HOBSON'S HOUSE.
"And that ain't all I've got to tell you, neither," shouted Dan. "The
road commissioners has come up here with some surveyors and a jury, and
they're going to build a bridge across the river so's to bust up the
ferrying business."
Silas would have been glad to thrash the boy for bringing him so
unwelcome news as this, and the only reason he did not attempt it was
because he knew he could not catch him.
He did not like the "ferrying business," for it was very confining,
and, besides, there wasn't money enough in it to suit him; but still it
enabled him to eke out his slender income, and the mere hint that the
authorities were about to take away this source of revenue by building
a bridge across the river at that point surprised and enraged him.
"That's just the way the thing stands, pap," continued Dan, who looked
upon his sire's exhibition of bewilderment and anger as a highly
edifying spectacle. "If you think I am trying to make a fool of you,
look out the winder."
Silas looked, and a single glance was enough to satisfy him that there
was something unusual going on outside the cabin.
There were at least a score of men gathered about the flat, and among
them Silas saw the town commissioner of highways. He could easily pick
out the surveyor and his party, for the former held a tripod in his
hand, and a queer-looking brass instrument under his arm, while one of
his men carried a chain and the rest had axes on their shoulders.
A few steps away from this party, and apparently not in the least
interested in what they were saying or doing, were Mr. Warren and Joe
Morgan, who were talking earnestly about something.
Mr. Warren was the richest man in the country for miles around.
He owned the hotel and most of the cottages at the beach; but he
was seldom seen there, because he said he could find more rest and
recreation in the woods, with his dog and gun for companions, than he
could at a fashionable watering-place.
The cabin which the Morgans occupied, rent free, belonged to him, and
so did the ground on which it stood; and it was owing to his influence
that Silas had been permitted to establish his ferry.
But still Silas hated him, as he hated every one who was better off in
the world than he was.
A little distance farther away stood a solitary individual, who, if
the expression of his countenance could be taken as an index to his
feelings, was mad enough to do something desperate.
He took the deepest interest in all that was going on before him, and
indeed he had good reason for it. His livelihood depended upon what
the commissioner and his jury of twelve disinterested freeholders
might decide to do. A bridge at that particular place would ruin his
occupation as effectually as it would break up the business of ferrying.
"That's Hobson," said Silas, looking around for his hat. "I don't
wonder that he's mad. What do they want to put a bridge across here
for, anyway? Ain't there a good ferry right in front of the door, and
can't we take care of them that wants to go back and forth?"
"We can, but we don't," answered Dan. "When that horn toots, you never
move till you get a good ready."
"I know that," assented Silas. "I ain't hired myself out for a slave
yet, and them that expect me to jump the minute a man who has got more
money than I have chooses to call on me, will find themselves fooled. I
have always run this ferry to suit Silas Morgan, and nobody else."
"That there is just the p'int," observed Dan, sagely. "The way you run
it may suit you, but it don't by no means suit the public. That's the
reason they want a bridge here."
"But there ain't no good road."
"No, odds; they're going to build one out of the old log road, and make
the distance from Bellville to the Beach shorter by five good long
miles than it is now. They're going to tear t'other bridge down, and
make all the travel come this way."
"Why, that will shut Hobson out in the cold entirely," exclaimed the
ferryman. "He'll have to quit keeping hotel."
"That's just what old man Warren and them fellers down to the Beach
wan't to do," said Dan. "I heared 'em say so. He always keeps a
crowd of loafers around him, Hobson does, and there's so many
shooting-matches going on in the grove behind his hotel, that it ain't
safe for folks to drive past there with skittish horses. There's been
five or six runaways along that road already."
"That's only an excuse for shutting him up, Dannie," said the ferryman,
with a knowing wink at his hopeful son. "Hobson keeps the Halfway
House, and it's natural for folks who are going to and from the Beach
to stop there to water their horses and get a bite of lunch. They spend
money with Hobson that they would otherwise spend at the Beach, and
that's why old man Warren wants that hotel closed. It's about time for
poor people to rise up and pertect themselves, seeing that the law
won't do nothing for them. I don't wonder Hobson looks mad."
Having found his hat, Silas went out to exchange a few words of
condolence with the man whose name he had just mentioned. He glanced at
Joe's face as he passed, and the pleased expression he saw there was
very different from the malevolent scowl with which he was welcomed by
the proprietor of the Halfway House.
The latter was quite as angry as he looked to be, and the first words
he uttered as the ferryman came up were:
"Now what I want to know is this: Are me and you obliged to stand here
with our hands in our pockets, and see these rich men take the bread
and butter out of the mouths of our families?"
"They are going to do worse by me than they are by you," answered
Silas. "I can't start again if they break up my ferry, but you can."
"How, I'd like to know?" growled Hobson.
"Why, all the land around here belongs to old man Warren. Folks say
that he's a mighty kind-hearted chap, though I never saw any signs of
it in him, and you might buy or rent a piece of land, and build another
and better hotel. You have the money to do it, for you have made many a
dollar over your bar during the last two years."
"That's just what's the matter," cried Hobson, who became so angry
when he thought of it that it was all he could do to restrain himself.
"That's the reason old man Warren wants to shut me up--because he knows
that I am making a little money. He won't sell or rent me a foot of
land, for I tried him as soon as I found out that a new road was coming
through here."
"That's worse than I thought for," said the ferryman, in a sympathizing
tone which was more assumed than real.
Hobson's business interests were likely to suffer more severely than
his own, and he was glad of it.
"It is bad enough, I tell you," said the proprietor of the Halfway
House. "But you can say to your folks that it is going to be a dear
piece of business for old man Warren. If I don't damage him for more
thousands than he does me for hundreds, it will not be because I don't
try."
"It looks mighty strange to me that he should go out of his way to be
so scandalous mean to some, while he is so good to others," said Silas,
reflectively. "I don't pertend to understand it. Here he is, robbing me
of the onliest chance I had to make a living during the summer, and yet
he's standing over there now, offering that Joe of our'n a chance to
make a hundred and twenty dollars."
"What doing?" inquired Hobson, who was paying more attention to the
surveyor's movements than he was to Silas.
"You remember them English pa'tridges he brought over here to stock his
woods, the same year he built that big hotel down to the Beach, don't
you?" asked Silas, in reply.
"I should say I did," answered Hobson. "You shot the most of them, and
I got the rest, all except the few that Dan managed to catch with
his snares and that little black dog of his'n. I wish I could see him
cleaned out of everything as slick as he was cleaned out of them birds."
"Well, he's got a new supply of them, old man Warren has--six hundred
dollars' worth."
Hobson opened his eyes and began taking some interest in what the
ferryman was saying to him.
"I am powerful glad to hear it," said he. "If he won't let me keep
hotel and support myself, he can just make up his mind that he's got to
keep me in grub. I won't allow myself to go hungry while his covers are
well stocked, I bet you. I'll earn a tolerable good living by shooting
over his grounds this fall and winter."
"But you will have more bother in doing it than you did last season,"
said Silas, who then went on to repeat what Dan had told him concerning
the game-warden who was to live in Mr. Warren's woods, and devote his
entire time and attention to keeping trespassers at a distance.
This seemed a novel idea to Hobson, who finally said:
"If that's the case, we'll have to go somewhere else to do our
shooting."
"What for?" demanded the ferryman, who was not a little surprised. "Do
you think that that little Joe of our'n could 'rest us if we didn't
want him to?"
"Of course not; but he could report us, and the sheriff could arrest
us," answered Hobson.
Silas clenched both his fists and glared savagely at Joe, who was just
then holding an animated colloquy with his brother Dan upon some point
concerning which there was evidently a wide diversity of opinion.