The Depot Master Part 13

The morning train for Boston, at that season of the year, reached East Harniss at five minutes to six, an "unG.o.dly hour," according to the irascible Mr. Ogden Williams, who, in company with some of his wealthy friends, the summer residents, was pet.i.tioning the railroad company for a change in the time-table. When Captain Sol Berry, the depot master, walked briskly down Main Street the morning following Mr. Gott's eventful evening at the club, the hands of the clock on the Methodist church tower indicated that the time was twenty minutes to six.

Issy McKay was already at the depot, the doors of which were open.

Captain Sol entered the waiting room and unlocked the ticket rack and the little safe. Issy, languidly toying with the broom on the front platform, paused in his pretense of sweeping and awaited permission to go home for breakfast. It came, in characteristic fashion.

"How's the salt air affectin' your appet.i.te, Is?" asked the Captain, casually.

Issy, who, being intensely serious by nature, was uneasy when he suspected the presence of a joke, confusedly stammered that he cal'lated his appet.i.te was all right.

"Payin' for the Major's gla.s.s ain't kept you awake worryin', has it?"

"No-o, sir. I--"

"P'r'aps you thought he was the one to 'do the worryin', hey?"

"I--I don't know."

"Well, what's your folks goin' to have to eat this mornin'?"

Issy admitted his belief that fried clams were to be the breakfast.

"So? Clams? Is, did you ever read the soap advertis.e.m.e.nt about not bein'

a clam?"

"I--I don't know's I ever did. No, sir."

"All right; I only called your attention to it as a warnin', that's all.

When anybody eats as many clams as you do there's a fair chance of his turnin' into one. Now clear out, and don't stay so long at breakfast that you can't get back in time for dinner. Trot!"

Issy trotted. The depot master seated himself by the door of the ticket office and fell into a reverie. It was interrupted by the entrance of Hiram Baker. Captain Hiram was an ex-fishing skipper, fifty-five years of age, who, with his wife, Sophronia, and their infant son, Hiram Joash Baker, lived in a small, old-fashioned house at the other end of the village, near the sh.o.r.e. Captain Hiram, having retired from the sea, got his living, such as it was, from his string of fish traps, or "weirs."

The depot master hailed the new arrival heartily.

"h.e.l.lo, there, Hiram!" he cried, rising from his chair. "Glad to see you once in a while. Ain't goin' to leave us, are you? Not goin' abroad for your health, or anything of that kind, hey?"

Captain Baker laughed.

"No," he answered. "No further abroad than Hyannis. And I'll be back from there tonight, if the Lord's willin' and the cars don't get off the track. Give me a round trip ticket, will you, Sol?"

The depot master retired to the office, returning with the desired ticket. Captain Hiram counted out the price from a confused ma.s.s of coppers and silver, emptied into his hand from a blackened leather purse, tied with a string.

"How's Sophrony?" asked the depot master. "Pretty smart, I hope."

"Yup, she's smart. Has to be to keep up with the rest of the family--'specially the youngest."

He chuckled. His friend laughed in sympathy.

"The youngest is the most important of all, I s'pose," he observed. "How IS the junior partner of H. Baker and Son?"

"He ain't a silent partner, I'll swear to that. Honest, Sol, I b'lieve my 'Dusenberry' is the cutest young one outside of a show. I said so only yesterday to Mr. Hilton, the minister. I did, and I meant it."

"Well, we're all gettin' ready to celebrate his birthday. Ho, ho!"

This was a standard joke and was so recognized and honored. A baby born on the Fourth of July is sure of a national celebration of his birthday.

And to Captain Baker and his wife, no celebration, however widespread, could do justice to the importance of the occasion. When, to answer the heart longings of the child-loving couple married many years, the baby came, he was accepted as a special dispensation of Providence and valued accordingly.

"He's got a real nice voice, Hiram," said Sophronia, gazing proudly at the prodigy, who, clutched gingerly in his father's big hands, was screaming his little red face black. "I shouldn't wonder if he grew up to sing in the choir."

"That's the kind of voice to make a fo'mast hand step lively!" declared Hiram. "You'll see this boy on the quarter deck of a clipper one of these days."

Naming him was a portentous proceeding and one not to be lightly gone about. Sophronia, who was a Methodist by descent and early confirmation, was of the opinion that the child should have a Bible name.

The Captain respected his wife's wishes, but put in an ardent plea for his own name, Hiram.

"There's been a Hiram Baker in our family ever since Noah h'isted the main-r'yal on the ark," he declared. "I'd kinder like to keep the procession a-goin'."

They compromised by agreeing to make the baby's Christian name Hiram and to add a middle name selected at random from the Scriptures. The big, rickety family Bible was taken from the center table and opened with shaking fingers by Mrs. Baker. She read aloud the first sentence that met her eye: "The son of Joash."

"Joash!" sneered her husband. "You ain't goin' to cruelize him with that name, be you?"

"Hiram Baker, do you dare to fly in the face of Scriptur'?"

"All right! Have it your own way. Go to sleep now, Hiram Joash, while I sing 'Storm along, John,' to you."

Little Hiram Joash punched the minister's face with his fat fist when he was christened, to the great scandal of his mother and the ill-concealed delight of his father.

"Can't blame the child none," declared the Captain. "I'd punch anybody that christened a middle name like that onto me."

But, in spite of his name, the baby grew and prospered. He fell out of his crib, of course, the moment that he was able, and barked his shins over the big sh.e.l.ls by the what-not in the parlor the first time that he essayed to creep. He teethed with more or less tribulation, and once upset the household by an attack of the croup.

They gave up calling him by his first name, because of the Captain's invariably answering when the baby was wanted and not answering when he himself was wanted. Sophronia would have liked to call him Joash, but her husband wouldn't hear of it. At length the father took to calling him "Dusenberry," and this nickname was adopted under protest.

Captain Hiram sang the baby to sleep every night. There were three songs in the Captain's repertoire. The first was a chanty with a chorus of

John, storm along, storm along, John, Ain't I glad my day's work's done.

The second was the "Bowline Song."

Haul on the bowline, the 'Phrony is a-rollin', Haul on the bowline! the bowline HAUL!

At the "haul!" the Captain's foot would come down with a thump. Almost the first word little Hiram Joash learned was "haul!" He used to shout it and kick his father vigorously in the vest.

These were fair-weather songs. Captain Hiram sang them when everything was going smoothly. The "Bowline Song" indicated that he was feeling particularly jubilant. He had another that he sang when he was worried.

It was a lugubrious ditty, with a refrain beginning:

Oh, sailor boy, sailor boy, 'neath the wild billow, Thy grave is yawnin' and waitin' for thee.

He sang this during the worst of the teething period, and, later, when the junior partner wrestled with the whooping cough. You could always tell the state of the baby's health by the Captain's choice of songs.

Meanwhile Dusenberry grew and prospered. He learned to walk and to talk, after his own peculiar fashion, and, at the mature age of two years and six months, formally shipped as first mate aboard his father's dory. His duties in this responsible position were to sit in the stern, securely fastened by a strap, while the Captain and his two a.s.sistants rowed out over the bar to haul the nets of the deep water fish weir.