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Updated: June 29, 2025
Merker had foreseen every contingency. "I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from the store account," Welton told him finally. Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks pigs appeared. They became a feature of the landscape, and those who experimented with gardens indulged in profanity, clubs and hog-proof fences.
One day, however, he found Merker in earnest discussion with a mountain man, whom the store-keeper introduced as Ross Fletcher. Welton did not pay very much attention to this man and was about to pass on when his eye caught the gleam of a Forest Ranger's badge. Then he stopped short. "Merker!" he called sharply. The store-keeper looked up. "See here a minute.
After the package was duly and neatly encased, labelled and deposited accurately in front of Mrs. Max, Merker looked her in the eye. "Five pounds of beans," said he, and paused for the next item. The moment the woman had departed, Merker resumed his pipe and his wide-eyed vacancy. Welton was immensely amused and tickled. "Seems to me he might keep a little busier," grumbled Bob.
Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the utilization of the slabs and edgings in the construction of fruit trays and boxes. When he approached Welton on the subject, the lumberman was little inclined to be receptive to the idea.
At the end of the year it showed a fair return on the investment. "Though we'd have to have it even at a dead loss," Welton pointed out, "to hold our community together. All we need is a few tufts of chin whiskers and some politics to be full-fledged gosh-darn mossbacks." The storekeeper, a very deliberate person, Merker by name, was much given to contemplation and pondering.
Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely presented a duly made out balance to the credit of hogs. Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next attempted chickens. But even his vacant-eyed figuring had neglected to take into consideration the abundance of such predatory beasts and birds as wildcats, coyotes, raccoons, owls and the swift hawks of the falcon family.
"I don't know yet," answered the store-keeper. Merker amused and interested Welton, and in addition proved to be a valuable man for just his position. It tickled the burly lumberman, too, to stop for a moment in his rounds for the purpose of discussing with mock gravity any one of Marker's thousand ideas on economic waste, Welton discovered a huge entertainment in this.
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