Daniel’s question a few days ago - about the 1960s kids’ book with “invisible dust” - got me thinking. I remember the grammar school book-buying program Daniel mentions - I think that may have been where I found the book I’m looking for here:
I think the title was “I was a Teenaged Millionaire” or something similar. The narrator was a young teenaged boy. I’m pretty sure the stories were set in the 1930s, because I remember the narrator’s dad encouraged him to “invest” in the stock market, but the boy really just bought stocks because he thought the stock certificates looked cool. He would pin the certificates up on the walls of his bedroom. After the stock market crash, his dad gets angry and says (paraphrasing) “You had a small fortune here, but now these certificates aren’t even worth anything as wallpaper!”
There’s another story about the narrator’s confrontation with a bully. He says (paraphrasing again) “I knew eventually I was going to have to fight (character name).” He ends up digging a pit and setting it as a trap for the bully. The bully falls into the pit - possibly full of mud or slime.
I think the book was a collection of stories like this - all based on the narrator's adventures - but this is all I can remember. I either bought it in the book program Daniel describes, or maybe I borrowed it from the school library. In either case, this would have been in the very early 1970s.
I don’t think it’s Robert McCloskey, but from what I remember the style is similar.
I thought I was fairly certain about at least the gist of the title, but a Google book search for this (and several variations) turned up nothing. Any ideas?
Edit/Update As I think more about it, I suppose it's possible that "Teenage Millionaire" might have been the title of one of the stories, and not of the book itself. I also think it was probably intended facetiously, maybe referring to his failed stock market adventure. He doesn't seem well-to-do in the other stories.
If it's not the book's title, of course it gets a lot harder to track down.
Update/Bounty As the bounty tag says, I want to call attention to this question. It's possible the only way to identify this is to reach someone else who read it way back when and has a better memory than I do.