THE GREAT AMERICAN PIE COMPANY
By Ellis Parker Butler
Author Of “Pigs Is Pigs”
Illustrated By Will Crawford
New York Mcclure, Phillips & Co. MCMVII
Copyright 1904 byThe Century Co.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
If you take a pie and cut it in two, the track of your knife willrepresent the course of Mud River through the town of Gloning, and thatpart of the pie to the left of your knife will be the East Side, while thepart to the right will be the West Side. Away out on the edge of the pie,where the town fritters away into the fields and shanties on the EastSide, dwells Mrs. Deacon, and a fatter, better-natured creature never trodthe crust of the earth or made the crust of a pie. Being in reducedcircumstances, owing to the inability of Mr. Deacon to appreciate thebeneficial effects of work, Mrs. Deacon turned her famous baking abilityto account, and in a small way began selling her excellent homemade piesto those who liked a superior article. In time Mrs. Deacon established aconsiderable trade among the people of Gloning, and Mr. Deacon was wrestedfrom his customary seat on the back steps to make daily delivery tripswith the Deacon home-made pies.
Ephraim Deacon was a deep thinker and philosopher. He was above hisenvironment, or at least he felt so, and while waiting for opportunity toapproach and give his talents full vent he scorned labor. So he sat arounda good deal, and jawed a good deal, and smoked.
But if you will return to your plate of Gloning you will see on the pie,far over on the West Side, where the scallops lap over the edge of theplate, a little spot that is burned a bit too brown. This is the home ofMrs. Phineas Doolittle, as base and servile an imitator as ever infringedon another person's monopoly. For, seeing and hearing of the success ofMrs. Deacon's pies, Mrs. Doolittle put a few extra pieces of hickory inher stove, got out her rolling-pin, and became a competitor, even tomaking Mr. Doolittle deliver her pies. The Deacon pies had sold readily atten cents; three for a quarter. The Doolittle pie entered the field ateight cents; three for twenty cents.
Mrs. Deacon stood this as long as possible, and then she decided to standit no longer—unless she had to. “Eph, you good-for-nothin' lazyanimal,” she remarked to her husband one morning, as she started him onhis rounds, “if yo