A brisk, little, round-faced man sat on the high seat, bolt upright
in the middle of it, carolling lustily. It was "Balm o' Joy" Brackett,
pursuing his humble vocation and using his familiar method of
attracting customers to their doors.
"Shet up that clack!" roared the Cap'n.
"Hillo, hullo, hallah, gallant Captain," chirped Brackett,
imperturbable under the seaman's glare. "I trust that glory floods
your soul and all the world seems gay." And he went on breathlessly:
"May ev'ry hour of your life seem like a pan of Jersey milk, and may
you skim the cream off'm it. Let's be happy, let's be gay, trade with
me when I come your way. Tinware shines like the new-ris' sun, twist,
braid, needles beat by none; here's your values, cent by cent, and
Balm o' Joy lin-i-ment. Trade with--"
"Git out o' this yard!" bawled the Cap'n, in his storm-and-tempest
tones. "You crack-brained, rag-and-bone-land-pirate, git off'm my
premises! I don't want your stuff. I've bought the last cent's wu'th
of you I'll ever buy. Git out!"
"The Cap'n isn't well to-day, Todd," quavered Mrs. Sproul. Fear
prompted her to keep still. But many years of confidential barter
of rags for knicknacks had made Todd Brackett seem like "own folks,"
as she expressed it. "We won't trade any to-day," she added,
apologetically.
"Nor we won't trade ever," bawled the Cap'n, poising himself on one
foot like an angry hawk. "You go 'long out of this yard."
Without losing his smile--for he had been long accustomed to the
taunts and tirades of dissatisfied housewives--the peddler backed
his cart around and drove away, crying over his shoulder with great
good-humor:
"A merry life and a jolly life is the life for you and me!"
"I'll make life merry for ye, if ye come into this yard ag'in, you
whiffle-headed dog-vane, you!" the Cap'n squalled after him. But
Brackett again struck up his roundelay:
"There was old Hip Huff, who went by freight
To Newry Corner, in this State.
Put him in a crate to git him there,
With a two-cent stamp to pay his fare.
Rowl de fang-go--old Smith's mare."
The Cap'n hopped into the house and set his foot again on the cricket
that his wife brought dutifully. He gritted his teeth as long as the
voice of the singer came to his ears.
"I wish you hadn't," mourned his wife; "he's as good-meaning a man
as there is in town, even if he is a little light-headed. He's always
given me good trades, and his st'ilyards don't cheat on rags."
The old mariner was evidently preparing a stinging reply, but a knock
on the door interrupted him. Louada Murilla admitted three men, who
marched in solemnly, one behind the other, all beaming with great
cordiality. Cap'n Sproul, not yet out of the doldrums, simply
glowered and grunted as they took seats.
Then one of them, whom Sproul knew as Ludelphus Murray, the local
blacksmith, arose and cleared his throat with ominous formality.
"It's best to hammer while the iron is hot, Cap'n," he said. "It won't
take many clips o' the tongue to tell you what we've come for. We
three here are a committee from the Smyrna Ancient and Honer'ble
Firemen's Association to notify you that at a meetin' last ev'nin'
you was unanimously elected a member of that organization, and--"
"Oh, Aaron!" cried Louada Murilla, ecstatically. "How glad I am this
honor has been given to you! My own father belonged."
"And," continued Murray, with a satisfied smile, and throwing back
his shoulders as one who brings great tidings, "it has been realized
for a long time that there ain't been the discipline in the
association that there ought to be. We have now among us in our midst
one who has commanded men and understands how to command men; one
who has sailed the ragin' deep in times of danger, and--and, well,
a man that understands how to go ahead and take the lead in tittlish
times. So the association"--he took a long breath--"has elected you
foreman, and I hereby hand you notice of the same and the book of
rules."
The Cap'n scowled and put his hand behind the rocking-chair in which
he was seated.
"Not by a--" he began, but Murray went on with cheerful explanation.
"I want to say to you that this association is over a hundred years
old, and our hand tub, the 'Hecla,' is ninety-seven years old, and
has took more prizes squirtin' at musters than any other tub in the
State. We ain't had many fires ever in Smyrna, but the Ancients take
the leadin' rank in all social events, and our dances and banquets
are patronized by the best."
"It's an awful big honor, Aaron," gasped his wife. She turned to the
committee. "The Cap'n hasn't been feelin' well, gentlemen, and this
honor has kind of overcome him. But I know he appreciates it. My own
father was foreman once, and it's a wonderful thing to think that
my husband is now."
"'Tain't likely that the Ancients will ever forgit them dinners we
had here, Mis' Sproul," remarked one of the men, 'suffling' the
moisture at the corners of his mouth.
"Seein' that you ain't well, we don't expect no speech, Cap'n," said
Murray, laying the documents upon Sproul's knee. "I see that the
honor has overcome you, as it nat'rally might any man. We will now
take our leave with a very good-day, and wishin' you all of the best,
yours truly, and so forth." He backed away, and the others rose.
"Pass through the kitchen, gentlemen," said Mrs. Sproul, eagerly.
"I will set out a treat." They trudged that way with deep bows at
the threshold to their newly drafted foreman, who still glared at
them speechlessly.
When Mrs. Sproul returned at length, still fluttering in her
excitement, he was reading the little pamphlet that had been left
with him, a brick-red color slowly crawling up the back of his neck.
"Just think of it for an honor, Aaron," she stammered, "and you here
in town only such a little while! Oh, I am so proud of you! Mr. Murray
brought the things in his team and left them on the piazza. I'll run
and get them."
She spread them on the sitting-room floor, kneeling before him like
a priestess offering sacrifice. With his thumb in the pamphlet, he
stared at the array.
There was a battered leather hat with a broad apron, or scoop, behind
to protect the back. On a faded red shield above the visor was the
word "Foreman." There were two equally battered leather buckets.
There was a dented speaking-trumpet. These the Cap'n dismissed one
by one with an impatient scowl. But he kicked at one object with his
well foot.
"What's that infernal thing?" he demanded.
"A bed-wrench, Aaron. It's to take apart corded beds so as to get
them out of houses that are on fire. There aren't hardly any corded
beds now, of course, but it's a very old association that you're
foreman of, and the members keep the old things. It's awfully nice
to do so, I think. It's like keeping the furniture in old families.
And that big bag there, with the puckerin'-string run around it, is
the bag to put china and valuables into and lug away."
"And your idee of an honor, is it," he sneered, "is that I'm goin'
to put that dingbusset with a leather back-fin onto my head and grab
up them two leather swill-pails and stick that iron thing there under
my arm and grab that puckering-string bag in my teeth and start
tophet-te-larrup over this town a-chasin' fires? Say--" but his
voice choked, and he began to read once more the pamphlet. The red
on the back of his neck grew deeper.
At last the explosion occurred.
"Louada Murilla Sproul, do you mean to say that you've had this thing
in your fam'ly once, and was knowin' what it meant, and then let them
three Shanghaiers come in here and shove this bloodsucker bus'ness
onto me, and git away all safe and sound? I had been thinkin' that
your Todds and Wards was spreadin' some sail for villuns, but they're
only moskeeters to Barb'ry pirates compared with this."
He cuffed his hand against the open pages of the pamphlet.
"It says here that the foreman has to set up a free dinner for 'em
four times a year and ev'ry holiday. It says that the foreman is fined
two dollars for ev'ry monthly meetin' that he misses, other members
ten cents. He's fined ten dollars for ev'ry fire that he isn't at,
other members a quarter of a dollar. He's fined one dollar for ev'ry
time he's ketched without his hat, buckets, bag, and bed-wrench hung
in his front hall where they belong, other members ten cents. And
he's taxed a quarter of the whole expenses of gittin' to firemen's
muster and back. Talk about lettin' blood with a gimlet! Why, they're
after me with a pod-auger!"
All the afternoon he read the little book, cuffed it, and cursed.
He snapped up Louada Murilla with scant courtesy when she tried to
give him the history of Smyrna's most famous organization, and
timorously represented to him the social eminence he had attained.
"It isn't as though you didn't have money, and plenty of it," she
pleaded. "You can't get any more good out of it than by spending it
that way. I tell you, Aaron, it isn't to be sneezed at, leading all
the grand marches at the Ancients' dances and being boss of 'em all
at the muster, with the band a-playin' and you leading 'em right up
the middle of the street. It's worth it, Aaron--and I shall be so
proud of you!"
He grumbled less angrily the next morning. But he still insisted that
he didn't propose to let the consolidated Todds and Wards of Smyrna
bunco him into taking the position, and said that he should attend
the next meeting of the Ancients and resign.
But when, on the third evening after his election, the enthusiastic
members of the Smyrna A. & H.F.A. came marching up from the village,
the brass band tearing the air into ribbons with cornets and
trombones, his stiff resolve wilted suddenly. He began to grin
shamefacedly under his grizzled beard, and hobbled out onto the porch
and made them a stammering speech, and turned scarlet with pride when
they cheered him, and basked in the glory of their compliments, and
thrilled when they respectfully called him "Chief." He even told
Louada Murilla that she was a darling, when she, who had been
forewarned, produced a "treat" from a hiding-place in the cellar.
"I knew you'd appreciate it all as soon as you got wonted to the honor,
Aaron," she whispered, happy tears in her eyes. "It's the social
prominence--that's all there is to it. There hasn't been a fire in
the town for fifteen years, and you aren't going to be bothered one
mite. Oh, isn't that band just lovely?"
The Cap'n went to bed late that night, his ears tingling with the
adulation of the multitude, and in his excited insomnia
understanding for the first time in his life the words: "Uneasy lies
the head that wears a crown." He realized more fully now that his
shipmaster days had given him a taste for command, and that he had
come into his own again.