第44章 CHAPTER IX THE WIDOW BASSETT(1)

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?'