_ CHAPTER IX. THE WIDOW BASSETT
These developments, Major Hardee's marriage and Mr. Gott's discomfiture, overshadowed, for the time, local interest in the depot master's house moving. This was, in its way, rather fortunate, for those who took the trouble to walk down to the lower end of the Boulevard were astonished to see how very slowly the moving was progressing.
"Only one horse, Sim?" asked Captain Hiram Baker. "Only one! Why, it'll take you forever to get through, won't it?"
"I'm afraid it'll take quite a spell," admitted Mr. Phinney.
"Where's your other one, the white one?"
"The white horse," said Simeon slowly, "ain't feelin' just right and I've had to lay him off."
"Humph! that's too bad. How does Sol act about it? He's such a hustler, I should think--"
"Sol," interrupted Sim, "ain't unreasonable. He understands."
He chuckled inwardly as he said it. Captain Sol did understand. Also Mr. Phinney himself was beginning to understand a little.
The very day on which Williams and his foreman had called on the depot master and been dismissed so unceremoniously, that official paid a short visit to his mover.
"Sim," he said, the twinkle still in his eye, "his Majesty, Williams the Conqueror, was in to see me just now and acted real peevish. He was pretty disrespectful to you, too. Called your outfit 'one horse.' That's a mistake, because you've got two horses at work right now. It seems a shame to make a great man like that lie. Hadn't you better lay off one of them horses?"
"Lay one OFF?" exclaimed Simeon. "What for? Why, we'll be slow enough, as 'tis. With only one horse we wouldn't get through for I don't know how long."
"That's so," murmured the Captain. "I s'pose with one horse you'd hardly reach the middle of the Boulevard by--well, before the tenth of the month. Hey?"
The tenth of the month! The TENTH! Why, it was on the tenth that that Omaha cousin of Olive Edwards was to--Mr. Phinney began to see--to see and to grin, slow but expansive.
"Hm-m-m!" he mused.
"Yes," observed Captain Sol. "That white horse of yours looks sort of ailin' to me, Sim. I think he needs a rest."
And, sure enough, next day the white horse was pronounced unfit and taken back to the stable. The depot master's dwelling moved, but that is all one could say truthfully concerning its progress.
At the depot the Captain was quieter than usual. He joked with his assistant less than had been his custom, and for the omission Issy was duly grateful. Sometimes Captain Sol would sit for minutes without speaking. He seemed to be thinking and to be pondering some grave problem. When his friends, Mr. Wingate, Captain Stitt, Hiram Baker, and the rest, dropped in on him he cheered up and was as conversational as ever. After they had gone he relapsed into his former quiet mood.
"He acts sort of blue, to me," declared Issy, speaking from the depths of sensational-novel knowledge. "If he was a younger man I'd say he was most likely in love. Ah, hum! I s'pose bein' in love does get a feller mournful, don't it?"
Issy made this declaration to his mother only. He knew better than to mention sentiment to male acquaintances. The latter were altogether too likely to ask embarrassing questions.
Mr. Wingate and Captain Stitt were still in town, although their stay was drawing to a close. One afternoon they entered the station together. Captain Sol seemed glad to see them.
"Set down, fellers," he ordered. "I swan I'm glad to see you. I ain't fit company for myself these days."
"Ain't Betsy Higgins feedin' you up to the mark?" asked Stitt. "Or is house movin' gettin' on your vitals?"
"No," growled the depot master, "grub's all right and so's movin', I cal'late. I'm glad you fellers come in. What's the news to Orham, Barzilla? How's the Old Home House boarders standin' it? Hear from Jonadab regular, do you?"
Mr. Wingate laughed. "Nothin' much," he said. "Jonadab's too busy to write these days. Bein' a sport interferes with letter writing consider'ble."
"Sport!" exclaimed Captain Bailey. "Land of Goshen! Cap'n Jonadab is the last one I'd call a sport."
"That's 'cause you ain't a good judge of human nature, Bailey," chuckled Barzilla. "When ancient plants like Jonadab Wixon DO bloom, they're gay old blossoms, I tell you!"
"What do you mean?" asked the depot master.
"I mean that Jonadab's been givin' me heart disease, that's what; givin' it to me in a good many diff'rent ways, too. We opened the Old Home House the middle of April this year, because Peter T. Brown thought we might catch some spring trade. We did catch a little, though whether it paid to open up so early's a question. But 'twas June 'fore Jonadab got his disease so awful bad. However, most any time in the last part of May the reg'lar programme of the male boarders was stirrin' him up.
"Take it of a dull day, for instance. Sky overcast and the wind aidgin' round to the sou'east, so's you couldn't tell whether 'twould rain or fair off; too cold to go off to the ledge cod fishin' and too hot for billiards or bowlin'; a bunch of the younger women folks at one end of the piazza playin' bridge; half a dozen men, includin' me and Cap'n Jonadab, smokin' and tryin' to keep awake at t'other end; amidships a gang of females--all 'fresh air fiends'--and mainly widows or discards in the matrimony deal, doin' fancywork and gossip. That would be about the usual layout.
"Conversation got to you in homeopath doses, somethin' like this:
"'Did you say "Spades"? WELL! if I'd known you were going to make us lose our deal like that, I'd never have bridged it--not with THIS hand.'
"'Oh, Miss Gabble, have you heard what people are sayin' about--' The rest of it whispers.
"'A--oo--OW! By George, Bill! this is dead enough, isn't it? Shall we match for the cigars or are you too lazy?'
"Then, from away off in the stillness would come a drawn-out 'Honk! honk!' like a wild goose with the asthma, and pretty soon up the road would come sailin' a big red automobile, loaded to the guards with goggles and grandeur, and whiz past the hotel in a hurricane of dust and smell. Then all hands would set up and look interested, and Bill would wink acrost at his chum and drawl:
"'That's the way to get over the country! Why, a horse isn't one--two--three with that! Cap'n Wixon, I'm surprised that a sportin' man like you hasn't bought one of those things long afore this.'
"For the next twenty minutes there wouldn't be any dullness. Jonadab would take care of that. He'd have the floor and be givin' his opinions of autos and them that owned and run 'em. And between the drops of his language shower you'd see them boarders nudgin' each other and rockin' back and forth contented and joyful.
"It always worked. No matter what time of day or night, all you had to say was 'auto' and Cap'n Jonadab would sail up out of his chair like one of them hot-air balloons the youngsters nowadays have on Fourth of July. And he wouldn't come down till he was empty of remarks, nuther. You never see a man get so red faced and eloquent.
"It wa'n't because he couldn't afford one himself. I know that's the usual reason for them kind of ascensions, but 'twa'n't his. No, sir! the summer hotel business has put a considerable number of dollars in Jonadab's hands, and the said hands are like a patent rat trap, a mighty sight easier to get into than out of. He could have bought three automobiles if he'd wanted to, but he didn't want to. And the reason he didn't was named Tobias Loveland and lived over to Orham."
"I know Tobias," interrupted Captain Bailey Stitt.
"Course you do," continued Barzilla. "So does Sol, I guess. Well, anyhow, Tobias and Cap'n Jonadab never did hitch. When they was boys together at school they was always rowin' and fightin', and when they grew up to be thirty and courted the same girl--ten years younger than either of 'em, she was--twa'n't much better. Neither of 'em got her, as a matter of fact; she married a tin peddler named Bassett over to Hyannis. But both cal'lated they would have won if t'other hadn't been in the race, and consequently they loved each other with a love that passed understandin'. Tobias had got well to do in the cranberry-raisin' line and drove a fast horse. Jonadab, durin' the last prosperous year or two, had bought what he thought was some horse, likewise. They met on the road one day last spring and trotted alongside one another for a mile. At the end of that mile Jonadab's craft's jib boom was just astern of Tobias's rudder. Inside of that week the Cap'n had swapped his horse for one with a two-thirty record, and the next time they met Tobias was left with a beautiful, but dusty, view of Jonadab's back hair. So HE bought a new horse. And that was the beginnin'.
"It went along that way for twelve months. Fust one feller's nag would come home freighted with perspiration and glory, and then t'other's. One week Jonadab would be so bloated with horse pride that he couldn't find room for his vittles, and the next he'd be out in the stable growlin' 'cause it cost so much for hay to stuff an old hide rack that wa'n't fit to put in a museum. At last it got so that neither one could find a better horse on the Cape, and the two they had was practically an even match. I begun to have hopes that the foolishness was over. And then the tin peddler's widow drifts in to upset the whole calabash.
"She made port at Orham fust, this Henrietta Bassett did, and the style she slung killed every female Goliath in the Orham sewin' circle dead. Seems her husband that was had been an inventor, as a sort of side line to peddlin' tinware, and all to once he invented somethin' that worked. He made money--nobody knew how much, though all hands had a guess--and pretty soon afterwards he made a will and Henrietta a widow. She'd been livin' in New York, so she said, and had come back to revisit the scenes of her childhood. She was a mighty well-preserved woman--artificial preservatives, I cal'late, like some kinds of tomatter ketchup--and her comin' stirred Orham way down to the burnt places on the bottom of the kettle."
"I guess I remember HER, too," put in Captain Bailey.
"Say!" queried Mr. Wingate snappishly, "do you want to tell about her? If you do, why--"
"Belay, both of you!" ordered the depot master. "Heave ahead, Barzilla."
"The news of her got over to Wellmouth, and me and Jonadab heard of it. He was some subject to widows--most widower men are, I guess--but he didn't develop no alarmin' symptoms in this case and never even hinted that he'd like to see his old girl. Fact is, his newest horse trade had showed that it was afraid of automobiles, and he was beginnin' to get rabid along that line. Then come that afternoon when him and me was out drivin' together, and we--Well, I'll have to tell you about that.
"We was over on the long stretch of wood road between Trumet and Denboro, nice hard macadam, the mare--her name was Celia, but Jonadab had re-christened her Bay Queen after a boat he used to own--skimmin' along at a smooth, easy gait, when, lo and behold you! we rounds a turn and there ahead of us is a light, rubber-tired wagon with a man and woman on the seat of it. I heard Jonadab give a kind of snort.
"'What's the matter?' says I.
"'Nothin',' says he, between his teeth. 'Only, if I ain't some mistaken, that's Tobe Loveland's rig. Wonder if he's got his spunk with him? The Queen's feelin' her oats to-day, and I cal'late I can show him a few things.'
"'Rubbish!' says I, disgusted. 'Don't be foolish, Jonadab. I don't know nothin' about his spunk, but I do know there's a woman with him. 'Tain't likely he'll want to race you when he's got a passenger aboard.'
"'Oh, I don't know!' says he. 'I've got you, Barzilla; so 'twill be two and two. Let's heave alongside and see.'
"So he clucked to the Queen, and in a jiffy we was astern of t'other rig. Loveland looked back over his shoulder.
"'Ugh!' he grunts, 'bout as cordial as a plate of ice cream. ''Lo, Wixon, that you?'
"'Um-hm,' begins Jonadab. 'How's that crowbait of yours to-day, Tobe? Got any go in him? 'Cause if he has, I--'
"He stopped short. The woman in Loveland's carriage had turned her head and was starin' hard.
"'Why!' she gasps. 'I do believe--Why, Jonadab!'
"'HETTIE!' says the Cap'n.
"Well, after that 'twas pull up, of course, and shake hands and talk. The widow, she done most of the talkin'. She was SO glad to see him. How had he been all these years? She knew him instantly. He hadn't changed a mite--that is, not so VERY much. She was plannin' to come over to the Old Home House and stay a spell later on; but now she was havin' SUCH a good time in Orham, Tobias--Mr. Loveland--was makin' it SO pleasant for her. She did enjoy drivin' so much, and Mr. Loveland had the fastest horse in the county--did we know that?
"Tobias and Jonadab glowered back and forth while all this gush was bein' turned loose, and hardly spoke to one another. But when 'twas over and we was ready to start again, the Cap'n says, says he:
"'I'll be mighty glad to see you over to the hotel, when you're ready to come, Hettie. I can take you ridin', too. Fur's horse goes, I've got a pretty good one myself.'
"'Oh!' squeals the widow. 'Really? Is that him? It's awful pretty, and he looks fast.'
"'She is,' says Jonadab. 'There's nothin' round here can beat her.'
"'Humph!' says Loveland. 'Git dap!'
"'Git dap!' says Jonadab, agreein' with him for once.
"Tobias started, and we started. Tobias makes his horse go a little faster, and Jonadab speeded up some likewise. I see how 'twas goin' to be, and therefore I wa'n't surprised to death when the next ten minutes found us sizzlin' down that road, neck and neck with Loveland, dust flyin', hoofs poundin', and the two drivers leanin' way for'ard over the dash, reins gripped and teeth sot. For a little ways 'twas an even thing, and then we commenced to pull ahead a little.
"'Loveland,' yells Jonadab, out of the port corner of his mouth, 'if I ain't showin' you my tailboard by the time we pass the fust house in Denboro, I'll eat my Sunday hat.'
"I cal'late he would 'a' beat, too. We was drawin' ahead all the time and had a three-quarter length lead when we swung clear of the woods and sighted Denboro village, quarter of a mile away. And up the road comes flyin' a big auto, goin' to beat the cars.
"Let's forget the next few minutes; they wa'n't pleasant ones for me. Soon's the Bay Queen sot eyes on that auto, she stopped trottin' and commenced to hop; from hoppin' she changed to waltzin' and high jumpin'. When the smoke had cleared, the auto was out of sight and we was in the bushes alongside the road, with the Queen just gettin' ready to climb a tree. As for Tobias and Henrietta, they was roundin' the turn by the fust house in Denboro, wavin' by-bys to us over the back of the seat.
"We went home then; and every foot of the way Cap'n Jonadab called an automobile a new kind of name, and none complimentary. The boarders, they got wind of what had happened and begun to rag him, and the more they ragged, the madder he got and the more down on autos.
"And, to put a head on the whole business, I'm blessed if Tobias Loveland didn't get in with an automobile agent who was stoppin' in Orham and buy a fifteen-hundred-dollar machine off him. And the very next time Jonadab was out with the Queen on the Denboro road, Tobias and the widow whizzed past him in that car so fast he might as well have been hove to. And, by way of rubbin' it in, they come along back pretty soon and rolled alongside of him easy, while Henrietta gushed about Mr. Loveland's beautiful car and how nice it was to be able to go just as swift as you wanted to. Jonadab couldn't answer back, nuther, bein' too busy keepin' the Queen from turnin' herself into a flyin' machine.
"'Twas then that he got himself swore in special constable to arrest auto drivers for overspeedin'; and for days he wandered round layin' for a chance to haul up Tobias and get him fined. He'd have had plenty of game if he'd been satisfied with strangers, but he didn't want them anyhow, and, besides, most of 'em was on their way to spend money at the Old Home House. 'Twould have been poor business to let any of THAT cash go for fines, and he realized it.
"'Twas in early June, only a few weeks ago, that the widow come to our hotel. I never thought she meant it when she said she was comin', and so I didn't expect her. Fact is, I was expectin' to hear that she and Tobe Loveland was married or engaged. But there was a slip up somewheres, for all to once the depot wagon brings her to the Old Home House, she hires a room, and settles down to stay till the season closed, which would be in about a fortn't.
"From the very fust she played her cards for Jonadab. He meant to be middlin' average frosty to her, I imagine--her bein' so thick with Tobias prejudiced him, I presume likely. But land sakes! she thawed him out like hot toddy thaws out some folks' tongues. She never took no notice of his coldness, but smiled and gushed and flattered, and looked her prettiest--which was more'n average, considerin' her age--and by the end of the third day he was hangin' round her like a cat round a cook.
"It commenced to look serious to me. Jonadab was a pretty old fish to be caught with soft soap and a set of false crimps; but you can't never tell. When them old kind do bite, they gen'rally swallow hook and sinker, and he sartinly did act hungry. I wished more'n once that Peter T. Brown, our business manager, was aboard to help me with advice, but Peter is off tourin' the Yosemite with his wife and her relations, so whatever pilotin' there was I had to do. And every day fetched Jonadab's bows nigher the matrimonial rocks.
"I'd about made up my mind to sound the fog horn by askin' him straight out what he was cal'latin' to do; but somethin' I heard one evenin', as I set alone in the hotel office, made me think I'd better wait a spell.
"The office window was open and the curtain drawed down tight. I was settin' inside, smokin' and goin' over the situation, when footsteps sounded on the piazza and a couple come to anchor on the settee right by that window. Cap'n Jonadab and Henrietta! I sensed that immediate.
"She was laughin' and actin' kind of queer, and he was talkin' mighty earnest.
"'Oh, no, Cap'n! Oh, no!' she giggles. 'You mustn't be so serious on such a beautiful night as this. Let's talk about the moon.'
"'Drat the moon!' says Jonadab. 'Hettie, I--'
"'Oh, just see how beautiful the water looks! All shiny and--"
"'Drat the water, too! Hettie, what's the reason you don't want to talk serious with me? If that Tobe Loveland--'
"'Really, I don't see why you bring Mr. Loveland's name into the conversation. He is a perfect gentleman, generous and kind; and as for the way in which he runs that lovely car of his--'
"The Cap'n interrupted her. He ripped out somethin' emphatic.
"'Generous!' he snarls. ''Bout as generous as a hog in the feed trough, he is. And as for runnin' that pesky auto, if I'd demean myself to own one of them things, I'll bet my other suit I could run it better'n he does. If I couldn't, I'd tie myself to the anchor and jump overboard.'
"The way she answered showed pretty plain that she didn't believe him. 'Really?' she says. 'Do you think so? Good night, Jonadab.'
"I could hear her walkin' off acrost the piazza. He went after her. 'Hettie,' he says, 'you answer me one thing. Are you engaged to Tobe Loveland?'
"She laughed again, sort of teasin' and slow. 'Really,' says she, 'you are--Why, no, I'm not.'
"That was all, but it set me to thinkin' hard. She wa'n't engaged to Loveland; she said so, herself. And yet, if she wanted Jonadab, she was actin' mighty funny. I ain't had no experience, but it seemed to me that then was the time to bag him and she'd put him off on purpose. She was ages too ancient to be a flirt for the fun of it. What was her game?" _