When we got down to the bridge we saw that the tide was right up so we even had to duck our heads to get under, and right on the other side of the bridge was a tugboat standing facing upstream and its whistle was screeching and screeching just like a dog stands and barks when he"s mad.
It seemed awful funny because it was a small tug and it made so much noise.
"It ought to be named the Pee-wee," Westy said.
"n.o.body"s paying much attention to it," I told him.
Just as we came under the bridge we could see a big fat man, oh, Christopher, wasn"t he fat, standing up in the pilot house pulling and pulling the whistle rope, for the bridge to open. Sometimes he"d pull it very fast, just like you do with the receiver on the telephone when you"re good and mad because Central don"t answer. And it was pretty near as bad as the telephone, too, because he went on tooting and tooting and tooting and n.o.body paid any attention to him.
CHAPTER XXIX
JIMMY, THE BRIDGE-TENDER
Pretty soon the big fat man stuck his head out of the window and he shouted, "What"s the matter, is everybody deaf around here? Here, you boys, where"s the bridgeman?" Honest, you"d think I had the bridgeman in my pocket. I told him I didn"t know where the bridgeman was. Oh, but he looked mad. He had an awful red face and white whiskers and I guess he must have been used to ordering people around--anyway, he looked that way.
He said, "Here I am on the down tide, the water going out every minute and got to run up to North Bridgeboro yet. It"s a--" he said what kind of an outrage it was, but I wouldn"t tell you. Oh, he was hopping mad.
"I"ll get stuck hard and fast in the consarned mud," he said, "if I ain"t back and past this here Sleepy Hollow in forty minutes--that"s what I will!"
I hollered up to him that I"d row across to Jimmy"s house and see if he was asleep.
"Asleep!" that"s just the way he shouted. "Do bridgeman sleep on full tide up this way? Don"t he know the harbor and waterway laws? I"ll make it hot for "im--I will." And then he began pulling the whistle faster and faster.
"Somebody must have been feeding him meat," Westy whispered to me.
"He"s good and mad, that"s sure," I said. Even while we rowed across to Jimmy"s shanty I could hear him shouting between the whistlings and saying he"d have the bridgeman up for deserting on flood tide and putting him in the mud. And jiminy, I have to admit that he was up against it, because the tide was running down and by the time he got up to North Bridgeboro and back, it would maybe be too low in the channel. One thing, Jimmy had a right to be there, especially at flood tide, I knew that. But I guess the reason he wasn"t was because nothing but little motor boats ever came up our river and they can always crawl under.
Jimmy lives all by himself on account of being old and his people are all dead. I said to Westy that maybe he was just asleep, so we knocked and knocked, but n.o.body came to the door. Then I knew he wasn"t there at all or else maybe he was dead.
"Anyway, we"d better find out," I said, "because it"s mighty funny him not being there, seeing that he never goes away anywhere."
All the time we could hear that old grouch shouting about Bridgeboro and our river and saying it was Sleepy Hollow and Dopeville, and the river was a mud hole. But it isn"t and don"t you believe it.
"Anyway, I"m going to climb in through the shed window," I said, "and see if maybe Jimmy is sick or dead." I could see that Pee-wee was not exactly scared but sort of anxious, and I was too, I have to admit it.
Westy and I got the shed window open, all right, because Jimmy wasn"t careful about it, on account of not having anything worth stealing, I suppose. I was kind of shaky when we went into the first room, because that was where he slept and I thought maybe he"d be lying there dead.
But he wasn"t there at all. Just the same we stood there looking at each other, and we were both kind of nervous, because Jimmy"s clothes were lying all around on the bed and on the floor, and a chair was knocked over, and it looked just as if somebody had been rummaging in the room in a big hurry. The door into the other room was closed and, I have to admit, I didn"t feel like opening it.
"I bet somebody"s robbed him and killed him," Westy said, kind of low.
"That"s just what I"m thinking," I said, "and when we open that door we"ll see him lying on the floor dead, hey?"
"Anyway, we have to open it," he said.
"I"ll open it if you don"t want to," I told him.
But, anyway, neither of us opened it. We just stood there and I felt awful funny. It was all still and spooky and you could hear the clock ticking, and I counted the ticks. It sounded spooky, going tick, tick, tick.
Then Westy said, "Shall I open it?"
"Sure," I said, "we"ve got to sometime."
So he opened it just a little bit and then, all of a sudden, he pushed it wide open and we looked into that other room.
CHAPTER x.x.x
GONE
In the middle of the room was a table Jimmy always ate his meals at, and on that table was a big square piece of paper and there was a big envelope on the floor. But there wasn"t any sign of Jimmy. Oh, boy, didn"t I feel good on account of that. Westy read the paper out loud and it was something about a convention of the Grand Army, or something like that. It said how all the members of some post or other were asked to go to Saratoga on account of that big convention and it was addressed to "Comrade James Van Dorian." Gee, I felt awful sorry for him, sort of, because I knew how it was with him.
"He just couldn"t help it," Westy said, "he got ready in a hurry and went. I guess he took all the money he had saved up-poor old Jimmy."
"He"ll lose his job, that"s sure," I said.
Even while we were standing there I could kind of see him getting dressed up in a hurry in that old blue coat he had, with the b.u.t.tons all falling off it, and starting off with his crutch. Maybe he just got his pension money, hey?
All the while the whistle on the tug was blowing and I was afraid people would come around and maybe they"d all be on the side of the tugboat man and be mad at Uncle Jimmy.
Jiminy, I wasn"t mad at him, anyway. And I could hear that old man shouting about all the things he was going to do and about the bridgeman deserting and leaving him in the mud.
"Hurry up," Westy said, "let"s find the key-bar and we"ll open it for him, we can do it all right."
So we looked all around in a hurry, but we couldn"t find it anywhere.
The key-bar is what you open the bridge with, you know. It"s kind of like a crow-bar and you stick it in a certain place and walk around pushing it. It isn"t so hard when you get started on account of the bridge being balanced right and it"s geared up, too. But what"s the use if you can"t find the key-bar?
"It must be somewheres around," Westy said, all excited.
Oh, didn"t we turn things inside out! But it wasn"t any use--we couldn"t find it.
"Don"t let"s bother," I said, "I"ve got an idea, come ahead--quick!"
I didn"t even stop to tell him what I was thinking about, but I hustled back into the boat, with Pee-wee after us, wanting to know what we found inside.
"A couple of mysteries," I panted out.
"How many?" he wanted to know.
"And a couple of ghosts thrown in," I said, "Hurry up."
On the way across I told the fellows to please let me talk to the old man, because I had something particular to say to him. I was panting and rowing so hard, that I couldn"t tell the fellows then. Anyway, I guess Pee-wee had that house haunted and filled with German spies and Uncle Jimmy murdered and goodness knows what all.
We pulled up right alongside the tug-boat and I called out to the old man that I wanted to tell him something and to please let me come up.
I was all trembling, but anyway, I said it right out and I didn"t wait for him to say yes, because he was too busy saying other things to say it.
Westy and Pee-wee stayed in the rowboat and I went right up into the little house where the old man was. Oh, boy, wasn"t everything polished all nice and shiny! Gee, it was nice up in there. The wheel looked awfully big and the compa.s.s, you could just see your face in it. And it smelled kind of oily and nice up there. Wouldn"t I like to live in a place like that!