The Depot Master Part 34

"No," replied the astounded depot master. "Took up by the POLICE?"

"Um--hm. Surprises you, don't it? Well, that whole trip was a surprise to me.

"When Laban Thorp set out to thrash his son and the boy licked him instead, they found the old man settin' in the barnyard, holdin' on to his nose and grinnin' for pure joy.

"'Hurt?' says he. 'Why, some. But think of it! Only think of it! I didn't believe Bill had it in him.'

"Well, that's the way I felt when Cap'n Jonadab sprung the New York plan on to me. I was pretty nigh as much surprised as Labe. The idea of a man with a chronic case of lockjaw of the pocketbook, same as Jonadab had worried along under ever sence I knew him, suddenly breakin' loose with a notion to go to New York on a pleasure cruise! 'Twas too many for me.

I set and looked at him.

"'Oh, I mean it, Barzilla,' he says. 'I ain't been to New York sence I was mate on the Emma Snow, and that was 'way back in the eighties. That is, to stop I ain't. That time we went through on the way to Peter T.'s weddin' don't count, 'cause we only went in the front door and out the back, like Squealer Wixon went through high school. Let's you and me go and stay two or three days and have a real high old time,' says he.

"I fetched a long breath. 'Jonadab,' I says, don't scare a feller this way; I've got a weak heart. If you're goin' to start in and be divilish in your old age, why, do it kind of gradual. Let's go over to the billiard room and have a bottle of sa.s.s'parilla and a five-cent cigar, just to break the ice.'

"But that only made him mad.

"'You talk like a fish,' he says. 'I mean it. Why can't we go? It's September, the Old Home House is shut up for the season, you and me's done well--fur's profits are concerned--and we ought to have a change, anyway. We've got to stay here in Orham all winter.'

"'Have you figgered out how much it's goin' to cost?' I asked him.

"Yes, he had. 'It won't be so awful expensive,' he says. 'I've got some stock in the railroad and that'll give me a pa.s.s fur's Fall River. And we can take a lunch to eat on the boat. And a stateroom's a dollar; that's fifty cents apiece. And my daughter's goin' to Denboro on a visit next week, so I'd have to pay board if I stayed to home. Come on, Barzilla! don't be so tight with your money.'

"So I said I'd go, though I didn't have any pa.s.s, nor no daughter to feed me free gratis for nothin' when I got back. And when we started, on the followin' Monday, nothin' would do but we must be at the depot at two o'clock so's not to miss the train, which left at quarter past three.

"I didn't sleep much that night on the boat. For one thing, our stateroom was a nice lively one, alongside of the paddle box and just under the fog whistle; and for another, the supper that Jonadab had brought, bein' mainly doughnuts and cheese, wa'n't the best cargo to take to bed with you. But it didn't make much diff'rence, 'cause we turned out at four, so's to see the scenery and git our money's worth.

What was left of the doughnuts and cheese we had for breakfast.

"We made the dock on time, and the next thing was to pick out a hotel.

I was for cruisin' along some of the main streets until we hove in sight of a place that looked sociable and not too expensive. But no; Jonadab had it all settled for me. We was goin' to the 'Wayfarer's Inn,' a boardin' house where he'd put up once when he was mate of the Emma Snow.

He said 'twas a fine place and you could git as good ham and eggs there as a body'd want to eat.

"So we set sail for the 'Wayfarer's,' and of all the times gittin' to a place--don't talk! We asked no less than nine policemen and one hundred and two other folks, and it cost us thirty cents in car fares, which pretty nigh broke Jonadab's heart. However, we found it, finally, 'way off amongst a nest of brick houses and peddler carts and children, and it wa'n't the 'Wayfarer's Inn' no more, but was down in the shippin'

list as the 'Golconda House.' Jonadab said the neighborhood had changed some sence he was there, but he guessed we'd better chance it, 'cause the board was cheap.

"We had a nine-by-ten room up aloft somewheres, and there we set down on the edge of the bed and a chair to take account of stock, as you might say.

"'Now, I tell you, Jonadab,' says I; 'we don't want to waste no time, and we've got the day afore us. What do you say if we cruise along the water front for a spell? There's ha'f a dozen Orham folks aboard diff'rent steamers that hail from this port, and 'twouldn't be no more'n neighborly to call on 'em. There's Silas Baker's boy, Asa--he's with the Savannah Line and he'd be mighty glad to see us. And there's--'

"But Jonadab held up his hand. He'd been mysterious as a baker's mince pie ever sence we started, hintin' at somethin' he'd got to do when we'd got to New York. And now he out with it.

"'Barzilla,' he says, 'I ain't sayin' but what I'd like to go to the wharves with you, first rate. And we will go, too. But afore we do anything else I've got an errand that must be attended to. 'Twas give to me by a dyin' man,' he says, 'and I promised him I'd do it. So that comes first of all.'

"He got his wallet out of his inside vest pocket, where it had been pinned in tight to keep it safe from robbers, unwound a foot or so of leather strap, and dug up a yeller piece of paper that looked old enough to be Methusalem's will, pretty nigh.

"'Do you remember Patrick Kelly in Orham?' he asks.

"'Who?' says I. 'Pat Kelly, the Irishman, that lived in the little old shack back of your barn? Course I do. But he's been dead for I don't know how long.'

"'I know he has. Do you remember his boy Jim that run away from home?'

"'Let's see,' I says. 'Seems to me I do. Freckled, red-headed rooster, wa'n't he? And of all the imps of darkness that ever--'

"'S-sh-sh!' he interrupted solemn. 'Don't say that now, Barzilla. Sounds kind of irreverent. Well, me and old Pat was pretty friendly, in a way, though he did owe me rent. When he was sick with the pleurisy he sends for me and he says, "Cap'n 'Wixon," says he, "you're pretty close with the money," he says--he was kind of out of his head at the time and liable to say foolish things--"you're pretty close," he says, "but you're a man of your word. My boy Jimmie, that run away, was the apple of my eye."'

"'That's what he said about his girl Maggie that was took up for stealin' Mrs. Elkanah Higgins's spoons,' I says. 'He had a healthy crop of apples in HIS orchard.'

"'S-sh-h! DON'T talk so! I feel as if the old man's spirit was with us this minute. "He's the apple of my eye," he says, "and he run away, after me latherin' the life out of him with a wagon spoke. 'Twas all for his good, but he didn't understand, bein' but a child. And now I've heard," he says, "that he's workin' at 116 East Blank Street in the city of New York. Cap'n Wixon, you're a man of money and a travelin' man," he says (I was fishin' in them days). "When you go to New York," he says, "I want you to promise me to go to the address on this paper and hunt up Jimmie. Tell him I forgive him for lickin' him," he says, "and die happy. Will you promise me that, Cap'n, on your word as a gentleman?"

And I promised him. And he died in less than ten months afterwards, poor thing.'

"'But that was sixteen--eighteen--nineteen years ago,' says I. 'And the boy run away three years afore that. You've been to New York in the past nineteen years, once anyhow.'

"'I know it. But I forgot. I'm ashamed of it, but I forgot. And when I was goin' through the things up attic at my daughter's last Friday, seein' what I could find for the rummage sale at the church, I come across my old writin' desk, and in it was this very piece of paper with the address on it just as I wrote it down. And me startin' for New York in three days! Barzilla, I swan to man, I believe something SENT me to that attic.'

"I knew what sent him there and so did the church folks, judgin' by their remarks when the contribution came in. But I was too much set back by the whole crazy business to say anything about that.

"'Look here, Jonadab Wixon,' I sings out, 'do you mean to tell me that we've got to put in the whole forenoon ransackin' New York to find a boy that run off twenty-two years ago?'

"'It won't take the forenoon,' he says. 'I've got the number, ain't I?'

"'Yes, you've got the number where he WAS. If you want to know where I think he's likely to be now, I'd try the jail.'

"But he said I was unfeelin' and disobligin' and lots more, so, to cut the argument short, I agreed to go. And off we put to hunt up 116 East Blank Street. And when we located it, after a good hour of askin'

questions, and payin' car fares and wearin' out shoe leather, 'twas a Chinese laundry.

"'Well,' I says, sarcastic, 'here we be. Which one of the heathen do you think is Jimmie? If he had an inch or so more of upper lip, I'd gamble on that critter with the pink nighty and the baskets on his feet. He has a kind of familiar chicken-stealin' look in his eye. Oh, come down on the wharves, Jonadab, and be sensible.'

"Would you believe it, he wa'n't satisfied. We must go into the wash shop and ask the Chinamen if they knew Jimmie Kelly. So we went in and the powwow begun.

"'Twas a mighty unsatisfyin' interview. Jonadab's idea of talkin' to furriners is to yell at 'em as if they was stone deef. If they don't understand what you say, yell louder. So between his yells and the heathen's jabber and grunts the hullabaloo was worse than a cat in a hen yard. Folks begun to stop outside the door and listen and grin.

"'What did he say?' asks the Cap'n, turnin' to me.

"'I don't know,' says I, 'but I cal'late he's gettin' ready to send a note up to the crazy asylum. Come on out of here afore I go loony myself.'

"So he done it, finally, cross as all get out, and swearin' that all Chinese was no good and oughtn't to be allowed in this country. But he wouldn't give up, not yet. He must scare up some of the neighbors and ask them. The fifth man that we asked was an old chap who remembered that there used to be a liquor saloon once where the laundry was now.

But he didn't know who run it or what had become of him.

"'Never mind,' I says. 'You're as warm as you're likely to be this trip.

A rum shop is just about the place I'd expect that Kelly boy WOULD be in. And, if he's like the rest of his relations on his dad's side, he drank himself to death years ago. NOW will you head for the Savannah Line?'

"Not much, he wouldn't. He had another notion. We'd look in the directory. That seemed to have a glimmer of sense somewheres in its neighborhood, so we found an apothecary store and the clerk handed us out a book once again as big as a church Bible.

"'Kelly,' says Jonadab. 'Yes, here 'tis. Now, "James Kelly." Land of Love! Barzilla, look here.'

"I looked, and there wa'n't no less than a dozen pages of James Kellys beginning with fifty James A.'s and endin' with four James Z.'s. The Y in 'New York' ought to be a C, judgin' by that directory.

"'G.o.dfrey mighty!' I says. 'This ain't no forenoon's job, Jonadab. If you're goin' through that list you'll have to spend the rest of your life here. Only, unless you want to be lonesome, you'll have to change your name to Kelly.'