CAPRICORN HEBRIDES WINDBIGLER
It had taken us the better part of two and one-half hours to make the
run from Oak Island to Steam Corners, a distance of possibly five
miles. That was slow traveling, to be sure. But, as I have said before,
the Sally Ann was not a speed boat. Not unlike a clumsy old work horse,
it could be made to go just about so fast and not much faster. The
thing it was least acquainted with was speed.
Still, we were hopeful that we would be able to shorten the time of our
return trip by at least thirty minutes, which would get us into
anchorage off the island at two-fifteen or thereabouts. And it was to
accomplish this, if possible, that we were now running the propeller
full speed. This, of course, was hard on the engine. Worn in its many
joints from long usage, it was liable to break down at any moment. But
our errand was urgent. We had to take some chances.
As Scoop stated at the time, we probably could have made faster passage
to the island in a rented rowboat. But we didn’t like the thought of
leaving our show boat behind. It would have required a guard, and that
would have demanded a division of our forces. We wanted to stick
together; we felt that we should stick together in the interests of our
own safety. If it came to a hand-to-hand fight, a not improbable turn
of affairs, four of us could put up a better battle than three of us.
Shortly after one o’clock we came within sight of the lock that we had
passed through two hours earlier. The lock tender was waiting for us. I
could imagine, as we approached the lock under full speed, that the old
man was surprised to see us back so soon. For we had told him that
morning that we were going to dock in Steam Corners to give our show
and stay there over night.
“Um.... What you b’ys doin’ headin’ this way?” he inquired, regarding
us in turn with narrowed eyes.
“Oh,” Scoop said airily, of no mind to take the other into our
confidence, “we’re just riding around for the fun of it.”
“Goin’ back to Ashton?”
“Maybe.”
There was a moment’s silence, in which a look of undisguised suspicion
came into the narrowed eyes.
“Um.... Calc’late you fellers better come up to my office an’ sign your
names in my book.”
“‘Book’?” Scoop repeated, regarding the other quizzically.
“Maybe it’s a cook book,” was Red’s smart remark.
“No,” the old man waggled, setting his long shaggy hair into motion,
“it hain’t no cook book. It’s a ledger in which I keep a record of the
people who pass through my lock.”
“You didn’t say anything about it this morning,” Scoop reminded.
“Didn’t I? Wal, my memory hain’t always the best.”
“If it isn’t necessary,” Scoop said, impatient to get through the lock,
“we’d rather not bother with it. For we’re in a hurry.”
The narrowed eyes snapped.
“In a hurry, hey? Thought you jest said you was a-ridin’ ’round fur the
fun of it.”
Our leader laughed.
“Well, bring out your birthday book and we’ll autograph it.”
“It’s in my office,” the old man waggled. “Jest come this way an’ I’ll
show you whar ’tis. You kin be a-signin’ it while I put your boat
through the lock.”
Well, we never suspected a trap. Unfamiliar with the duties of a lock
tender it never occurred to us that there was anything queer or
irregular in the old man’s request of our signatures in his book. At
his direction we cheerfully followed him into the house that he
occupied on the canal bank and up a flight of stairs to a sort of attic
bedroom.
“If you go over thar,” our stoop-shouldered conductor pointed,
indicating a table near the room’s only window, “you’ll find the book
an’ a pen.”
Peg was the first one to reach the table.
“I can’t find a book with names in it,” he grumbled, feeling around
among the table’s contents.
Scoop looked over his shoulder to make sure that our conductor had gone
downstairs.
“Maybe,” he laughed softly, tapping his head, “the old gent’s cuckoo.”
Red wiped his sweaty face on his shirt sleeve.
“Holy cow, it’s hot up here!”
“There’s no book here,” Peg declared, with an impatient grunt.
“Lookit!” pointed the freckled one, in a sudden unnerving discovery.
“The door’s shut.”
“What the dickens?...” cried Scoop, dashing across the room. “Hey!” he
cried, shaking the bolted door and pounding on its heavy panels with
his fists. “What’s the idea of locking us in?”
“Quit your poundin’ on that door,” the lock tender roared from the foot
of the stairs, “or I’ll put a charge of bird shot through the floor
into your feet.”
“Let us out,” cried Scoop.
“You’ll be let out, all right ... when my brother Ham gits here with
four pairs of handcuffs.”
“You’ll lose your job for this,” screeched Scoop, furious. “For you
have no right to lock us up.”
“I hain’t got no right, hey? Mebby you young scallawags don’t know who
I be. Um ... I’m a deputy sheriff, let me tell you.”
“Being a deputy sheriff,” cried Scoop, “doesn’t give you a right to
lock up innocent people. And you better let us out of here in a hurry,
if you know what’s good for you.”
A bell jingled in the lower room as our captor wound up the crank of
his country telephone.
“Gimme Ashton two-six-six-four,” he ordered gruffly. “Hello. That you,
Ham? Yep, it’s me—Herm. Yep. Say, you know them young fellers that put
the greased pig in your windy—yep, the ones you called me up about at
dinnertime. I told you they’d gone on to Steam Corners. Wal, they just
come back an’ I’m a-holdin’ ’em fur you. Yep, got ’em shet in the attic
bedroom. What’s that? You can’t come over till to-morrow? You’re
lookin’ fur who? A gal? No, I hain’t seen nothin’ of a gal in a green
rowboat. What’s that? She tried to murder her grandfather? Pshaw! A
twelve-year-old gal! Kin you imagine it? Wal, if I see her I’ll hold
’er. Git over as early as you kin to-morrow. No, you needn’t worry
’bout that. If they do try to escape I’ll fill their legs with bird
shot. I’ve give ’em fair warnin’ an’ they’ll have better sense ’an to
try it. So long.”
We hadn’t said a word in the time that our captor was telephoning. And
it was well for us, as we now realized, that we had given the one-sided
conversation close attention. For we had thus learned the cause of our
arrest.
“They’re after us for the greased-pig trick,” Scoop said, searching our
eyes in turn. “What do you know about that?” he whistled.
“I thought it was for helping the girl,” Peg said, studying.
“So did I.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Dog-gone!” the leader burst out, with flushed cheeks. “Weren’t we the
champion boobs, though, to walk into that old hayseed’s trap? Got us up
here to sign a book! Slick, all right. But I thought we were too smart
to get tripped up by a trick like that. Gr-r-r-r-r!” and the angry
speaker gritted his teeth. “It makes me furious to think that we didn’t
have sense enough to suspect the truth.”
“We were asleep at the switch, all right,” Peg agreed, nodding
dismally.
Red set up a howl.
“I wish I was home.”
“Huh!”
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“Who’s going to jail?”
“We are. Didn’t you hear what he said about handcuffs?”
“They can’t put us in jail for breaking up a poker game with a greased
pig,” the leader waggled, his jaw squared. “We may have to pay a fine,
but that’s nothing to worry about. A bigger concern in my mind is the
girl.”
“I don’t believe,” Peg spoke up, thoughtful, “that they have a right to
arrest us outside of town for the pig trick. It looks to me like spite
work on the policeman’s part.”
Scoop passed quickly to the open window, to learn, I imagine, if there
was any chance of escape for us in that direction.
“Lookit!” he pointed.
Below us, comfortably seated in the shade of a tree, a shotgun in his
lap, the lock tender was contentedly munching a big rosy apple.
“You b’ys comfortable up thar?” he drawled, getting sight of us in the
window.
“We could use a few palm-leaf fans to good advantage,” Scoop hinted,
swabbing his dripping face.
“Calc’late it’ll git cooler toward evenin’.”
“When do we eat?” Peg called down.
“Hungry, hey?”
“We haven’t had any dinner.”
“Wal, it’s too late fur dinner now.”
Scoop again gritted his teeth.
“The old beast!”
“Say,” Peg began to dicker, “what’ll you take to turn us loose?”
“Um.... Tryin’ to bribe me, hey?”
“We’ll give you five dollars.”
“I hain’t a man with a price.”
“How about ten dollars?”
“Yep,” the old man waggled, munching his rosy apple, “it’s a powerful
hot day.”
“I didn’t say anything about the weather,” Peg growled, flushing. “I
asked you if you’d let us out of here for ten dollars.”
“Yep, you’re right. We hain’t had a hotter day in ten years.”
Scoop caught our big chum’s eyes.
“You might as well save your breath,” he advised.
“Anyway,” I sweltered, “he told the truth about the heat. This room is
a regular oven.”
Whenever I see a panting dog I am unhappily reminded by its dripping
tongue and heavy breathing of our confinement that afternoon in the
lock tender’s attic bedroom. We didn’t exactly hang out our tongues,
dog-fashion, but we did strip off the most of our clothes. The heat
from the low sun-baked roof was almost unbearable. You could have
imagined from our dribbling perspiration that we had just been taking a
sponge bath and hadn’t dried off.
Following our unsatisfactory conversation with our jailer, we explored
our prison in the hope that we would find some avenue to possible safe
escape. Besides the table and bed the room contained three chairs and a
bureau. The plastered, heat-soaked walls and hipped ceiling were
decorated with fancy old-fashioned wallpaper, against which, on
opposite sides of the bed, were hung framed samplers. One read: “Early
to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” The
other said: “I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke to find
that life was duty.”
We met with nothing but discouragement in our exploration of the room.
And abandoning the hope of making an immediate escape, we dropped on
the floor near the window. Tortured by the heat, we were thirsty, too,
and hungry. Here it was about two o’clock in the afternoon and we had
had nothing to eat since four o’clock in the morning.
We had now given up all hope of getting to the island in time to help
the girl save her Liberty Bonds from the rascally uncle’s hands.
Helpless in our sweltering prison, we could picture in our tortured
minds what was very probably taking place on the island. The men’s
arrival ... the girl’s capture ... the search for the bonds. The girl
would be compelled, under torture, if necessary, to reveal the
treasure’s hiding place. And with the bonds in their possession, the
two thieves could very easily put many miles between themselves and the
island before nightfall.
Would the girl be left alone on the island? Or would the thieves take
her away with them? We wondered, depressed and discouraged.
Suddenly we experienced new life at the sound of a lilting voice.
Crowding in the window, we had a clear view of the buoyant singer as he
came jauntily into the yard.
It was the man with the warty nose!
We stared from the window, amazed and speechless. What was the thief
doing here? Where was his companion? Were the two men now making their
escape into an adjoining county, after having been to the island? Was
the white-haired man waiting near by with the recovered bonds? Was the
girl with him?
We were crazy in our helplessness. For here was a not improbable chance
for us to outwit the evil-minded pair and recover the stolen bonds.
Fortune had favored us in bringing the thieves here with their probable
booty. But we were powerless to take advantage of what fortune seemed
to offer. As prisoners, we could do not a thing except to look down
from our jail window.
Approaching the seated lock tender with jaunty steps, the newcomer
removed his shabby hat and made a sweeping bow, his left hand pressed
against his heart.
“Good day, sir; good day. I observe that you are taking it cool and
comfortable in the shade, as a man in your favored circumstances
should. It is very warm in the sun, sir, and fatiguing to one afoot.”
“Um.... Stranger, hain’t you?”
“My name, sir, is Windbigler—Capricorn Hebrides Windbigler. You, sir,
may have read of the Windbiglers in the annals of science. My father,
like my learned grandfather, was a geographer of exceptional
attainments. At my birth in the New Hebrides Islands, in the South
Pacific Ocean, I was given, under the dictation of our family’s
distinguished geographical specialist, the somewhat appropriate name of
Capricorn Hebrides. A tribute, my illustrious parent considered, to his
beloved profession. Alas, sir, you see in me nothing of the greatness
of my learned and distinguished parent and grandparent. I may even in
my appearance seem a bit shabby to you. But, to apply an old axiom,
sir, not inappropriate to the occasion, it is not the clothes that make
the piano tuner. Here, sir, is my professional card. When you have
perused it I will kindly ask you to return it, for it is the last one I
have. Though it is somewhat soiled from daily usage, I trust that its
printed message will stand out before your eyes like a beacon in the
wilderness. Capricorn Hebrides Windbigler, the Harmony Hustler. Behold
in me, sir, the true friend and ardent supporter of our greatest
American institution—the parlor piano.”
The lock tender, in the time of this long-winded recital, had been
listening with an open mouth.
“Say,” he demanded, when the talkative one had paused for breath, “what
in Sam Hill be you spoutin’ ’bout, anyway?”
“Sir,” gravely bowed the visitor, “I am, in simple, unflowered English,
an itinerant piano tuner. Some days I tune many pianos ... for my
meals. On the days when I have no pianos to tune, I—er—acknowledge to
the pangs of hunger. This, unhappily, is one of the days when my
artistic attainments have had no chance of commercial expression. As
the son of the late Ferdinand Windbigler—and I would have you know sir,
that my esteemed parent was named after the consort of the illustrious
Queen Isabella—it pains me, humiliates me, in fact, to be compelled, in
my present reduced circumstances, to confess to you that I am sadly in
need of such stimulating food as a baked potato and a crust of bread.
And unless you have a piano, sir, that I may tune, to recompense you
for the hearty meal that I—aw—hope to get, I dread to contemplate the
early misery that my empty stomach will endure.”
“Great balls of fire!” exploded the listener, blinking his eyes in
bewilderment at the flow of words. “Don’t you ever run down?”
“Sir!”
“By gum, you’re the windiest talker I ever heerd tell of. Windjammer’s
a good name fur you, all right. Windjammer! Hee! hee! hee!”
“Windbigler, sir,” came the dignified correction.
“It hain’t every tramp stoppin’ here fur a handout thet’s got sech a
lingo as you have. I never seed your beat.”
“My dear sir ... a tramp! ... you quite distress and embarrass me. In
the words of my esteemed father, the late Ferdinand Wind——”
“Shet up!”
The Harmony Hustler bowed humbly.
“I, sir, am ‘shet,’ as you so excellently put it.”
“So you’re a pianny tuner, hey?”
“A musical phonologist, sir, at your service.”
“Wal,” the lock tender spit, “I’ve got a pianny.”
“I could imagine that to be the case, sir. For it has been my
experience that where there is music in the home, the countenances
therein always have a nobler mien. And as I approached you, sir, and
gazed into your kindly countenance, I said to myself——”
“Shet up, I tell you. Land of Goshen! Sech a talker! If I was compelled
to live in the same house with you I’d wear ear pads, by gum.”
“I grieve, sir, if I have bored you.”
“I’ve got a pianny, as I jest said. Bought it at a sale two years ago
fur twenty-two dollars an’ a quarter. A good pianny, too. One of them
four-legged kind. Since my wife’s death I hain’t had no use fur it. Bin
tryin’ to sell it.” The speaker got to his feet. “Come in,” he invited,
holding the shotgun in the hollow of his left arm, “an’ take a look at
it. An’ if you kin fix it up so I kin sell it fur what I’ve got in it,
I’ll give you your supper an’ a night’s lodgin’.”
We stared at one another as the two men disappeared from our sight. The
warty-nosed man’s conduct, like his presence here, filled us with
bewilderment.
There was a stovepipe hole in the floor of our prison. And as the two
men came into the room below us, we got around the hole in a circle,
unmindful now of the heat in our interest in what was going on below
us.