Galusha the Magnificent | Page 8

upon the
platform and stopping to pick them up again, he at length found what
he was looking for. It was an advertisement torn from the Summer
Resort advertising pages of a magazine. Holding it so that the feeble
light from Mr. Beebe's lamp fell upon it, Galusha read, as follows:
THE RESTABIT INN at Beautiful Gould's Bluffs, East Wellmouth,
Mass. Rest, sea air, and pleasant people: Good food and plenty of it.
Reasonable prices. NO FRILLS.
He had chanced upon the advertisement in a tattered, back number
magazine which a fellow passenger had left beside him in a car seat a
month before. He had not quite understood the "NO FRILLS" portion.
Apparently it must be important because the advertiser had put it in
capital letters, but Mr. Bangs was uncertain as to just what it meant.
But there was no uncertainty about the remainder of the "ad."
Rest! His weary muscles and aching joints seemed to relax at the very
whisper of the word. Food! Well, he needed food, it would be welcome,
of course--but rest! Oh, rest!!
And food and rest, not to mention reasonable prices and pleasant
people and no frills, were all but a mile away at the Restabit Inn at
Gould's Bluffs--beautiful Gould's Bluffs. No wonder they called them
beautiful.
He returned the pocketbook to his inside pocket and the flashlight to an
outside one, turned up his coat collar, pulled the brown derby down as
tightly upon his brow as he could, picked up the heavy suitcase and
started forth to tramp the mile which separated his tired self from food
and rest--especially rest.

The first hundred yards of that mile cut him off entirely from the world.
It was dark now, pitch dark, and the fog was so thick as to be almost a
rain. His coat and hat and suitcase dripped with it. The drops ran down
his nose. He felt as if there were almost as much water in the air as
there was beneath him on the ground--not quite as much, for his feet
were wetter than his body, but enough.
And it was so still. No sound of voices, no dogs barking, no murmur of
the wind in trees. There did not seem to be any trees. Occasionally he
swept a circle of his immediate surroundings with the little flashlight,
but all its feeble radiance showed was fog and puddles and wet weeds
and ruts and grass--and more fog.
Still! Oh, yes, deadly still for a long minute's interval, and then out of
the nowhere ahead, with a suddenness which each time caused his
weakened nerves to vibrate like fiddle strings, would burst the bellow
of the great foghorn.
Silence, the splash and "sugg" of Galusha's sodden shoes moving up
and down, up and down--and then:
"OW--ooo--ooo---ooo--OOO!!"
Once a minute the foghorn blew and once a minute Galusha Bangs
jumped as if he were hearing it for the first time.
The signboard had said "1 MILE." One hundred miles, one thousand
miles; that was what it should have said to be truthful. Galusha plodded
on and on, stopping to put down the suitcase, then lifting it and
pounding on again. He had had no luncheon; he had had no dinner. He
was weak from illness. He was wet and chilled. And-- yes, it was
beginning to rain.
He put down the suitcase once more.
"Oh, my soul!" he exclaimed, and not far away, close at hand, the word
"soul" was repeated.

"Oh, dear!" cried Galusha, startled.
"Dear!" repeated the echo, for it was an echo.
Galusha, brandishing the tiny flashlight, moved toward the sound.
Something bulky, huge, loomed in the blackness, a building. The
flashlight's circle, growing dimmer now for the battery was almost
exhausted, disclosed steps and a broad piazza. Mr. Bangs climbed the
steps, crossed the piazza, the boards of which creaked beneath him.
There were doors, but they were shut tight; there were windows, but
they were shuttered. Down the length of the long piazza tramped
Galusha, his heart sinking. Every window was shuttered, every door
was boarded up. Evidently this place, whatever it was, was closed. It
was uninhabited.
He came back to the front door again. Over it was a sign, he had not
looked as high before. Now he raised the dimming flashlight and read:
"THE RESTABIT INN. Open June 15 to September 15."
September 15!!! Why, September was past and gone. This was the 3rd
of October. The Restabit Inn was closed for the season.
Slowly, Galusha, tugging the suitcase, stumbled to the edge of the
piazza. There he collapsed, rather than sat down, upon the upper step.
Above him, upon the piazza roof, the rain descended heavily. The
flashlight dimmed and went out altogether.
"OW--ooo---ooo--ooo--OOO!!" whooped the foghorn.
Later, just how much