The Depot Master Part 1

The Depot Master.

by Joseph C. Lincoln.

CHAPTER I

AT THE DEPOT

Mr. Simeon Phinney emerged from the side door of his residence and paused a moment to light his pipe in the lee of the lilac bushes. Mr.

Phinney was a man of various and sundry occupations, and his sign, nailed to the big silver-leaf in the front yard, enumerated a few of them. "Carpenter, Well Driver, Building Mover, Cranberry Bogs Seen to with Care and Dispatch, etc., etc.," so read the sign. The house was situated in "Phinney's Lane," the crooked little byway off "Cross Street," between the "Sh.o.r.e Road" at the foot of the slope and the "Hill Boulevard"--formerly "Higgins's Roost"--at the top. From the Phinney gate the view was extensive and, for the most part, wet. The hill descended sharply, past the "Sh.o.r.e Road," over the barren fields and knolls covered with bayberry bushes and "poverty gra.s.s," to the yellow sand of the beach and the gray, weather-beaten fish-houses scattered along it. Beyond was the bay, a glimmer in the sunset light.

Mrs. Phinney, in the kitchen, was busy with the supper dishes. Her husband, wheezing comfortably at his musical pipe, drew an ancient silver watch from his pocket and looked at its dial. Quarter past six.

Time to be getting down to the depot and the post office. At least a dozen male citizens of East Harniss were thinking that very thing at that very moment. It was a community habit of long standing to see the train come in and go after the mail. The facts that the train bore no pa.s.sengers in whom you were intimately interested, and that you expected no mail made little difference. If you were a man of thirty or older, you went to the depot or the "club," just as your wife or sisters went to the sewing circle, for sociability and mild excitement. If you were a single young man you went to the post office for the same reason that you attended prayer meeting. If you were a single young lady you went to the post office and prayer meeting to furnish a reason for the young man.

Mr. Phinney, replacing his watch in his pocket, meandered to the sidewalk and looked down the hill and along the length of the "Sh.o.r.e Road." Beside the latter highway stood a little house, painted a spotless white, its window blinds a vivid green. In that house dwelt, and dwelt alone, Captain Solomon Berry, Sim Phinney's particular friend. Captain Sol was the East Harniss depot master and, from long acquaintance, Mr. Phinney knew that he should be through supper and ready to return to the depot, by this time. The pair usually walked thither together when the evening meal was over.

But, except for the smoke curling lazily from the kitchen chimney, there was no sign of life about the Berry house. Either Captain Sol had already gone, or he was not yet ready to go. So Mr. Phinney decided that waiting was chancey, and set out alone.

He climbed Cross Street to where the "Hill Boulevard," abiding place of East Harniss's summer aristocracy, bisected it, and there, standing on the corner, and consciously patronizing the spot where he so stood, was Mr. Ogden Hapworth Williams, no less.

Mr. Williams was the village millionaire, patron, and, in a gentlemanly way, "boomer." His estate on the Boulevard was the finest in the county, and he, more than any one else, was responsible for the "buying up"

by wealthy people from the city of the town's best building sites, the spots commanding "fine marine sea views," to quote from Abner Payne, local real estate and insurance agent. His own estate was fine enough to be talked about from one end of the Cape to the other and he had bought the empty lot opposite and made it into a miniature park, with flower beds and gravel walks, though no one but he or his might pick the flowers or tread the walks. He had brought on a wealthy friend from New York and a cousin from Chicago, and they, too, had bought acres on the Boulevard and erected palatial "cottages" where once were the houses of country people. Local cynics suggested that the sign on the East Harniss railroad station should be changed to read "Williamsburg." "He owns the place, body and soul," said they.

As Sim Phinney climbed the hill the magnate, pompous, portly, and imposing, held up a signaling finger. "Just as if he was hailin' a horse car," described Simeon afterward.

"Phinney," he said, "come here, I want to speak to you."

The man of many trades obediently approached.

"Good evenin', Mr. Williams," he ventured.

"Phinney," went on the great man briskly, "I want you to give me your figures on a house moving deal. I have bought a house on the Sh.o.r.e Road, the one that used to belong to the--er--Smalleys, I believe."

Simeon was surprised. "What, the old Smalley house?" he exclaimed. "You don't tell me!"

"Yes, it's a fine specimen--so my wife says--of the pure Colonial, whatever that is, and I intend moving it to the Boulevard. I want your figures for the job."

The building mover looked puzzled. "To the Boulevard?" he said. "Why, I didn't know there was a vacant lot on the Boulevard, Mr. Williams."

"There isn't now, but there will be soon. I have got hold of the hundred feet left from the old Seabury estate."

Mr. Phinney drew a long breath. "Why!" he stammered, "that's where Olive Edwards--her that was Olive Seabury--lives, ain't it?"

"Yes," was the rather impatient answer. "She has been living there. But the place was mortgaged up to the handle and--ahem--the mortgage is mine now."

For an instant Simeon did not reply. He was gazing, not up the Boulevard in the direction of the "Seabury place" but across the slope of the hill toward the home of Captain Sol Berry, the depot master. There was a troubled look on his face.

"Well?" inquired Williams briskly, "when can you give me the figures?

They must be low, mind. No country skin games, you understand."

"Hey?" Phinney came out of his momentary trance. "Yes, yes, Mr.

Williams. They'll be low enough. Times is kind of dull now and I'd like a movin' job first-rate. I'll give 'em to you to-morrer. But--but Olive'll have to move, won't she? And where's she goin'?"

"She'll have to move, sure. And the eyesore on that lot now will come down."

The "eyesore" was the four room building, combined dwelling and shop of Mrs. Olive Edwards, widow of "Bill Edwards," once a promising young man, later town drunkard and ne'er-do-well, dead these five years, luckily for himself and luckier--in a way--for the wife who had stuck by him while he wasted her inheritance in a losing battle with John Barleycorn.

At his death the fine old Seabury place had dwindled to a lone hundred feet of land, the little house, and a mortgage on both. Olive had opened a "notion store" in her front parlor and had fought on, proudly refusing aid and trying to earn a living. She had failed. Again Phinney stared thoughtfully at the distant house of Captain Sol.

"But Olive," he said, slowly. "She ain't got no folks, has she? What'll become of her? Where'll she move to?"

"That," said Mr. Williams, with a wave of a fat hand, "is not my business. I am sorry for her, if she's hard up. But I can't be responsible if men will drink up their wives' money. Look out for number one; that's business. I sha'n't be unreasonable with her. She can stay where she is until the new house I've bought is moved to that lot. Then she must clear out. I've told her that. She knows all about it. Well, good-by, Phinney. I shall expect your bid to-morrow. And, mind, don't try to get the best of me, because you can't do it."

He turned and strutted back up the Boulevard. Sim Phinney, pondering deeply and very grave, continued on his way, down Cross Street to Main--naming the village roads was another of the Williams'

"improvements"--and along that to the crossing, East Harniss's business and social center at train times.

The station--everyone called it "deepo," of course--was then a small red building, old and out of date, but scrupulously neat because of Captain Berry's rigid surveillance. Close beside it was the "Boston Grocery, Dry Goods and General Store," Mr. Beriah Higgins, proprietor. Beriah was postmaster and the post office was in his store. The male citizen of middle age or over, seeking opportunity for companions.h.i.+p and chat, usually went first to the depot, sat about in the waiting room until the train came in, superintended that function, then sojourned to the post office until the mail was sorted, returning later, if he happened to be a particular friend of the depot master, to sit and smoke and yarn until Captain Sol announced that it was time to "turn in."

When Mr. Phinney entered the little waiting room he found it already tenanted. Captain Sol had not yet arrived, but official authority was represented by "Issy" McKay--his full name was Issachar Ulysses Grant McKay--a long-legged, freckled-faced, tow-headed youth of twenty, who, as usual, was sprawled along the settee by the wall, engrossed in a paper covered dime novel. "Issy" was a lover of certain kinds of literature and reveled in lurid fiction. As a youngster he had, at the age of thirteen, after a course of reading in the "Deadwood d.i.c.k Library," started on a pedestrian journey to the Far West, where, being armed with home-made tomahawk and scalping knife, he contemplated extermination of the n.o.ble red man. A wrathful pursuing parent had collared the exterminator at the Bayport station, to the huge delight of East Harniss, young and old. Since this adventure Issy had been famous, in a way.

He was Captain Sol Berry's a.s.sistant at the depot. Why an a.s.sistant was needed was a much discussed question. Why Captain Sol, a retired seafaring man with money in the bank, should care to be depot master at ten dollars a week was another. The Captain himself said he took the place because he wanted to do something that was "half way between a loaf and a job." He employed an a.s.sistant at his own expense because he "might want to stretch the loafin' half." And he hired Issy because--well, because "most folks in East Harniss are alike and you can always tell about what they'll say or do. Now Issy's different. The Lord only knows what HE'S likely to do, and that makes him interestin' as a conundrum, to guess at. He kind of keeps my sense of responsibility from gettin' mossy, Issy does."

"Issy," hailed Mr. Phinney, "has the Cap'n got here yet?"

Issy answered not. The villainous floorwalker had just proffered matrimony or summary discharge to "Flora, the Beautiful Shop Girl," and pending her answer, the McKay mind had no room for trifles.

"Issy!" shouted Simeon. "I say, Is', Wake up, you foolhead! Has Cap'n Sol--"

"No, he ain't, Sim," volunteered Ed Crocker. He and his chum, Cornelius Rowe, were seated in two of the waiting room chairs, their feet on two others. "He ain't got here yet. We was just talkin' about him. You've heard about Olive Edwards, I s'pose likely, ain't you?"

Phinney nodded gloomily.

"Yes," he said, "I've heard."

"Well, it's too bad," continued Crocker. "But, after all, it's Olive's own fault. She'd ought to have married Sol Berry when she had the chance. What she ever gave him the go-by for, after the years they was keepin' comp'ny, is more'n I can understand."

Cornelius Rowe shook his head, with an air of wisdom. Captain Sol, himself, remarked once: "I wonder sometimes the Almighty ain't jealous of Cornelius, he knows so much and is so responsible for the runnin' of all creation."

"Humph!" grunted Mr. Rowe. "There's more to that business than you folks think. Olive didn't notice Bill Edwards till Sol went off to sea and stayed two years and over. How do you know she shook Sol? You might just as well say he shook her. He always was stubborn as an off ox and cranky as a windla.s.s. I wonder how he feels now, when she's lost her last red and is goin' to be drove out of house and home. And all on account of that fool 'mountain and Mahomet' business."

"WHICH?" asked Mr. Crocker.

"Never mind that, Cornelius," put in Phinney, sharply. "Why don't you let other folks' affairs alone? That was a secret that Olive told your sister and you've got no right to go blabbin'."

"Aw, hush up, Sim! I ain't tellin' no secrets to anybody but Ed here, and he ain't lived in East Harniss long or he'd know it already. The mountain and Mahomet? Why, them was the last words Sol and Olive had.

'Twas Sol's stubbornness that was most to blame. That was his one bad fault. He would have his own way and he wouldn't change. Olive had set her heart on goin' to Was.h.i.+n'ton for their weddin' tower. Sol wanted to go to Niagara. They argued a long time, and finally Olive says, 'No, Solomon, I'm not goin' to give in this time. I have all the others, but it's not fair and it's not right, and no married life can be happy where one does all the sacrificin'. If you care for me you'll do as I want now.'

"And he laughs and says, 'All right, I'll sacrifice after this, but you and me must see Niagara.' And she was sot and he was sotter, and at last they quarreled. He marches out of the door and says: 'Very good. When you're ready to be sensible and change your mind, you can come to me.

And says Olive, pretty white but firm: 'No, Solomon, I'm right and you're not. I'm afraid this time the mountain must come to Mahomet.'