The Depot Master Part 18

"Well, he's got his literary job at last, bein' engaged as sportin'

editor on one of Gabe's papers. His dad, old Sol Bea.r.s.e, seems to be pretty well satisfied, partic'lar as another engagement between the Bea.r.s.e family and the Sterzers has just been given out."

Barzilla helped himself to another doughnut. His host leaned back in his chair and laughed uproariously.

"Well, by the great and mighty!" he exclaimed, "that Willie chap certainly did fool you, didn't he. You can't always tell about these college critters. Sometimes they break out unexpected, like chickenpox in the 'Old Men's Home.' Ha! ha! Say, do you know Nate Scudder?"

"Know him? Course I know him! The meanest man on the Cape, and livin'

right in my own town, too! Well, if I didn't know him I might trust him, and that would be the beginnin' of the end--for me."

"It sartin would. But what made me think of him was what he told me about his nephew, who was a college chap, consider'ble like your 'Willie,' I jedge. Nate and this nephew, Augustus Tolliver, was mixed up in that flyin'-machine business, you remember."

"I know they was. Mixed up with that Professor Dixland the papers are makin' such a fuss over. Wellmouth's been crazy over it all, but it happened a year ago and n.o.body that I know of has got the straight inside facts about it yet. Nate won't talk at all. Whenever you ask him he busts out swearin' and walks off. His wife's got such a temper that n.o.body dared ask her, except the minister. He tried it, and ain't been the same man since."

"Well," the depot master smilingly scratched his chin, "I cal'late I've got those inside facts."

"You HAVE?"

"Yes. Nate gave 'em to me, under protest. You see, I know Nate pretty well. I know some things about him that . . . but never mind that part.

I asked him and, at last, he told me. I'll have to tell you in his words, 'cause half the fun was the way he told it and the way he looked at the whole business. So you can imagine I'm Nate, and--"

"'Twill be a big strain on my imagination to b'lieve you're Nate Scudder, Sol Berry."

"Thanks. However, you'll have to do it for a spell. Well, Nate said that it really begun when the Professor and Olivia landed at the Wellmouth depot with the freight car full of junk. Of course, the actual beginnin' was further back than that, when that Harmon man come on from Philadelphy and hunted him up, makin' proclamation that a friend of his, a Mr. Van Brunt of New York, had said that Scudder had a nice quiet island to let and maybe he could hire it.

"Course Nate had an island--that little sun-dried sandbank a mile or so off sh.o.r.e, abreast his house, which we used to call 'Horsefoot Bar.'

That crazy Van Brunt and his chum, Hartley, who lived there along with Sol Pratt a year or so ago, re-christened it 'Ozone Island,' you remember. Nate was willin' to let it. He'd let Tophet, if he owned it, and a fool come along who wanted to hire it and could pay for the rent and heat.

"So Nate and this Harmon feller rowed over to the Bar--to Ozone Island, I mean--and the desolation and loneliness of it seemed to suit him to perfection. So did the old house and big barn and all the tumbledown buildin's stuck there in the beach-gra.s.s and sand. Afore they'd left they made a d.i.c.ker. He wa'n't the princ.i.p.al in it. He was the private secretary and fust mate of Mr. Professor Ansel Hobart Dixland, the scientist--perhaps Scudder'd heard of him?

"Perhaps he had, but if so, Nate forgot it, though he didn't tell him that. Harmon ordered a fifteen-foot-high board fence built all around the house and barn, and made Nate swear not to tell a soul who was comin' nor anything. Dixland might want the island two months, he said, or he might want it two years. Nate didn't care. He was in for good pickin's, and begun to pick by slicin' a liberal commission off that fencebuildin' job. There was a whole pa.s.sel of letters back and forth between Nate and Harmon, and finally Nate got word to meet the victims at the depot.

"There was the professor himself, an old dried-up relic with whiskers and a temper; and there was Miss Olivia Dixland, his niece and housekeeper, a slim, plain lookin' girl, who wore eyegla.s.ses and a straight up and down dress. And there was a freight car full of crates and boxes and land knows what all. But nary sign was there of a private secretary and a.s.sistant. The professor told Nate that Mr. Harmon's health had suddenly broke down and he'd had to be sent South.

"'It's a calamity,' says he; 'a real calamity! Harmon has been with me in my work from the beginnin'; and now, just as it is approachin'

completion, he is taken away. They say he may die. It is very annoyin'.'

"'Humph!' says Nate. 'Well, maybe it annoys HIM some, too; you can't tell. What you goin' to do for a secretary?'

"'I understand,' says the professor, 'that there is a person of consider'ble scientific attainment residin' with you, Mr. Scudder, at present. Harmon met him while he was here; they were in the same cla.s.s at college. Harmon recommended him highly. Olivia,' he says to the niece, 'what was the name of the young man whom Harmon recommended?'

"'Tolliver, Uncle Ansel,' answers the girl, lookin' kind of disdainful at Nate. Somehow he had the notion that she didn't take to him fust rate.

"'Hey?' sings out Nate. 'Tolliver? Why, that's Augustus! AUGUSTUS! well, I'll be switched!'

"Augustus Tolliver was Nate's nephew from up Boston way. Him and Nate was livin' together at that time. Huldy Ann, Mrs. Scudder, was out West, in Omaha, takin' care of a cousin of hers who was a chronic invalid and, what's more to the purpose, owned a lot of stock in copper mines.

"Augustus was a freckle-faced, spindle-shanked little critter, with spectacles and a soft, polite way of speakin' that made you want to build a fire under him to see if he could swear like a Christian. He had a big head with consider'ble hair on the top of it and nothin'

underneath but what he called 'science' and 'sociology.' His science wa'n't nothin' but tommy-rot to Nate, and the 'sociology' was some kind of drivel about everybody bein' equal to everybody else, or better.

'Seemed to think 'twas wrong to get a good price for a thing when you found a feller soft enough to pay it. Did you ever hear the beat of that in your life?' says Nate.

"However, Augustus had soaked so much science and sociology into that weak noddle of his that they kind of made him drunk, as you might say, and the doctor had sent him down to board with the Scudders and sleep it off. 'Nervous prostration' was the way he had his symptoms labeled, and the nerve part was all right, for if a hen flew at him he'd holler and run. Scart! you never see such a scart cat in your born days. Scart of a boat, scart of being seasick, scart of a gun, scart of everything! Most special he was scart of Uncle Nate. The said uncle kept him that way so's he wouldn't dast to kick at the grub him and Huldy Ann give him, I guess.

"'Augustus Tolliver,' says old Dixland, noddin'. 'Yes, that is the name.

Has he had a sound scientific trainin'?'

"'Scientific trainin'!' says Nate. 'Scientific trainin'? Why, you bet he's had it! That's the only kind of trainin' he HAS had. He'll be just the feller for you, Mr. Dixland.'

"So that was settled, all but notifyin' Augustus. But Scudder sighted another speculation in the offin', and hove alongside of it.

"'Mr. Harmon, when he was here,' says he, 'he mentioned you needin'

a nice, dependable man to live on the island and be sort of general roustabout. My wife bein' away just now, and all, it struck me that I might as well be that man. Maybe my terms'll seem a little high, at fust mention, but--'

"'Very good,' says the professor, 'very good. I'm sure you'll be satisfactory. Now please see to the unloading of that car. And be careful, VERY careful.'

"Nate broke the news to Augustus that afternoon. He had his nose stuck in a book, as usual, and never heard, so Nate yelled at him like a mate on a tramp steamer, just to keep in trainin'.

"'Who? Who? Who? What? What?' squeals Augustus, jumpin' out of the chair as if there was pins in it. 'What is it? Who did it? Oh, my poor nerves!'

"'Drat your poor nerves!' Nate says. 'I've got a good promisin' job for you. Listen to this.'

"Then he told about the professor's wantin' Gus to be a.s.sistant and help do what the old man called 'experiments.'

"'Dixland?' says Gus, 'Ansel Hobart Dixland, the great scientist! And I'm to be HIS a.s.sistant? a.s.sistant to the man who discovered DIXIUM and invented--'

"'Oh, belay there!' snorts Nate, impatient. Tell me this--he's awful rich, ain't he?'

"'Why, I believe--yes, Harmon said he was. But to think of MY bein'--'

"'Now, nephew,' Nate cut in, 'let me talk to you a minute. Me and your Aunt Huldy Ann have been mighty kind to you sence you've been here, and here's your chance to do us a good turn. You stick close to science and the professor and let me attend to the finances. If this family ain't well off pretty soon it won't be your Uncle Nate's fault. Only don't you put your oar in where 'tain't needed.'

"Lord love you, Gus didn't care about finances. He was so full of joy at bein' made a.s.sistant to the great Ansel Whiskers Dixland that he forgot everything else, nerves and all.

"So in another day the four of 'em was landed on Ozone Island and so was the freight-car load of crates and boxes. Grub and necessaries was to be provided by Scudder--for salary as stated and commission understood.

"It took Nate less than a week to find out what old Dixland was up to.

When he learned it, he set down in the sand and fairly snorted disgust.

The old idiot was cal'latin' to FLY. Seems that for years he'd been experimentin' with what he called 'aeroplanes,' and now he'd reached the stage where he b'lieved he could flap his wings and soar. 'Thinks I,'

says Nate, 'your life work's cut out for you, Nate Scudder. You'll spend the rest of your days as gen'ral provider for the Ozone private asylum.'

Well, Scudder wa'n't complainin' none at the outlook. He couldn't make a good livin' no easier.

"The aeroplane was in sections in them boxes and crates. Nate and Augustus and the professor got out the sections and fitted 'em together.

The buildin's on Ozone was all joined together--first the house, then the ell, then the wash-rooms and big sheds, and, finally, the barn.

There was doors connectin', and you could go from house to barn, both downstairs and up, without steppin' outside once.

"'Twas in the barn that they built what Whiskers called the 'flyin'

stage.' 'Twas a long chute arrangement on trestles, and the idea was that the aeroplane was to get her start by slidin' down the chute, out through the big doors and off by the atmosphere route to glory. I say that was the IDEA. In practice she worked different.

"Twice the professor made proclamations that everything was ready, and twice they started that flyin' machine goin'. The fust time Dixland was at the helm, and him and the aeroplane dropped headfust into the sandbank just outside the barn. The machine was underneath, and the pieces of it acted as a fender, so all the professor fractured was his temper. But it took ten days to get the contraption ready for the next fizzle. Then poor, shaky, scart Augustus was pilot, and he went so deep into the bank that Nate says he wondered whether 'twas wuth while doin'