"But I"m full up--chock!" pleaded Mr. Brackett. "I wisht I"d have saved room. I reckon it"s good. But I ain"t carin" for it."
"You"ll come out and eat that duff if I have to stuff it down your thro"t with the b.u.t.t of your hoss-whip," said the Cap"n with an iciness that was terrifying. He grabbed the little man by the collar and dragged him toward the dining-room, balancing the dish in the other hand.
"I"ll bust," wailed Mr. Brackett.
"Well, that b.u.mp will make a little room," remarked Cap"n Sproul, jouncing him down into a chair.
He planted one broad hand on the table and the other on his hip, and stood over the guest until the last crumb of the duff was gone, although Mr. Brackett clucked hiccups like an overfed hen. The Cap"n felt some of his choler evaporate, indulging in this sweet act of tyranny.
Resentment came slowly into the jovial nature of meek Todd Ward Brackett. But as he pushed away from the table he found courage to bend baleful gaze on his over-hospitable host.
"I"ve put up at a good many taverns in my life," he said, "and I"m allus willin" to eat my fair share of vittles, but I reckon I"ve got the right to say how much!"
"If you"re done eatin"," snapped the Cap"n, "get along out, and don"t stay round in the way of the help." And Mr. Brackett retired, growling over this astonishing new insult.
He surveyed the suspended alligator gloomily, as he stuffed tobacco into his pipe.
"Better shet them jaws," he advised, "or now that he"s crazy on the plum-duff question he"ll be jamming the rest of that stuff into you."
"You can"t say outside that the table ain"t all right or that folks go away hungry under the new management," remarked Hiram, endeavoring to palliate.
"New management goin" to inorg"rate the plum-duffin" idee as a reg"lar system?" inquired Mr. Brackett, sullenly. "If it is, I"ll stay over to-morrow and see you operate on the new elder that"s goin"
to supply the pulpit Sunday--pervidin" he stays here."
Hiram blinked his eyes inquiringly. "New elder?" he repeated.
"Get a few elders to put up here," suggested Mr. Brackett, venomously, "and new management might take a little cuss off"m the reppytation of this tavern." And the guest fell to smoking and muttering.
Even as wisdom sometimes falls from the mouths of babes, so do good ideas occasionally spring from careless sarcasm.
After Mr. Brackett had retired Hiram discussed the matter of the impending elder with Cap"n Sproul, the Cap"n not warming to the proposition.
"But I tell you if we can get that elder here," insisted Hiram, "and explain it to him and get him to stay, he"s goin" to look at it in the right light, if he"s got any Christian charity in him. We"ll entertain him free, do the right thing by him, tell him the case from A to Z, and get him to handle them infernal wimmen. Only an elder can do it. If we don"t he may preach a sermon against us. That"ll kill our business proposition deader"n it is now. If he stays it will give a tone to the new management, and he can straighten the thing out for us."
Not only did Cap"n Sproul fail to become enthusiastic, but he was so distinctly discouraging that Hiram forbore to argue, feeling his own optimistic resolution weaken under this depressing flow of cold water.
He did not broach the matter the next morning. He left the Cap"n absorbed and busy in his domain of pots, set his jaws, took his own horse and pung, and started betimes for the railroad-station two miles away. On the way he overtook and pa.s.sed, with fine contempt for their podgy horse, a delegation from the W.T.W."s.
On the station platform they frowned upon him, and he scowled at them.
He realized that his only chance in this desperate venture lay in getting at the elder first, and frisking him away before the women had opportunity to open their mouths. A word from them might check operations. And then, with the capture once made, if he could speed his horse fast enough to allow him an uninterrupted quarter of an hour at the tavern with the minister, he decided that only complete paralysis of the tongue could spoil his plan.
Hiram, with his superior bulk and his desperate eagerness, had the advantage of the women at the car-steps. He crowded close. It was the white-lawn tie on the first pa.s.senger who descended that did the business for Hiram. In his mind white-lawn ties and clergymen were too intimately a.s.sociated to admit of error. He yanked away the little man"s valise, grabbed his arm, and rushed him across the platform and into the pung"s rear seat. And the instant he had scooped the reins from the dasher he flung himself into the front seat and was away up the road, larruping his horse and ducking the snow-cakes that hurtled from the animal"s hoofs.
"Look here! I--I--" gasped the little man, prodding him behind.
"It"s all right, elder!" bellowed Hiram. "You wait till we get there and it will be made all right. Set clus" and hold on, that"s all now!"
"But, look here, I want to go to Smyrna tavern!"
"Good for you!" Hiram cried. "Set clus" and you"ll get there!" It seemed, after all, that ill repute had not spread far. His spirits rose, and he whipped on at even better speed.
"If this isn"t life or death," pleaded the little man, "you needn"t hurry so." Several "thank-you-marms" had nearly bounced him out.
"Set clus"," advised the driver, and the little man endeavored to obey the admonition, clinging in the middle of the broad seat.
Hiram did not check speed even on the slope of the hill leading into the village, though the little man again lifted voice of fear and protest. So tempestuous was the rush of the pung that the loafers in Broadway"s store hustled out to watch. And they saw the runners strike the slush-submerged plank-walk leading across the square, beheld the end of the pung flip, saw the little man rise high above the seat with a fur robe in his arms and alight with a yell of mortal fright in the mushy highway, rolling over and over behind the vehicle.
Helping hands of those running from the store platform picked him up, and brought his hat, and stroked the slush out of his eyes so that he could see Hiram Look sweeping back to recover his pa.s.senger.
"You devilish, infernal jayhawk of a lunatic!" squealed the little man. "Didn"t I warn you not to drive so fast?"
Hiram"s jaw dropped at the first blast of that irreligious outbreak.
But the white-lawn tie rea.s.sured him. There was no time for argument.
Before those loafers was no fit place. He grabbed up the little man, poked him into the pung, held him in with one hand and with the other drove furiously to the tavern porch. With equal celerity he hustled him into the office.
"You ain"t in any condition to talk business jest now till you"re slicked off a little, elder," he began in tones of abject apology.
"You bet your jeeroosly life I"m not!" cried the little man in a perfect frenzy of fury.
Again Hiram opened his mouth agitatedly, and his eyebrows wrinkled in pained surprise. Yet once more his eyes sought the white tie and his hand reached for the little man"s arm, and, feeling at a loss just then for language of explanation, he hurried him up-stairs and into a room whose drawn curtains masked some of its untidiness.
"You wash up, elder," he counselled. "I won"t let anybody disturb you, and then whatever needs to be explained will be all explained.
Don"t you blame me till you know it all." And he backed out and shut the door.
He faced the Cap"n at the foot of the stairs. The Cap"n had been watching intently the ascent of the two, and had gathered from the little man"s scuffles and his language that he was not a particularly enthusiastic guest.
"They come hard, but we must have "em, hey?" he demanded, grimly.
"This is worse than shanghaiing for a Liverpool boardin"-house, and I won"t--"
"S-s-s-sh!" hissed Hiram, flapping his hand. "That"s the elder."
"An elder? A man that uses that kind of language?"
"He"s had good reason for it," returned Hiram, fervently. "It"s stout talk, but I ain"t blamin" him." He locked the outside door. "Them Double-yer T. Double-yers will be flockin" this way in a few minutes," he said, in explanation, "but they"ll have to walk acrost me in addition to the doormat to get him before I"ve had my say."
But even while he was holding the unconvinced Cap"n by the arm and eagerly going over his arguments, once more they heard the treading of many feet in the office. There were the W.T.W."s in force, and they had with them a tall, gaunt man; and the presence of Mrs. Look and Mrs. Sproul, flushed but determined, indicated that the citadel had been betrayed from the rear.
"I present to you Reverend T. Thayer, gents," said the president, icily, "and seein" that he is field-secretary of the enforcement league, and knows his duty when he sees it clear, he will talk to you for your own good, and if it don"t do you good, I warn you that there will be something said from the pulpit to-morrow that will bring down the guilty in high places."
"The elder!" gasped Hiram, whirling to gaze aghast at the Cap"n. Then he turned desperate eyes up at the ceiling, where creaking footsteps sounded. "Who in the name o" Jezebel--" he muttered.
Above there was a sort of spluttering bark of a human voice, and the next moment there was a sound as of some one running about wildly.
Then down the stairs came the guest, clattering, slipping, and falling the last few steps as he clung to the rail. His eyes were shut tight, his face was dripping, and he was plaintively bleating over and over: "I"m poisoned! I"m blind!"
Hiram ran to him and picked him up from where he had fallen. His coat and vest were off, and his suspenders trailed behind him. One sniff at his frowsled hair told Hiram the story. The little man"s topknot was soppy with whiskey; his face was running with it; his eyes were full of it. And the next moment the doubtful aroma had spread to the nostrils of all. And the one-eyed hostler and liquor depository, standing on the outskirts of the throng that he had solicitously followed in, slapped palm against thigh and cried: "By Peter, that"s the gallon I poured in the water-pitcher and forgot where I left it!"
"Didn"t I tell you and command you and order you to throw away all the liquor round this place, you one-eyed sandpipe?" demanded Hiram, furiously.