The Depot Master Part 40

He whistled. His companion smiled grimly.

"Williams himself drops in to see me occasional," he said. "Tells me what he thinks of me, with all the trimmin's added. I cal'late he gets as good as he sends. I'm always glad to see him; he keeps me cheered up, in his way."

"Ye-es, I shouldn't wonder. Was he in to-day?"

"He was. And somethin' has pleased him, I guess. At any rate he was in better spirits. Asked me if I was goin' to move right onto that Main Street lot soon as my house got there."

"What did you say?"

"I said I was cal'latin' to. Told him I hated to get out of the high-society circles I'd been livin' in lately, but that everyone had their comedowns in this world."

"Ho, ho! that was a good one. What answer did he make to that?"

"Well, he said the 'high society' would miss me. Then he finished up with a piece of advice. 'Berry,' says he, 'don't move onto that lot TOO quick. I wouldn't if I was you.' Then he went away, chucklin'."

"Chucklin', hey? What made him so joyful?"

"Don't know"--Captain Sol's face clouded once more--"and I care less,"

he added brusquely.

Simeon pondered. "Have you heard from Abner Payne, Sol?" he asked. "Has Ab answered that letter you wrote sayin' you'd swap your lot for the Main Street one?"

"No, he hasn't. I wrote him that day I told you to move me."

"Hum! that's kind of funny. You don't s'pose--"

He stopped, noticing the expression on his friend's face. The depot master was looking out through the open door of the waiting room. On the opposite side of the road, just emerging from Mr. Higgins's "general store," was Olive Edwards, the widow whose home was to be pulled down as soon as the "Colonial" reached its destination. She came out of the store and started up Main Street. Suddenly, and as if obeying an involuntary impulse, she turned her head. Her eyes met those of Captain Sol Berry, the depot master. For a brief instant their glance met, then Mrs. Edwards hurried on.

Sim Phinney sighed pityingly. "Looks kind of tired and worried, don't she?" he ventured. His friend did not speak.

"I say," repeated Phinney, "that Olive looks sort of worn out and--"

"Has she heard from the Omaha cousin yet?" interrupted the depot master.

"No; Mr. Hilton says not. Sol, what DO you s'pose--"

But Captain Sol had risen and gone into the ticket office. The door closed behind him. Mr. Phinney shook his head and walked out of the building. On his way back to the scene of the house moving he shook his head several times.

On the afternoon of the ninth Captain Bailey St.i.tt and his friend Wingate came to say good-by. St.i.tt was going back to Orham on the "up"

train, due at 3:30. Barzilla would return to Wellmouth and the Old Home House on the evening (the "down") train.

"Hey, Sol!" shouted Wingate, as they entered the waiting room. "Sol!

where be you?"

The depot master came out of the ticket office. "h.e.l.lo, boys!" he said shortly.

"h.e.l.lo, Sol!" hailed St.i.tt. "Barzilla and me have come to shed the farewell tear. As hirelin's of soulless corporations, meanin' the Old Home House at Wellmouth and the Ocean House at Orham, we've engaged all the sh.e.l.lfish along-sh.o.r.e and are goin' to clear out."

"Yes," chimed in his fellow "hireling," "and we thought the pleasantest place to put in our few remainin' hours--as the papers say when a feller's goin' to be hung--was with you."

"I thought so," said Captain Bailey, with a wink. "We've been havin'

more or less of an argument, Sol. Remember how Barzilla made fun of Jonadab Wixon for believin' in dreams? Yes, well that was only make believe. He believes in 'em himself."

"I don't either," declared Wingate. "And I never said so. What I said was that sometimes it almost seemed as if there was somethin' IN fortune tellin' and such."

"There is," chuckled Bailey with another wink at the depot master.

"There's money in it--for the fortune tellers."

"I said--and I say again," protested Barzilla, "that I knew a case at our hotel of a servant girl named Effie, and she--"

"Oh, Heavens to Betsy! Here he goes again, I steered him in here on purpose, Sol, so's he'd get off that subject."

"You never neither. You said--"

The depot master held up his hand. "Don't both talk at once," he commanded. "Set down and be peaceful, can't you. That's right. What about this Effie, Barzilla?"

"Now look here!" protested St.i.tt.

"Shut up, Bailey! Who was Effie, Barzilla?"

"She was third a.s.sistant roustabout and table girl at the Old Home House," said Wingate triumphantly. "Got another cigar, Sol? Thanks. Yes, this Effie had never worked out afore and she was greener'n a mess of spinach; but she was kind of pretty to look at and--"

"Ah, ha!" crowed Captain Bailey, "here comes the heart confessions. Want to look out for these old bachelors, Sol. Fire away, Barzilla; let us know the worst."

"I took a fancy to her, in a way. She got in the habit of tellin' me her troubles and secrets, me bein' old enough to be her dad--"

"Aw, yes!" this from St.i.tt, the irrepressible. "That's an old gag. We know--"

"WILL you shut up?" demanded Captain Sol. "Go on, Barzilla."

"Me bein' old enough to be her dad," with a glare at Captain Bailey, "and not bein' too proud to talk with hired help. I never did have that high-toned notion. 'Twa'n't so long since I was a fo'mast hand.

"So Effie told me a lot about herself. Seems she'd been over to the Cattle Show at Ostable one year, and she was loaded to the gunwale with some more or less facts that a fortune-tellin' specimen by the name of the 'Marvelous Oriental Seer' had handed her in exchange for a quarter.

"'Yup,' says she, bobbin' her head so emphatic that the sky-blue ribbon pennants on her black hair flapped like a loose tops'l in a gale of wind. 'Yup,' says she, 'I b'lieve it just as much as I b'lieve anything.

How could I help it when he told me so much that has come true already?

He said I'd seen trouble, and the dear land knows that's so! and that I might see more, and I cal'late that's pretty average likely. And he said I hadn't been brought up in luxury--'

"'Which wa'n't no exaggeration neither,' I put in, thinkin' of the shack over on the Neck Road where she and her folks used to live.

"'No,' says she; 'and he told me I'd always had longin's for better and higher things and that my intellectuals was above my station. Well, ever sence I was knee high to a kitchen chair I'd ruther work upstairs than down, and as for intellectuals, ma always said I was the smartest young one she'd raised yet. So them statements give me consider'ble confidence. But he give out that I was to make a journey and get money, and when THAT come true I held up both hands and stood ready to swaller all the rest of it.'

"'So it come true, did it?' says I.

"'Um-hm,' says she, bouncin' her head again. 'Inside of four year I traveled 'way over to South Eastboro--'most twelve mile--to my Uncle Issy's fun'ral, and there I found that he'd left me nine hundred dollars for my very own. And down I flops on the parlor sofy and says I: "There!

don't talk superst.i.tion to ME no more! A person that can foretell Uncle Issy's givin' anybody a cent, let alone nine hundred dollars, is a good enough prophet for ME to tie to. Now I KNOW that I'm going to marry the dark-complected man, and I'll be ready for him when he comes along.

I never spent a quarter no better than when I handed it over to that Oriental Seer critter at the Cattle Show." That's what I said then and I b'lieve it yet. Wouldn't you feel the same way?'