The Skipper and the Skipped, Holman Day [book recommendations for teens TXT] 📗

roof fly up, or something of the sort.
He did not bestow any especial attention on his friend Hiram Look when the ex-circus man drove up to the hitching-post in front of the town house with a fine flourish, hitched and came in.
"Seems that your wife and mine have gone temperancin' again to-day with the bunch," remarked Hiram, relighting his cigar. "I don't know what difference it makes whether old Branscomb and the other soshes round here get their ruin in an express-package or help Ferd to a little business. They're bound to have it, anyway."
"That ain't the p'int," protested Constable Nute, stiffly, throwing back his coat to display his badge. "Ferd Parrott's breakin' the law, and it hurts my feelin's as an officer to hear town magnates and reprusentative citizens glossin' it over for him."
The Cap'n stared at him balefully but did not trust himself to retort. Hiram was not so cautious. He bridled instantly and insolently.
"There's always some folks in this world ready to stick their noses into the door-crack of a man's business when they know the man ain't got strength to slam the door shut on 'em. Wimmen's clubs is all right so long as they stick to readin' hist'ry and discussin' tattin', but when they flock like a lot of old hen turkeys and go to peckin' a man because he's down and can't help himself, it ain't anything but persecution--wolves turnin' on another one that's got his leg broke. I know animiles, and I know human critters. Them wimmen better be in other business, and I told my wife so this mornin'."
"So did I," said Cap'n Sproul, gloomily.
"And mine up at me like a settin' hen."
"So did mine," assented the Cap'n.
"Gave me a lecture on duties of man to feller man."
"Jest the same to my house."
"Have any idea who's been stuffin' their heads with them notions?" inquired Hiram, malevolently.
"Remember that square-cornered female with a face harder'n the physog of a wooden figurehead that was here last winter, and took 'em aloft and told 'em how to reef parli'ment'ry law, and all such?" asked the Cap'n. "Well, she was the one."
"You mind my word," cried Hiram, vibrating his cigar, "when a wife begins to take orders from an old maid in frosted specs instead of from her own husband, then the moths is gettin' ready to eat the worsted out of the cardboard in the motto 'God bless our home!'"
"Law is law," broke in the unabashed representative of it, "and if the men-folks of this town ain't got the gumption to stand behind an officer--"
"Look here, Nute," gritted the Cap'n, "I'll stand behind you in about two seconds, and I'll be standin' on one foot, at that! Don't you go to castin' slurs on your betters. Because I've stood some talk from you to-day isn't any sign that I'm goin' to stand any more."
Now the first selectman had the old familiar glint in his eyes, and Mr. Nute sat down meekly, returning no answer to the Cap'n's sarcastic inquiry why he wasn't over at the tavern acting as convoy for the Temperance Workers.
Two minutes later some one came stamping along the corridor of the town house. The office door was ajar, and this some one pushed it open with his foot.
It was Landlord Ferd Parrott. In one hand he carried an old glazed valise, in the other a canvas extension-case, this reduplication of baggage indicating a serious intention on the part of Mr. Parrott to travel far and remain long. His visage was sullen and the set of his jaws was ugly. Mr. Parrott had eyes that turned out from his nose, and though the Cap'n and Hiram were on opposite sides of the room it seemed as though his peculiar vision enabled him to fix an eye on each at the same time.
"I'm glad I found you here both together," he snarled. "I can tell you both at one whack. I ain't got northin' against you. You've used me like gents. I don't mean to dump you, nor northin' of the sort, but there ain't anything I can seem to do. You take what there is--this here is all that belongs to me." He shook the valises at them. "I'm goin' to git out of this God-forsaken town--I'm goin' now, and I'm goin' strong, and you're welcome to all I leave, just as I leave it. For the first time in my life I'm glad I'm a widderer."
After gazing at Mr. Parrott for a little time the Cap'n and Hiram searched each the other's face with much interest. It was apparent that perfect confidence did not exist between them on some matters that were to the fore just then.
"Yours," said Mr. Parrott, jerking a stiff nod to the Cap'n, "is a morgidge on house and stable and land. Yours," he continued, with another nod at Hiram, "is a bill o' sale of all the furniture, dishes, liv'ry critters and stable outfit. Take it all and git what you can out of it."
"This ain't no way to do--skip out like this," objected Hiram.
"Well, it's _my_ way," replied Mr. Parrott, stubbornly, "and, seein' that you've got security and all there is, I don't believe you can stop me."
Mr. Parrott dropped his valises and whacked his fists together.
"If the citizens of this place don't want a hotel they needn't have a hotel," he shrilled. "If they want to turn wimmen loose on me to run me up a tree, by hossomy! I'll pull the tree up after me."
"Look here, Ferd," said the Cap'n, eagerly, forgetting for the moment the presence of Constable Nute, "those wimmen might gabble a little at you and make threats and things like that--but--but--there isn't anything they can do, you understand!" He winked at Mr. Parrott. "You know what I told you!"
But Mr. Parrott was in no way swayed or mollified.
"They _can't'_ do anything, can't they?" he squealed. "They've been into my house and knocked in the head of a keg of Medford rum, and busted three demijohns of whiskey, and got old Branscomb to sign the pledge, and scared off the rest of the boys. Now they're goin' to hire a pung, and a delegation of three is goin' to meet every train with badges on and tell every arrivin' guest that the Smyrna tavern is a nasty, wicked place, and old Aunt Juliet Gifford and her two old-maid girls are goin' to put up all parties at half-price. They _can't_ do anything, hey! them wimmen can't? Well, that's what they've done to date--and if the married men of this place can't keep their wives to home and their noses out of my business, then Smyrna can get along without a tavern. I'm done, I say. It's all yours." Mr. Parrott tossed his open palms toward them in token of utter surrender, and picked up his valises.
"You can't shove that off onto us that way," roared Hiram.
"Well, your money is there, and you can go take it or leave it," retorted the desperate Mr. Parrott. "You'd better git your money where you can git it, seein' that you can't very well git it out of my hide." And the retiring landlord of Smyrna tavern stormed out and plodded away down the mushy highway.
Constable Nute gazed after him through the window, and then surveyed the first selectman and Hiram with fresh and constantly increasing interest. His tufty eyebrows crawled like caterpillars, indicating that the thoughts under them must be of a decidedly stirring nature.
"Huh! That's it, is it?" he muttered, and noting that Cap'n Sproul seemed to be recovering his self-possession, he preferred not to wait for the threats and extorted pledge that his natural craftiness scented. He dove out.
"Where be ye goin' to?" demanded Hiram, checking the savage rush of the Cap'n.
"Catch him and make him shet his chops about this, if I have to spike his old jaws together."
"It ain't no use," said Hiram, gloomily, setting his shoulders against the door. "You'd only be makin' a show and spectacle in front of the wimmen. And after that they'd squat the whole thing out of him, the same as you'd squat stewed punkin through a sieve." He bored the Cap'n with inquiring eye. "You wasn't tellin' me that you held a morgidge on that tavern real estate." There was reproach in his tones.
"No, and you wasn't tellin' me that you had a bill of sale of the fixin's and furniture," replied the Cap'n with acerbity. "How much did you let him have?"
"Fifteen hunderd," said Hiram, rather shamefacedly, but he perked up a bit when he added: "There's three pretty fair hoss-kind."
"If there's anything about that place that's spavined any worse'n them hosses it's the bedsteads," snorted the other capitalist. "He's beat you by five hundred dollars. If you should pile that furniture in the yard and hang up a sign, 'Help yourself,' folks wouldn't haul it off without pay for truckin'."
"Le's see!" said Hiram, fingering his nose, "was it real money or Confederate scrip that _you_ let him have on _your_ morgidge?"
"Thutty-five hunderd ain't much on the most central piece of real estate in this village," declared the Cap'n, in stout defence.
"It's central, all right, but so is the stomach-ache," remarked Hiram, calmly. "What good is that land when there ain't been a buildin' built in this town for fifteen years, and no call for any? As for the house, I'll bet ye a ten-cent cigar I can go over there and push it down--and I ain't braggin' of my strength none, either."
The Cap'n did not venture to defend his investment further. He stared despondently through the window at the seamed roof and weather-worn walls that looked particularly forlorn and dilapidated on that gray March day.
"I let him have money on it when the trees was leaved out, and things look different then," he sighed.
"And I must have let him have it when I was asleep and dreamin' that Standard Ile had died and left his money to me," snorted the showman. "I ain't blamin' you, Cap, and you needn't blame me, but the size of it is you and me has gone into partnership and bought a tavern, and didn't know it. If they had let Parrott alone he might have wiggled out of the hole after a while."
"It ain't wuth a hoorah in a hen-pen if it ain't run as a tavern," stated the Cap'n. "I ain't in favor of rum nor sellin' rum, and I knew that Ferd was sellin' a little suthin' on the sly, but he told me he was goin' to repair up and git in some summer boarders, and I was lettin' him work along. There ain't much business nor look-ahead to wimmen, is there?" he asked, sourly.
"Not when they bunch themselves in a flock and get to squawkin'," agreed his friend.
"I don't know what they are doin' over there now," averred the first selectman, "but before they set fire to it or tear the daylights out, and seein' as how it's our property accordin' to present outlook, I reckon we'd better go over and put an eye on things. They prob'ly think it belongs to Ferd."
"Not since that bean-pole with a tin badge onto it got acrost there with its mouth open," affirmed Hiram, with decision, "and if he ain't told 'em that we bought Ferd out and set him up in the rum business, he's lettin' us out easier than I figger on."
The concerted glare of eyes that fairly assailed them when they somewhat diffidently ventured into the office of the tavern indicated that Hiram was not far off in his "figgerin'." The embarrassed self-consciousness of Constable Nute, staring at the stained ceiling, told much.