose-colored Cat” book we have our trials with a “feline rest farm”—a sort of sanitarium for wealthy people’s cats. There is oodles of fun and a hundred and fifty crazy cats in this book, and a peculiar mystery of six vanished pink pearls.

In the “Waltzing Hen” book you’ll meet old [vii]Cap’n Tinkertop and his hilarious dancing leg. A funny old coot! Why does the hen waltz? What is the secret of the yellow man and the frisky white doorknob? Rip-roaring reading here.

In my “Talking Frog” book we help a boy pal save a peculiar invention of his father’s from thieving hands. What is the shabby old soap peddler searching for, night after night, in the vanished miser’s old mill? What does “ten and ten” mean? You’ll search breathlessly for the answers to these and other riddles if you once get this gripping fun-mystery-adventure book into your hands.

Your friend, Jerry Todd. [ix]

OUR CHATTER-BOX

The earlier editions of this book did not contain a “Chatter-Box.” But so popular has this department become (I started it with my sixteenth book) that my publisher asked me to prepare a brief “Chatter-Box” for all of my early books.

The boys and girls who read my books supply the material for this department. As the author of the books, all I have to do is to assemble the material. If you are one of the many hundreds of boys who have written to me, it may be that your letter was incorporated in the “Chatter-Box” in one of my other books. Writers of accepted poems receive, as a reward, a free autographed copy of the book in which their poem appears. The fine poems (all written by boys and girls who call themselves Jerry Todd fans) contained in the “Chatter-Boxes” in my recent books will interest you. But if you can’t write poetry, built around the characters in my books, be sure and write me a letter. If you make your letter interesting I’ll try hard to find a place for it in a future “Chatter-Box.” I doubt if I could fully express the pleasure that I derive from the many letters that I receive. My boy pals! That is the way I regard the writers of these dandy letters. So the more letters I receive the more pals I’ll have. And I sure like pals!

LETTERS

“One day,” writes Oswell Patout, Jr., of Jeanerette, La., “our gang (I’m enclosing a picture showing the three of us reading Jerry Todd books) began receiving mysterious maps and letters informing us about missing pearls. Here was a fine chance, we thought, to solve a mystery like Jerry Todd and his gang. So we set to work in regular Juvenile Jupiter Detective style. But, alas, the pearls were a fake. The letters and maps were a trick of boy [x]friends of ours who know how ‘bugs’ we are about your peachy books.”

“I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to be a book writer like you,” writes Charles Jordan of Chicago, Ill., “or at least try to be. If all men were like you it sure would be a swell world for us kids. I sure do appreciate your books. Yes, sir, I do. My cousin and I have tried many times to do things like Jerry. But what can a fellow do here in this big city! Boy, Jerry and his gang sure have peachy times, if you ask me. Whenever I read a Jerry Todd book I have the feeling that I’m right there, going through all the adventures the same as the other boys.”

“I belong to a gang of Boy Scouts,” writes Billy Johnston of Little Rock, Ark. “We have bully good times. One time we had a cave, to get into which we first had to raise a trapdoor and then crawl through a dark tunnel.”

Boy, that sounds hot! And I’m reminded, too, of the cave that Trigger Berg and his pals built. Did you, Bill, like Trigger and his gang, catch a robber in your cave? This episode of Trigger’s, I believe, took place in the Treasure Tree book.

And as though in answer to Bill’s letter, Joe Griffith of Allegan, Mich., writes: “Our cave, built back of our barn, didn’t last long. For a boy walked across the top and two boards fell on the kid’s head who was inside. Ouch! I was glad it wasn’t me.”

Also from Allegan comes this interesting letter from Jack (Yam) Hale: “As the leader of our gang I am called Jerry Todd. Don Garlock is Peg. Zeb Jones is Scoop. And Si Herrington is Red. Having a raft with a big slingshot on it we frequently dress up like pirates, using wooden swords. Also we built a lean-to in the woods and made a totem pole—not so good, though, as the one in Poppy’s book. Nor must I forget the ‘Stricker gang’ that we have battles with. That’s the name we have for a rival gang near us. They’re hard, like Bid.”

Here’s a joke (I think it’s good, too) sent in by Emanuel Bernstein of Newark, N. J.:

Jerry: “It’s only six o’clock. I told you to come over after supper.”

Red: “That’s what I came after.”

Another boy—George Browne of Rye, N. Y.—submits this one:

Father, to little Tommie who had just started to school: “Well, son, what lesson do you like best?”

Tommie: “I like recess best.”

And what do you think—Alfred Burke of Cranford, N. J., states that he has read the Whispering Cave book twenty-four times! [xi]

Here’s another snappy one: “I tried to make a dinosaur egg,” writes Jack Hanson of Rockford, Ill. Jack doesn’t say how the egg turned out. Yet how glad we are that he didn’t try to lay it!

“My chums and I recently organized a Juvenile Jupiter Detective Association,” writes Wilfred Hinkel of Elmont, L. I., N. Y., “only we call ourselves the Jerry Todd Union of Detectives. Boy! You should see our peachy badges.”

FRECKLED GOLDFISH

Out of my book, Poppy Ott and the Freckled Goldfish, has grown our great Freckled Goldfish lodge, membership in which is open to all boys and girls who are interested in my books. Thousands of readers have joined the club. We have peachy membership cards (designed by Bert Salg, the popular illustrator of my books) and fancy buttons. Also for members who want to organize branch clubs (hundreds are in successful operation, providing boys and girls with added fun) we have rituals.

To join (and to be a loyal Jerry Todd fan I think you ought to join), please observe these simple rules:

(1) Write (or print) your name plainly.

(2) Supply your complete printed address.

(3) Give your age.

(4) Enclose two two-cent postage stamps (for card and button).

(5) Address your letter to

Leo Edwards, Cambridge, Wisconsin.

LOCAL CHAPTERS

To help young organizers we have produced a printed ritual, which any member who wants to start a Freckled Goldfish club in his own neighborhood can’t afford to be without. This booklet tells how to organize the club, how to conduct meetings, how to transact all club business, and, probably most important of all, how to initiate candidates.

The complete initiation is given word for word. Naturally, these booklets are more or less secret. So, if you send for one, please do not show it to anyone who isn’t a Freckled Goldfish. Three chief officers will be required to put on the initiation, which can be given in any member’s home, so, unless each officer is provided with a booklet, much memorizing will have to be done. The best plan is to have three booklets to a chapter. These may be secured (at cost) at six cents each (three two-cent stamps) or three for sixteen cents (eight two-cent stamps). Address all orders to

Leo Edwards, Cambridge, Wisconsin. [xii]

CLUB NEWS

“My chums and I,” writes Charles Lewis of Conneaut, Ohio, “are all Freckled Goldfish. Calling our chapter the Freckled Fantails, we have secret rules, initiations and mysterious departments, such as Juvenile Jupiter Detectives and Secret and Mysterious Order of Humpty-Dumpty. Our password is ——”.

You’ve heard about club members being in good standing. Well, Frank Boyd of Dunellen, N. J., claims to be a member of our Freckled Goldfish lodge in good “sitting.”

“I made some candy, like Andy Blake did in his book,” writes Frank, “but even our dog Towser sniffed at it. Also, my chum and I made a kite ten feet high. It cost us fifteen cents. A stick broke when the kite got as high as a telephone pole, and that was the end of our fifteen cents.”

Speaking of big kites, the new boys in Andy Blake and the Pot of Gold have a lot of fun with a huge kite. Andy himself is a young man; but the boys I refer to are quite young. Hence this story will be interesting to very small boys.

“Perhaps you’d be interested to know,” writes Freckled Goldfish George Lindsay, Jr., of Philadelphia, Pa., “that my father manufactures food for goldfish.”

Well, well! We’re sure glad, George, to have such an authority in our ranks. If any of our Goldfish get the “tummy-ache” we’ll turn them over to you for proper treatment.

“All of the boys around here are Freckled Goldfish,” writes Thomas Keogh of Brooklyn, N. Y. “So I want to join, too. And here’s a suggestion: You have Jerry Todd in the Poppy Ott books, so why don’t you put Poppy in the Todd books? Also, tell me how many members there are in the Freckled Goldfish lodge. The Bob-Tailed Elephant book is the funniest thing I ever read.”

By the time this “Chatter-Box” appears in print we will have not less than 8,000 members in our Goldfish lodge. As for your suggestion, both Scoop and Poppy are natural leaders. We don’t need two leaders in a book. Nor would it be fair to push Poppy in front of Scoop in the Todd books. A better plan is to let Scoop do the leading in one series and Poppy in the other.

“I would like to organize a local chapter,” writes Jim Gordon of Brooklyn, N. Y., “but there are not many boys around here. At the most I could get only five members. Please tell me if that would be enough. Also I would like to know if my dog can join. His name is Tramp.”

If boys, conducting local chapters, want to include their pets in the chapter membership [xiii]it certainly is all right with me. It takes three boys to organize a chapter. Many of our chapters have only five members; some have less.

“Ed Nilsson, a Freckled Goldfish, and I are going to organize a local chapter,” writes James Elphinstone of Ludlow, Mass. “We have used Ed’s barn at other times for clubs. But we feel sure our Freckled Goldfish club will be the best of all. The trapdoor in the barn will come in handy during initiations! We have a pole in the old grain chute, extending from the attic to the cellar. We go down it like real firemen. I hope we don’t share Red’s grief and have a baby elephant cave in one side of our barn.”

LEO’S PICTURE

And now, gang, I have some news for you. An autographed picture of Leo Edwards—in person—may be obtained by writing to Leo Edwards’ secretary, Grosset & Dunlap, 1140 Broadway, New York, N. Y., and enclosing ten cents in stamps to cover cost of handling. Modesty prevents me from telling you, fellows, that this is a rare bargain. Only ten cents for such a wonderful picture. Ahem! [xv]

LEO EDWARDS’ BOOKS

Here is a complete list of Leo Edwards’ published books:

THE JERRY TODD SERIES

THE POPPY OTT SERIES

THE TRIGGER BERG SERIES

THE ANDY BLAKE SERIES

THE TUFFY BEAN SERIES

[1]

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 [2]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. [3]

“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. [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.

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]

“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. [6]

“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. [7]

“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.”