II

One day a mild and placid little woman in dove-gray came walking from

the bridge and handed over her penny. She eyed the skipper with

interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow

while she studied the parrots who were waddling about their cages.

"I never heard a parrot talk, sir," she said. "I hear that yours talk.

I should dearly love to hear them."

"Their language is mostly deep-water flavor," said the Cap'n, curtly,

"and 'tain't flavored edsackly like vanilla ice-cream. There's more

of the peppersass tang to it than ladies us'ly enjoys."

The little woman gave a chirrup at the birds, and, to the skipper's

utter astonishment, both Port and Starboard chirruped back sociably.

Port then remarked: "Pretty Polly!" Starboard chirruped a few cheery

bars from "A Sailor's Wife a Sailor's Star Should Be." Then both

parrots rapped their beaks genially against the bars of the cages

and beamed on the lady with their little button eyes.

"Well, I swow!" ejaculated the Cap'n, rubbing his knurly forefinger

under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the

lady. "If that ain't as much of an astonisher as when the scuttle-butt

danced a jig on the dog-vane! Them two us'ly cusses strangers, no

matter what age or sect. They was learnt to do it." He gazed

doubtfully at the birds, as though they might possibly be

deteriorating in the effeminacies of shore life.

"I always was a great hand with pets of all kinds," said the lady,

modestly. "Animals seem to take to me sort of naturally. I hear you

have long followed the sea, Cap'n Sproul--I believe that's the name,

Cap'n Sproul?"

"Sproul it is, ma'am--Aaron for fore-riggin'. Them as said I follered

the sea was nearer than shore-folks us'ly be. Took my dunnage aboard

at fourteen, master at twenty-four, keel-hauled by rheumatiz at

fifty-six--wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that. I ain't stuck on

a penny-flippin' job of this sort."

"I should think it would be very pleasant after all the storms and

the tossings. And yet the sea--the sea, the glorious sea--has always

had a great fascination for me--even though I've never seen it."

"Nev--nev--never seen salt water!" This amazedly.

"Never." This sadly. "I've been kept--I've stayed very closely at

my home. Being a single lady, I've had no one to talk to me or take

me about. I have read books about the ocean, but I've never had any

chance to hear a real and truly mariner tell about the wonderful waste

of waters and describe foreign countries. I suppose you have been

'way, 'way out to sea, Cap'n Sproul--across the ocean, I mean."

She had timidly edged up and taken one of the chairs on the porch,

gazing about her at the curios.

"Well, ma'am," remarked the Cap'n, dryly, as he seated himself in

another chair, "I've waded across a cove wunst or twice at low water."

"I should love so to hear a mariner talk of his adventures. I have

never had much chance to talk with any man--I mean any sailor. I have

been kept--I mean I have stayed very closely at home all my life."

"It broadens a man, it sartain does, to travel," said the skipper,

furtively slipping a sliver of tobacco into his cheek and clearing

his throat preparatory to yarning a bit. The frank admiration and

trustful innocence in the eyes of the pretty woman touched him.

"I suppose you have been out at sea in some awful storms, Cap'n. I

often think of the sailormen at sea when the snow beats against the

window and the winds howl around the corner."

"The wu'st blow I ever remember," began the skipper, leaning back

and hooking his brown hands behind his head like a basket, "was my

second trip to Bonis Airis--general cargo out, to fetch back hides.

It was that trip we found the shark that had starved to death, and

that was a story that was worth speakin' of. It--"

There was a hoarse bellow of "Giddap!" up behind the willows. Then

into sight came galloping the tall, gaunt horse of Colonel Gideon

Ward. The Colonel stood up, smacking his whip.

With one leap the Cap'n was at his rope, and began to haul in hand

over hand.

The big gate at the mouth of the bridge squalled on its rusty hinges.

"You mustn't shut that gate--you mustn't!" shrieked the little woman.

She ran and clutched at his sturdy arms. "That's my brother that's

coming! You'll break his neck!"

The gate was already half shut, and the doughty skipper kept on

pulling at the rope.

"Can't help it, ma'am, if it's the apostle Paul," he gritted. "There

ain't nobody goin' to run toll on this bridge."

"It will kill him."

"It's him that's lickin' that hoss. 'Tain't me."

"It's my brother, I tell you!" She tried to drag the rope out of his

hands, but he shook her off, pulled the big gate shut, set his teeth,

clung to the rope, and waited.

The rush down the hill had been so impetuous and the horse was now

running so madly under the whip that there was no such thing as

checking him. With a crash of splintering wood he drove breast-on

against the gate, throwing up his bony head at the end of his scraggy

neck. At the crash the woman screamed and covered her eyes. But the

outfit was too much of a catapult to be stopped. Through the gate

it went, and the wagon roared away through the bridge, the driver

yelling oaths behind him.

Cap'n Aaron Sproul walked out and strolled among the scattered debris,

kicking it gloomily to right and left. The woman followed him.

"It was awful," she half sobbed.

"So you're Miss Jane Ward, be ye?" he growled, glancing at her from

under his knotted eyebrows. "Speakin' of your pets, I should reckon

that 'ere brother of yourn wa'n't one that you had tamed down fit

to be turned loose. But you tell him for me, the next time you see

him, that I'll plug the end of that bridge against him if it takes

ev'ry dum cent of the prop'ty I'm wuth--and that's thutty thousand

dollars, if it's a cent. I ain't none of your two-cent chaps!" he

roared, visiting his wrath vicariously on her as a representative

of the family. "I've got money of my own. Your brother seems to have

made door-mats out'n most of the folks round here, but I'll tell ye

that he's wiped his feet on me for the last time. You tell him that,

dum him!"

Her face was white, and her eyes were shining as she looked at him.

"Gideon has always had his own way, Cap'n Sproul," she faltered. "I

hope you won't feel too bitter against him. It would be awful--he

so headstrong--and you so--so--brave!" She choked this last out,

unclasping her hands.

"Well, I ain't no coward, and I never was," blurted the Cap'n.

"It's the bravest man that overcomes himself," she said. "Now, you

have good judgment, Cap'n. My brother is hot-headed. Every one knows

that you are a brave man. You can afford to let him go over the bridge

without--"

"Never!" the skipper howled, in his best sea tones. "You're the last

woman to coax and beg for him, if half what they tell me is true.

He has abused you wuss'n he has any one else. If you and the rest

ain't got any spunk, I have. You'll be one brother out if he comes

slam-bangin' this way ag'in."

She looked at him appealingly for a moment, then tiptoed over the

fragments of the gate, and hurried away through the bridge.

"You ain't no iron-clad, Kun'l Ward," muttered Sproul. "I'll hold

ye next time."

He set to work on the river-bank that afternoon, cutting saplings,

trusting to the squall of the faithful parrots to signal the approach

of passers.

But the next day, when he was nailing the saplings to make a truly

Brobdingnagian grid, one of the directors of the bridge company

appeared to him.

"We're not giving you license to let any one run toll on this bridge,

you understand," said the director, "but this fighting Colonel Ward

with our property is another matter. It's like fighting a bear with

your fists. And even if you killed the bear, the hide wouldn't be

worth the damage. He has got too many ways of hurting us, Cap'n. He

has always had his own way in these parts, and he probably always

will. Let him go. We won't get the toll, nor the fines, but we'll

have our bridge left."

"I was thinking of resigning this job," returned the Cap'n; "it was

not stirrin' enough for a seafarin' man; but I'm sort of gittin'

int'rested. How much will ye take for your bridge?"

But the director curtly refused to sell.

"All right, then," said the skipper, chocking his axe viciously into

a sapling birch and leaving it there, "I'll fill away on another

tack."

For the next two weeks, as though to exult in his victory, the Colonel

made many trips past the toll-house.

He hurled much violent language at the Cap'n. The Cap'n, reinforced

with his vociferous parrots, returned the language with great

enthusiasm and volubility.

Then came the day once more when the little woman sat down in a chair

in the shade of the woodbine.

"I took the first chance, Cap'n, while my brother has gone up-country,

to come to tell you how much I appreciate your generous way of doing

what I asked of you. You are the first man that ever put away selfish

pride and did just what I asked."

The seaman started to repudiate vigorously, but looked into her

brimming eyes a moment, choked, and was silent.

"Yes, sir, you're what I call noble, not to pay any attention to the

boasts my brother is making of how he has backed you down."

"He is, is he?" The Cap'n rolled up his lip and growled.

"But I know just how brave you are, to put down all your anger at

the word of a poor woman. And a true gentleman, too. There are only

a few real gentlemen in the world, after all."

The Cap'n slid his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat and swelled

his chest out a little.

"There was no man ever come it over me, and some good ones have tried

it, ma'am. So fur as women goes, I ain't never been married, but I

reckon I know what politeness to a lady means."

She smiled at him brightly, and with such earnest admiration that

he felt a flush crawling up from under his collar. He blinked at her

and looked away. Starboard, with an embarrassing aptness that is

sometimes displayed by children, whistled a few bars of "A Sailor's

Wife a Sailor's Star Should Be."

"I don't mind owning up to you that my brother has imposed upon me

in a great many ways," said the little lady, her eyes flashing. "I

have endured a good deal from him because he is my brother. I know

just how you feel about him, Cap'n, and that's why it makes me feel

that we have a--a sort of what you might call common interest. I don't

know why I'm talking so frankly with you, who are almost a stranger,

but I've been--I have always lacked friends so much, that now I can't

seem to help it. You truly do seem like an old friend, you have been

so willing to do what I asked of you, after you had time to think

it over."

The Cap'n was now congratulating himself that he hadn't blurted out

anything about the bridge director and that sapling fence. It

certainly was a grateful sound--that praise from the pretty lady!

He didn't want to interrupt it.

"Now will you go on with that story of the storm?" she begged,

hitching the chair a bit nearer. "I want to hear about your

adventures."

She had all the instincts of Desdemona, did that pretty little lady.

Three times that week she came to the toll-house and listened with

lips apart and eyes shining. Cap'n Sproul had never heard of Othello

and his wooing, but after a time his heart began to glow under the

reverent regard she bent on him. Never did mutual selection more

naturally come about. She loved him for the perils he had braved,

and he--robbed of his mistress, the sea--yearned for just such

companionship as she was giving him. He had known that life lacked

something. This was it.

And when one day, after a stuttering preamble that lasted a full half

hour, he finally blurted out his heart-hankering, she wept a little

while on his shoulder--it being luckily a time when there was no one

passing--and then sobbingly declared it could never be.

"'Fraid of your brother, hey?" he inquired.

She bumped her forehead gently on his shoulder in nod of assent.

"I reckon ye like me?"

"Oh, Aaron!" It was a volume of rebuke, appeal, and affection in two

words.

"Then there ain't nothin' more to say, little woman. You ain't never

had any one to look out for your int'rests in this life. After this,

it's me that does it. I don't want your money. I've got plenty of

my own. But your interests bein' my interests after this, you hand

ev'rything over to me, and I'll put a twist in the tail of that Bengal

tiger in your fam'ly that 'll last him all his life."

At the end of a long talk he sent her away with a pat on her shoulder

and a cheery word in her ear.

It was Old Man Jordan who, a week or so later, on his way to the village

with butter in his bucket, stood in the middle of the road and tossed

his arms so frenziedly that Colonel Ward, gathering up his speed

behind the willows, pulled up with an oath.

"Ye're jest gittin' back from up-country, ain't ye?" asked Uncle

Jordan.

"What do you mean, you old fool, by stoppin' me when I'm busy? What

be ye, gittin' items for newspapers?"

"No, Kun'l Ward, but I've got some news that I thought ye might like

to hear before ye went past the toll-house this time. Intentions

between Cap'n Aaron Sproul and Miss Jane Ward has been published."

"Wha-a-at!"

"They were married yistiddy."

"Wha--" The cry broke into inarticulateness.

"The Cap'n ain't goin' to be toll-man after to-day. Says he's goin'

to live on the home place with his wife. There!" Uncle Jordan stepped

to one side just in time, for the gaunt horse sprung under the lash

as though he had the wings of Pegasus.

The Cap'n was sitting in front of the toll-house. The tall horse

galloped down the hill, but the Colonel stood up, and, with elbows

akimbo and hands under his chin, yanked the animal to a standstill,

his splay feet skating through the highway dust. The Colonel leaped

over the wheel and reversed his heavy whip-butt. The Cap'n stood up,

gripping a stout cudgel that he had been whittling at for many hours.

While the new arrival was choking with an awful word that he was

trying his best to work out of his throat, the Cap'n pulled his little

note-book out of his pocket and slowly drawled:

"I reckoned as how ye might find time to stop some day, and I've got

your account all figgered. You owe thirteen tolls at ten cents each,

one thutty, and thirteen times three dollars fine--the whole

amountin' to jest forty dollars and thutty cents. Then there's a gate

to--"

"I'm goin' to kill you right in your tracks where you stand!" bellowed

the Colonel.

The Cap'n didn't wait for the attack. He leaped down off his porch,

and advanced with the fierce intrepidity of a sea tyrant.

"You'll pay that toll bill," he gritted, "if I have to pick it out

of your pockets whilst the coroner is settin' on your remains."

The bully of the countryside quailed.

"You've stole my sister!" he screamed. "This ain't about toll I'm

talkin'. You've been and robbed me of my sister!"

"Do you want to hear a word on that?" demanded the Cap'n, grimly.

He came close up, whirling the cudgel. "You're an old, cheap,

ploughed-land blowhard, that's what you are! You've cuffed 'round

hired men and abused weak wimmen-folks. I knowed you was a coward

when I got that line on ye. You don't dast to stand up to a man like

me. I'll split your head for a cent." He kept advancing step by step,

his mien absolutely demoniac. "I've married your sister because she

wanted me. Now I'm goin' to take care of her. I've got thutty thousand

dollars of my own, and she's giv' me power of attorney over hers.

I'll take every cent of what belongs to her out of your business,

and I know enough of the way that your business is tied up to know

that I can crowd you right to the wall. Now do ye want to fight?"

The tyrant's face grew sickly white, for he realized all that threat

meant.

"But there ain't no need of a fight in the fam'ly--and I want you

to understand that I'm a pretty dum big part of the fam'ly after this.

Be ye ready to listen to reason?"

"You're a robber!" gasped the Colonel, trying again to muster his

anger.

"I've got a proposition to make so that there won't be no pull-haulin'

and lawyers to pay, and all that."

"What is it?"

"Pardnership between you and me--equal pardners. I've been lookin'

for jest this chance to go into business."

The Colonel leaped up, and began to stamp round his wagon.

"No, sir," he howled at each stamp. "I'll go to the poor-farm first."

"Shouldn't wonder if I could put you there," calmly rejoined the

Cap'n. "These forced lickidations to settle estates is something

awful when the books ain't been kept any better'n yours. I shouldn't

be a mite surprised to find that the law would get a nab on you for

cheatin' your poor sister."

Again the Colonel's face grew white.

"All is," continued the Cap'n, patronizingly, "if we can keep it all

in the fam'ly, nice and quiet, you ain't goin' to git showed up. Now,

I ain't goin' to listen to no more abuse out of you. I'll give you

jest one minute to decide. Look me in the eye. I mean business."

"You've got me where I'll have to," wailed the Colonel.

"Is it pardnership?"

"Yas!" He barked the word.

"Now, Colonel Ward, there's only one way for you and me to do bus'ness

the rest of our lives, and that's on the square, cent for cent. We

might as well settle that p'int now. Fix up that toll bill, or it's

all off. I won't go into business with a man that don't pay his honest

debts."

He came forward with his hand out.

The Colonel paid.

"Now," said the Cap'n, "seein' that the new man is here, ready to

take holt, and the books are all square, I'll ride home with you.

I've been callin' it home now for a couple of days."

The new man at the toll-house heard the Cap'n talking serenely as

they drove away.

"I didn't have any idee, Colonel, I was goin' to like it so well on

shore as I do. Of course, you meet some pleasant and some unpleasant

people, but that sister of yours is sartinly the finest woman that

ever trod shoe-leather, and it was Providunce a-speakin' to me when

she--"

The team passed away into the gloomy mouth of the Smyrna bridge.