The Depot Master Part 48

A second potato burst like a bombsh.e.l.l on the shingles behind him.

McKay was a good general, in that he knew when it was wisest to retreat.

Shoving the paper novel into his overalls pocket, he entered the shop.

"What's the matter, Is?" inquired the grinning blacksmith. Most people grinned when they spoke to Issy. "Gittin' too hot outside there, was it?

Why don't you tomahawk 'em and have 'em for supper?"

"Humph!" grunted the offended quahauger. "Don't git gay now, Jake Larkin. You hurry up with that rake."

"Oh, all right, Is. Don't sculp ME; I ain't done nothin'. What's the news over to East Harniss?"

"Oh, I don't know. Not much. Sam Bartlett, he started for Boston this mornin'."

"Who? Sam Bartlett? I want to know! Thought he was down for six weeks.

You sure about that, Is?"

"Course I'm sure. I was up to the depot and see him buy his ticket and git on the cars."

"Did, hey? Humph! So Sam's gone. Gertie Higgins still over to her Aunt Hannah's at Trumet?"

Issy looked at his questioner. "Why, yes," he said suspiciously.

"I s'pose she's there. Fact, I know she is. Pat Starkey's doin' the telegraphin' while she's away. What made you ask that?"

The blacksmith chuckled. "Oh, nothin'," he said. "How's her dad's dyspepsy? Had any more of them sudden attacks of his? I cal'late they'll take the old man off some of these days, won't they? I hear the doctor thinks there's more heart than stomach in them attacks."

But the skipper of the Lady May was not to be put off thus. "What you drivin' at, Jake?" he demanded. "What's Sam Bartlett's goin' away got to do with Gertie Higgins?"

In his eagerness he stepped to Mr. Larkin's side. The blacksmith caught sight of the novel in his customer's pocket. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it forth.

"What you readin' now, Is?" he demanded. "More blood and brimstone?

'Vivy Ann, the Shop Girl!' Gee! Wow!"

"You gimme that book, Jake Larkin! Gimme it now!"

Fending the frantic quahauger off with one mighty arm, the blacksmith proceeded to read aloud:

"'Darlin',' cried Lord Lyndhurst, strainin' the beautiful and blushin'

maid to his manly bosom, 'you are mine at last. Mine! No--' Jerushy! a love story! Why, Issy! I didn't know you was in love. Who's the lucky girl? Send me an invite to your weddin', won't you?"

Issy's face was a fiery red. He tore the precious volume from its desecrator's hand, losing the pictured cover in the struggle.

"You--you pesky fool!" he shouted. "You mind your own business."

The blacksmith roared in glee. "Oh, ho!" he cried. "Issy's in love and I never guessed it. Aw, say, Is, don't be mean! Who is she? Have you strained her to your manly bosom yit? What's her name?"

"Shut up!" shrieked Issy, and strode out of the shop. His tormentor begged him not to "go off mad," and shouted sarcastic sympathy after him. But Mr. McKay heeded not. He stalked angrily along the sidewalk.

Then espying just ahead of him the boys who had thrown the potatoes, he paused, turned, and walking down the carriageway at the side of the blacksmith's place of business, sat down upon a sawhorse under one of its rear windows. He could, at least, be alone here and think; and he wanted to think.

For Issy--although he didn't look it--was deeply interested in another love story as well as that in his pocket. This one was printed upon his heart's pages, and in it he was the hero, while the heroine--the unsuspecting heroine--was Gertie Higgins, daughter of Beriah Higgins, once a fisherman, now the crotchety and dyspeptic proprietor of the "general store" and postmaster at East Harniss.

This story began when Issy first acquired the Lady May. The Higgins home stood on the slope close to the boat landing, and when Issy came in from quahauging, Gertie was likely to be in the back yard, hanging out the clothes or watering the flower garden. Sometimes she spoke to him of her own accord, concerning the weather or other important topics. Once she even asked him if he were going to the Fourth of July ball at the town-hall. It took him until the next morning--like other warriors, Issy was cursed with shyness--to summon courage enough to ask her to go to the ball with him. Then he found it was too late; she was going with her cousin, Lennie Bloomer. But he felt that she had offered him the opportunity, and was happy and hopeful accordingly.

This, however, was before she went to Boston to study telegraphy. When she returned, with a picture hat and a Boston accent, it was to preside at the telegraph instrument in the little room adjoining the post office at her father's store. When Issy bowed blushingly outside the window of the telegraph room, he received only the airiest of frigid nods. Was there what Lord Lyndhurst would have called "another"? It would seem not. Old Mr. Higgins, her father, encouraged no bows nor attentions from young men, and Gertie herself did not appear to desire them. So Issy gave up his tales of savage butchery for those of love and blisses, adored in silence, and hoped--always hoped.

But why had the blacksmith seemed surprised at the departure of Sam Bartlett, the "dudey" vacationist from the city, whose father had, years ago, been Beriah Higgins's partner in the fish business? And why had he coupled the Bartlett name with that of Gertie, who had been visiting her father's maiden sister at Trumet, the village next below East Harniss, as Denboro is the next above it? Issy's suspicions were aroused, and he wondered.

Suddenly he heard voices in the shop above him. The window was open and he heard them plainly.

"Well! WELL!" It was the blacksmith who uttered the exclamation. "Why, Bartlett, how be you? What you doin' over here? Thought you'd gone back to Boston. I heard you had."

Slowly, cautiously, the astonished quahauger rose from the sawhorse and peered over the window sill. There were two visitors in the shop. One was Ed Burns, proprietor of the Denboro Hotel and livery stable. The other was Sam Bartlett, the very same who had left East Harniss that morning, bound, ostensibly, for Boston. Issy sank back again and listened.

"Yes, yes!" he heard Sam say impatiently; "I know, but--see here, Jake, where can I hire a horse in this G.o.d-forsaken town?"

"Well, well, Sam!" continued Larkin. "I was just figurin' that Beriah had got the best of you after all, and you'd had to give it up for this time. Thinks I, it's too bad! Just because your dad and Beriah Higgins had such a deuce of a row when they bust up in the fish trade, it's a shame that he won't hark to your keepin' comp'ny with Gertie. And you doin' so well; makin' twenty dollars a week up to the city--Ed told me that--and--"

"Yes, yes! But never mind that. Where can I get a horse? I've got to be in Trumet by eight to-night sure."

"Trumet? Why, that's where Gertie is, ain't it?"

"Look a-here, Jake," broke in the livery-stable keeper. "I'll tell you how 'tis. Oh, it's all right, Sam! Jake knows the most of it; I told him. He can keep his mouth shut, and he don't like old crank Higgins any better'n you and me do. Jake, Sam here and Gertie had fixed it up to run off and git married to-night. He was to pretend to start for Boston this mornin'. Bought a ticket and all, so's to throw Beriah off the scent.

He was to get off the train here at Denboro and I was to let him have a horse 'n' buggy. Then, this afternoon, he was goin' to drive through the wood roads around to Trumet and be at the Baptist Church there at eight to-night sharp. Gertie's Aunt Hannah, she's had her orders, and bein' as big a crank as her brother, she don't let the girl out of her sight. But there's a fair at the church and Auntie's tendin' a table. Gertie, she steps out to the cloak room to git a handkerchief which she's forgot; see? And she hops into Sam's buggy and away they go to the minister's.

After they're once hitched Old Dyspepsy can go to pot and see the kittle bile."

"Bully! By gum, that's fine! Won't Beriah rip some, hey?"

"Yes, but there's the d.i.c.kens to pay. I've only got two horses in the stable to-day. The rest are let. And the two I've got--one's old Bill, and he couldn't go twenty mile to save his hide. And t'other's the gray mare, and blamed if she didn't git cast last night and use up her off hind leg so's she can't step. And Sam's GOT to have a horse. Where can I git one?"

"Hum! Have you tried Haynes's?"

"Yes, yes! And Lathrop's and Eldredge's. Can't git a team for love nor money."

"Sho! And he can't go by train?"

"What? With Beriah postmaster at East Harniss and always nosin' through every train that stops there? You can't fetch Trumet by train without stoppin' at East Harniss and--What was that?"

"I don't know. What was it?"

"Sounded like somethin' outside that back winder."

The two ran to the window and looked out. All they saw was an overturned sawhorse and two or three hens scratching vigorously.

"Guess 'twas the chickens, most likely," observed the blacksmith. Then, striking his blackened palms together, he exclaimed:

"By time! I've thought of somethin'! Is McKay is in town to-day. Come over in the Lady May. She's a gasoline boat. Is would take Sam to Trumet for two or three dollars, I'll bet. And he's such a fool head that he wouldn't ask questions nor suspicion nothin'. 'Twould be faster'n a horse and enough sight less risky."

And just then the "fool head," his brain whirling under its carroty thatch, was hurrying blindly up the main street, bound somewhere, he wasn't certain where.

A mushy apple exploded between his shoulders, but he did not even turn around. So THIS was what the blacksmith meant! This was why Mr. Higgins watched his daughter so closely. This was why Gertie had been sent off to Trumet. She had met the Bartlett miscreant in Boston; they had been together there; had fallen in love and--He gritted his teeth and shook his fists almost in the face of old Deacon Pratt, who, knowing the McKay penchant for slaughter, had serious thoughts of sending for the constable.