The Depot Master Part 14

The first mate gave the orders, "All hands on deck! 'Tand by to det ship under way!" There was no "sogerin'" aboard the Hiram Junior--that was the dory's name--while the first officer had command.

Captain Hiram, always ready to talk of the wonderful baby, told the depot master of the youngster's latest achievement, which was to get the cover off the b.u.t.ter firkin in the pantry and cover himself with b.u.t.ter from head to heel.

"Ho, ho, ho!" he roared, delightedly, "when Sophrony caught him at it, what do you s'pose he said? Said he was playin' he was a slice of bread and was spreadin' himself. Haw! haw!"

Captain Sol laughed in sympathy.

"But he didn't mean no harm by it," explained the proud father. "He's got the tenderest little heart in the world. When he found his ma felt bad he bust out cryin' and said he'd sc.r.a.pe it all off again and when it come prayer time he'd tell G.o.d who did it, so He'd know 'twa'n't mother that wasted the nice b.u.t.ter. What do you think of that?"

"No use talkin', Hiram," said the depot master, "that's the kind of boy to have."

"You bet you! h.e.l.lo! here's the train. On time, for a wonder. See you later, Sol. You take my advice, get married and have a boy of your own.

Nothin' like one for solid comfort."

The train was coming and they went out to meet it. The only pa.s.senger to alight was Mr. Barzilla Wingate, whose arrival had been foretold by Bailey St.i.tt the previous evening. Barzilla was part owner of a good-sized summer hotel at Wellmouth Neck. He and the depot master were old friends.

After the train had gone Wingate and Captain Sol entered the station together. The Captain had insisted that his friend come home with him to breakfast, instead of going to the hotel. After some persuasion Barzilla agreed. So they sat down to await Issy's arrival. The depot master could not leave the station until the "a.s.sistant" arrived.

"Well, Barzilla," asked Captain Sol, "what's the newest craze over to the hotel?"

"The newest," said Wingate, with a grin, "is automobiles."

"Automobiles? Why, I thought 'twas baseball."

"Baseball was last summer. We had a championship team then. Yes, sir, we won out, though for a spell it looked pretty dubious. But baseball's an old story. We've had football since, and now--"

"Wait a minute! Football? Why, now I do remember. You had a football team there and--and wa'n't there somethin' queer, some sort of a--a robbery, or stealin', or swindlin' connected with it? Seems's if I'd heard somethin' like that."

Mr. Wingate looked his friend over, winked, and asked a question.

"Sol," he said, "you ain't forgot how to keep a secret?"

The depot master smiled. "I guess not," he said.

"Well, then, I'm goin' to trust you with one. I'm goin' to tell you the whole business about that robbin'. It's all mixed up with football and millionaires and things--and it's a dead secret, the truth of it. So when I tell you it mustn't go no further.

"You see," he went on, "it was late into August when Peter T. was took down with the inspiration. Not that there was anything 'specially new in his bein' took. He was subject to them seizures, Peter was, and every time they broke out in a fresh place. The Old Home House itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin'

of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Sh.o.r.e Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients--meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab--pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank accounts was more healthy than normal. One of Peter T.'s inspirations was consider'ble like typhoid fever--if you did get over it, you felt better for havin' had it.

"This time the attack was in the shape of a 'supplementary season.'

'Twas Peter's idea that shuttin' up the Old Home the fust week in September was altogether too soon.

"'What's the use of quittin',' says he, 'while there's bait left and the fish are bitin'? Why not keep her goin' through September and October?

Two or three ads--MY ads--in the papers, hintin' that the ducks and wild geese are beginnin' to keep the boarders awake by roostin' in the back yard and hollerin' at night--two or three of them, and we'll have gunners here by the regiment. Other summer hotels do it, the Wapatomac House and the rest, so why not us? It hurts my conscience to see good money gettin' past the door 'count of the "Not at Home" sign hung on the k.n.o.b. What d'you say, partners?' says he.

"Well, we had consider'ble to say, partic'lar Cap'n Jonadab. 'Twas too risky and too expensive. Gunnin' was all right except for one thing--that is, that there wa'n't none wuth mentionin'.

"'Ducks are scurser round here than Democrats in a Vermont town-meetin',' growled the Cap'n. 'And as for geese! How long has it been since you see a goose, Barzilla?'

"'Land knows!' says I. 'I can remember as fur back as the fust time Washy Sparrow left off workin', but I can't--'

"Brown told us to shut up. Did we cal'late he didn't know what he was talkin' about?

"'I can see two geese right now,' he snaps; 'but they're so old and leather-headed you couldn't shoot an idea into their brains with a cannon. Gunnin' ain't the whole thing. My makin' a noise like a duck is only to get the would-be Teddy Roosevelts headed for this neck of the woods. After they get here, it's up to us to keep 'em. And I can think of as many ways to do that as the Cap'n can of savin' a quarter. Our baseball team's been a success, ain't it? Sure thing! Then why not a football team? Parker says he'll get it together, and coach and cap'n it, too. And Robinson and his daughter have agreed to stay till October fifteenth. So there's a start, anyhow.'

"'Twas a start, and a pretty good one. The Robinsons had come to the Old Home about the fust of August, and they was our star boarders. 'G. W.

Robinson' was the old man's name as entered on the hotel log, and his daughter answered to the hail of 'Grace'--that is, when she took a notion to answer at all. The Robinsons was what Peter T. called 'exclusive.' They didn't mix much with the rest of the bunch, but kept to themselves in their rooms, partic'lar when a fresh net full of boarders was hauled aboard. Then they seemed to take an observation of every arrival afore they mingled; questioned the pedigree and statistics of all hands, and acted mighty suspicious.

"The only thing that really stirred Papa Robinson up and got him excited and friendly was baseball and boat racin'. He was an old sport, that was plain, the only real plain thing about him; the rest was mystery. As for Grace, she wa'n't plain by a good sight, bein' what Brown called a 'peach.' She could have had every single male in tow if she'd wanted 'em. Apparently she didn't want em, preferrin' to be lonesome and sad and interestin'. Yes, sir, there was a mystery about them Robinsons, and even Peter T. give in to that.

"'If 'twas anybody else,' says he, 'I'd say the old man was a crook, down here hidin' from the police. But he's too rich for that, and always has been. He ain't any fly-by-night. I can tell the real article without lookin' for the "sterlin'" mark on the handle. But I'll bet all the cold-storage eggs in the hotel against the henyard--and that's big odds--that he wa'n't christened Robinson. And his face is familiar to me. I've seen it somewhere, either in print or in person. I wish I knew where.'

"So if the Robinsons had agreed to stay--them and their two servants--that was a big help, as Brown said. And Parker would help, too, though we agreed there wa'n't no mystery about him. He was a big, broad-shouldered young feller just out of college somewheres, who had drifted our way the fortni't after the Robinsons came, with a reputation for athletics and a leanin' toward cigarettes and Miss Grace. She leaned a little, too, but hers wa'n't so much of a bend as his was. He was dead gone on her, and if she'd have decided to stay under water, he'd have ducked likewise. 'Twas easy enough to see why HE believed in a 'supplementary season.'

"Me and Jonadab argued it out with Peter, and finally we met halfway, so's to speak. We wouldn't keep the whole shebang open, but we'd shut up everything but one Annex cottage, and advertise that as a Gunner's Retreat. So we done it.

"And it worked. Heavens to Betsy--yes! It worked so well that by the second week in September we had to open t'other Annex. The gunnin' was bad, but Peter's ads fetched the would-be's, and his 'excursions' and picnics and the football team held 'em. The football team especial.

Parker cap'ned that, and, from the gunnin' crew and the waiters and some fishermen in the village, he dug up an eleven that showed symptoms of playin' the game. We played the Trumet High School, and beat it, thanks to Parker, and that tickled Pa Robinson so that he bought a two-handled silver soup tureen--'lovin' cup,' he called it--and agreed to give it to the team round about that won the most of the series. So the series was arranged, the Old Home House crowd and the Wapatomac House eleven and three high-school gangs bein' in it. And 'twas practice, practice, practice, from then on.

"When we opened the second Annex, the question of help got serious. Most of our college waiters had gone back to school, and we was pretty shy of servants. So we put some extry advertisin' in the Cape weeklies, and trusted in Providence.

"The evenin' followin' the ad in the weeklies, I was settin' smokin' on the back piazza of the shut-up main hotel, when I heard the gate click and somebody crunchin' along the clam-sh.e.l.l path. I sung out: 'Ahoy, there!' and the cruncher, whoever he was, come my way. Then I made out that he was a tall young chap, with his hands in his pockets.

"'Good evenin',' says he. 'Is this Mr. Brown?'

"'Thankin' you for the compliment, it ain't,' I says. 'My name's Wingate.'

"'Oh!' says he. 'Is that so? I've heard father speak of you, Mr.

Wingate. He is Solomon Bea.r.s.e, of West Ostable. I think you know him slightly.'

"Know him? Everybody on the Cape knows Sol Bea.r.s.e; by reputation, anyhow. He's the richest, meanest old cranberry grower and coastin'-fleet owner in these parts.

"'Is Sol Bea.r.s.e your dad?' I asks, astonished. 'Why, then, you must be Gus?'

"'No,' he says. 'I'm the other one--Fred.'

"'Oh, the college one. The one who's goin' to be a lawyer.'

"'Well, yes--and no,' says he. 'I WAS the college one, as you call it, but I'm not goin' to be a lawyer. Father and I have had some talk on that subject, and I think we've settled it. I--well, just at present, I'm not sure what I'm goin' to be. That's what I've come to you for. I saw your ad in the Item, and--I want a job.'

"I was set all aback, and left with my canvas flappin', as you might say. Sol Bea.r.s.e's boy huntin' a job in a hotel kitchen! Soon's I could fetch a whole breath, I wanted partic'lars. He give 'em to me.

"Seems he'd been sent out to one of the colleges in the Middle West by his dad, who was dead set on havin' a lawyer in the family. But the more he studied, the less he hankered for law. What he wanted to be was a literature--a book-agent or a poet, or some such foolishness. Old Sol, havin' no more use for a poet than he had for a poor relation, was red hot in a minute. Was this what he'd been droppin' good money in the education collection box for? Was this--etcetery and so on. He'd be--what the church folks say he will be--if Fred don't go in for law.

Fred, he comes back that he'll be the same if he does. So they disowned each other by mutual consent, as the Irishman said, and the boy marches out of the front door, bag and baggage. And, as the poetry market seemed to be sort of overly supplied at the present time, he decided he must do somethin' to earn a dollar, and, seein' our ad, he comes to Wellmouth Port and the Old Home.

"'But look here,' says I, 'we ain't got no job for a literary. We need fellers to pa.s.s pie and wash dishes. And THAT ain't no poem.'

"Well, he thought perhaps he could help make up advertisin'.