I
Cap'n Aaron Sproul, late skipper of the _Jefferson P. Benn_, sat by
the bedside of his uncle, "One-arm" Jerry, and gazed into the
latter's dimming eyes.
"It ain't bein' a crowned head, but it's honer'ble," pleaded the sick
man, continuing the conversation.
His eager gaze found only gloominess in his nephew's countenance.
"One way you look at it, Uncle Jed," said the Cap'n, "it's a come-down
swifter'n a slide from the foretop the whole length of the boomstay.
I've been master since I was twenty-four, and I'm goin' onto
fifty-six now. I've licked every kind in the sailorman line, from
a nigger up to Six-fingered Jack the Portugee. If it wa'n't for--ow,
Josephus Henry!--for this rheumatiz, I'd be aboard the _Benn_ this
minute with a marlinespike in my hand, and op'nin' a fresh package
of language."
"But you ain't fit for the sea no longer," mumbled One-arm Jerry
through one corner of the mouth that paralysis had drawn awry.
"That's what I told the owners of the _Benn_ when I fit 'em off'm
me and resigned," agreed the Cap'n. "I tell ye, good skippers ain't
born ev'ry minute--and they knowed it. I've been turnin' 'em in ten
per cent. on her, and that's good property. I've got an eighth into
her myself, and with a man as good as I am to run her, I shouldn't
need to worry about doin' anything else all my life--me a single man
with no one dependent. I reckon I'll sell. Shipmasters ain't what
they used to be."
"Better leave it where it is," counselled Jerry, his cautious thrift
dominating even in that hour of death. "Land-sharks is allus lookin'
out sharp for sailormen that git on shore."
"It's why I don't dast to go into business--me that's follered the
sea so long," returned the skipper, nursing his aching leg.
"Then do as I tell ye to do," said the old man on the bed. "It may
be a come-down for a man that's had men under him all his life, but
it amounts to more'n five hundred a year, sure and stiddy. It's
something to do, and you couldn't stand it to loaf--you that's always
been so active. It ain't reskin' anything, and with all the passin'
and the meetin' folks, and the gossipin' and the chattin', and all
that, all your time is took up. It's honer'ble, it's stiddy. Leave
your money where it is, take my place, and keep this job in the
family."
The two men were talking in a little cottage at the end of a long
covered bridge. A painted board above the door heralded the fact that
the cottage was the toll-house, and gave the rates of toll.
"It's Providence that has sent you here jest as I was bein' took out
of the world," went on Uncle Jerry. "You're my only rel'tive. I'm
leavin' you the three thousand I've accumulated. I want to leave you
the job, too. I--"
A hoarse hail outside interrupted. The Cap'n, scowling, shuffled out
and came in, jingling some pennies in his brown hand.
"I feel like a hand-organ monkey every time I go out there," he
muttered.
"I tell ye," protested the old man, as earnestly as his feebleness
would permit, "there's lots of big business in this world that don't
need so long a head as this one does--bein' as how you're goin' to
run it shipshape. You need brains; that you do, nephy. It'll keep
you studyin' all the time. When you git interested in it you ain't
never goin' to have time to be lonesome. There's the plain hello folks
to be treated one way, the good-day folks, the pass-the-time-o'-day
folks, the folks that need the tip o' the hat--jest for politeness,
and not because you're beneath 'em," he hastened to add, noting the
skipper's scowl; "the folks that swing up to the platform, the folks
that you've got to chase a little, even if it is muddy; the folks
that pay in advance and want you to remember it and save 'em trouble,
the folks that pay when they come back, and the folks that never pay
at all--and I tell ye, nephy, there's where your work is cut out for
ye! I've only had one arm, but there's mighty few that have ever done
me out of toll, and I'm goin' to give ye a tip on the old bell-wether
of 'em all. I'm goin' to advise ye to stand to one side and let him
pass. He's--"
"And me a man that's licked every--"
"Hold on! He's diff'runt from all you've ever tackled."
In his excitement the old toll-gatherer attempted to struggle upon
his elbow. He choked. The nurse came and laid him back with gentle
remonstrance. Before he had regained his voice to talk more the
minister came, obeying a summons of grave import. Then came One who
sealed One-arm Jerry's lips and quieted the fingers that had been
picking at the faded coverlet as though they were gathering pennies.
And a day later, half sullenly, the Cap'n accepted the proposition
of the directors of the bridge company, who had said some very
flattering things to him about the reliability of the Sproul family.
He reflected that he was far enough from tide-water to avoid the
mariners who had known him in his former state. "I'll dock and repair
riggin'," he pondered. "It's a come-down, but I'll clear and cruise
again when the notion strikes me."
His possessions came promptly by express--his sea-chest, two parrots,
and a most amazing collection of curios that fairly transformed the
little cottage where the skipper, with seaman's facility in
housekeeping, set up bachelor's hall.
He grudgingly allowed to himself that he was going to like it. The
sun beamed blandly warm on the little bench before the toll-house.
His rheumatism felt better. People commented admiringly on such of
the curios as were displayed in the windows of the cottage. And when
the parrots--"Port" and "Starboard"--ripped out such remarks as
"Ahoy!" "Heave to!" "Down hellum!" and larded the conversation with
horrible oaths, the wayfarers professed to see great humor in the
performance.
In a little while the parrots would squall as soon as a traveller
appeared at the brow of the river hill or poked out from the dim depths
of the covered bridge. Even when the Cap'n was busy in his little
kitchen he never failed to receive due notice of the approach of
persons either in wagons or on foot.
"It will be a good man who runs toll on this bridge," he mused one
day, as he poked dainties between the bars of the parrots' cages.
"The old 'un was a good man in his day, like all the Sprouls. He didn't
have but one arm, but there wa'n't many that ever come it over him.
I've been thinkin' about one that did, and that he was scart of. If
there was ever a man that scart him, and kept him scart till the day
he died, then I'd like to see that same. It will be for me to show
him that the nephy has some accounts of the poor old uncle to square."
Up the slope where the road to Smyrna Bridge wound behind the willows
there was the growing rattle of wheels. The Cap'n cocked his head.
His seaman's instinct detected something stormy in that impetuous
approach. He fixed his gaze on the bend of the road.
Into sight came tearing a tall, gaunt horse, dragging a wagon equally
tall and gaunt. The horse was galloping, and a tall man in the wagon
stood up and began to crack a great whip, with reports like a pistol
fusillade.
Cap'n Sproul took three defiant steps into the middle of the road,
and then took one big step back--a stride that made his "rheumatiz
speak up," but a stride that carried him safely to his platform. The
team roared past. The big whip swished over his head, and the snapper
barked in his ear. He got one fleeting glimpse at the man who was
driving--a man with a face as hard as a pine knot. His lips were rolled
away from his yellow teeth in a grimace that was partly a grin, partly
a sneer. A queer, tall, pointed cap with a knob on its top was perched
on his head like a candle-snuffer on a taper. With a shrill yell and
more crackings of his whip he disappeared into the gloomy mouth of
the covered bridge, and the roaring echoes followed him.
The skipper stood looking first at the mouth of the bridge and then
at the sign above it that warned:
THREE DOLLARS' FINE
FOR DRIVING FASTER THAN A WALK
"As I was jest sayin'," he muttered, as the noise of the wheels died
away, "I should like to see that man--and I reckon as how I have."
He sat down under the woodbine that wreathed the little porch and
slowly filled his pipe, his gaze still on the bridge opening. As he
crooked his leg and dragged the match across the faded blue of his
trousers he growled:
"I dunno who he is, nor where he's come from, nor where he's goin'
to, nor when he expects to get back, but, as near as I can figger
it, he owes me ten cents' toll and three dollars' fine-money, makin'
a total of three ten, to be charged and collected, as I understand
it."
When he had got his pipe to going, after some little gruntings, he
pulled out a note-book and a stubby pencil and marked down the figures.
At the head of the page he scrawled:
"Old Hurrycain, Dr."
"That name 'll have to do till I git a better one," he mused, and
then stood up to receive toll from a farmer who drove slowly out from
the bridge, his elbows on his knees, his horse walking slouchily.
"If it ain't no great output to you, mister, to tell, do you happen
to know who was the nub of that streak of wind and cuss-words that
jest went past here?"
The farmer bored him strangely a moment with his little gimlet eyes,
snorted out a laugh, clapped his reins, and started on.
"I heard ye was a joker!" he shouted back, his beard trailing over
his shoulder as he turned his head.
"There ain't no joke to this!" roared the skipper. But the man kept
on.
Another patron emerged from the bridge, digging from his trousers
pocket.
"You spoke it, didn't ye?" demanded the skipper. "Chain lightnin'
on wheels. Who is he?"
The man grinned amiably and appreciatively.
"Quite a hand to hector, ain't ye, toll-keeper? He was goin' so fast
I didn't know him, neither." He drove on, though the Cap'n hobbled
after him, shouting strong language, in which the parrots joined.
"You needn't try to make me think that there ain't nobody who don't
know the Kun'l," was the retort the man flung over his shoulder.
"Nice and accommodatin' class of paternage that's passin'," growled
the Cap'n, kicking an inoffensive chair as he came back to his
platform. "They talk about him as though he was Lord Gull and ruler
of the stars. Jest as though a man that had sailed deep water all
his days knowed all the old land-pirut's 'round here!"
It was a pedestrian--Old Man Jordan, bound to the village with a few
pats of butter in a bucket--that the skipper finally held up.
"Oh, sho!" said Old Man Jordan. "'Course ye know him. Every one does."
"I tell you I don't!" bawled the skipper.
"Why, yas you do."
"Say, look a-here, What's-your-name, I'm goin' to give ye ten seconds
to tell me the name of that critter."
He made a clutch to one side, and then remembered with a flush that
he was no longer in reach of a spike-rack.
"Why, that was Kun'l Gideon Ward," faltered Uncle Jordan, impressed
at last by the Cap'n's fury. "I thought ye knew."
"Thought! Thought! Why, ye never thought in your life. You only
thought you thought. I dunno no more who you mean by 'Kun'l Gideon
Ward' than as though you said General Bill Beelzebub."
"Why, yas you do--"
"There you go again! Do you mean to stand here and tell me I'm a liar?"
The glare in the seaman's eyes was too fierce to be fronted.
"Kun'l Gideon Ward is--is--wall, he's Kun'l Gideon Ward."
Jordan backed away suddenly at the oath the Cap'n ripped out.
"He owns more timber land than any other man in the county. He hires
more men than any one else. He ain't never been downed in a trade
or a fight yet. He's got double teeth, upper and lower, all the way
round, drinks kairosene in the winter 'cause it's more warmin' than
rum, and--and--"
"Well, what's that got to do with his runnin' toll on this bridge?"
demanded the Cap'n.
"Bridge piers hold up his logs, he says, and he ain't never goin'
to pay toll till the bridgemen pay him for loss of time on logs. It's
been what you might call a stand-off for a good many years. Best thing
is to let him run toll. That's what your uncle thought. I reckoned
you knew all about Kun'l Gid Ward. Why, everybody knows--"
"Say, you let up on that string right now and here," snorted the
Cap'n.
Old Man Jordan trotted away.
While the skipper was still pondering on the matter of Colonel
Ward--the meditation had lasted over into the next day--there was
a roar on the bridge, and the subject of his reflections passed in
a swirl of dust on his return trip. He was standing up in his wagon
as before, and he saluted the indignant toll-man with a flick of his
whip that started the dust from the latter's pea-jacket.
"He's been over to the home place to see his sister Jane," volunteered
Uncle Jordan, again on his way to the village with eggs. "She ain't
never got married, and he ain't never got married. Old Squire Ward
left his whole property to the two of 'em, and the Kun'l ain't ever
let it be divided. He runs the whole estate and domineers over her,
and she don't dast to say her soul's her own. If I was Jane I'd have
my half out and git married to some nice man, and git a little comfort
out'n life. He don't give her none--don't let her have the handlin'
of a cent of money. She's a turrible nice sort of woman. There's
risin' a hundred thousand dollars in her share, if the truth was known,
and there's been some pretty good men shine up around her a little,
but the Kun'l has run 'em away with a picked stick."
"Has, hey?"
"There ain't no Jack the Giant-Killers in these parts," sighed Old
Man Jordan, hooking his bucket upon his arm and shambling away.
For several days Cap'n Sproul was busy about the gable end of the
bridge during his spare moments and hours, climbing up and down the
ladder, and handling a rope and certain pulleys with sailor dexterity.
All the time his grim jaw-muscles ridged his cheeks. When he had
finished he had a rope running through pulleys from the big gate up
over the gable of the bridge and to the porch of the toll-house.
"There," he muttered, with great satisfaction, "that's the first
bear-trap I ever set, and it ain't no extra sort of job, but I reckon
when old grizzly goes ag'inst it he'll cal'late that this 'ere is
a toll-bridge."
Then came days of anxious waiting. Sometimes a teamster's shouts to
his horses up around the willows sent the Cap'n hobbling to the end
of the rope. An unusual rattling in the bridge put him at his post
with his teeth set and his eyes gleaming.