The Depot Master | Page 5

represented by "Issy" McKay--his full name was Issachar Ulysses Grant McKay--a long-legged, freckled-faced, tow- headed youth of twenty, who, as usual, was sprawled along the settee by the wall, engrossed in a paper covered dime novel. "Issy" was a lover of certain kinds of literature and reveled in lurid fiction. As a youngster he had, at the age of thirteen, after a course of reading in the "Deadwood Dick Library," started on a pedestrian journey to the Far West, where, being armed with home-made tomahawk and scalping knife, he contemplated extermination of the noble red man. A wrathful pursuing parent had collared the exterminator at the Bayport station, to the huge delight of East Harniss, young and old. Since this adventure Issy had been famous, in a way.
He was Captain Sol Berry's assistant at the depot. Why an assistant was needed was a much discussed question. Why Captain Sol, a retired seafaring man with money in the bank, should care to be depot master at ten dollars a week was another. The Captain himself said he took the place because he wanted to do something that was "half way between a loaf and a job." He employed an assistant at his own expense because he "might want to stretch the loafin' half." And he hired Issy because--well, because "most folks in East Harniss are alike and you can always tell about what they'll say or do. Now Issy's different. The Lord only knows what HE'S likely to do, and that makes him interestin' as a conundrum, to guess at. He kind of keeps my sense of responsibility from gettin' mossy, Issy does."
"Issy," hailed Mr. Phinney, "has the Cap'n got here yet?"
Issy answered not. The villainous floorwalker had just proffered matrimony or summary discharge to "Flora, the Beautiful Shop Girl," and pending her answer, the McKay mind had no room for trifles.
"Issy!" shouted Simeon. "I say, Is', Wake up, you foolhead! Has Cap'n Sol--"
"No, he ain't, Sim," volunteered Ed Crocker. He and his chum, Cornelius Rowe, were seated in two of the waiting room chairs, their feet on two others. "He ain't got here yet. We was just talkin' about him. You've heard about Olive Edwards, I s'pose likely, ain't you?"
Phinney nodded gloomily.
"Yes," he said, "I've heard."
"Well, it's too bad," continued Crocker. "But, after all, it's Olive's own fault. She'd ought to have married Sol Berry when she had the chance. What she ever gave him the go-by for, after the years they was keepin' comp'ny, is more'n I can understand."
Cornelius Rowe shook his head, with an air of wisdom. Captain Sol, himself, remarked once: "I wonder sometimes the Almighty ain't jealous of Cornelius, he knows so much and is so responsible for the runnin' of all creation."
"Humph!" grunted Mr. Rowe. "There's more to that business than you folks think. Olive didn't notice Bill Edwards till Sol went off to sea and stayed two years and over. How do you know she shook Sol? You might just as well say he shook her. He always was stubborn as an off ox and cranky as a windlass. I wonder how he feels now, when she's lost her last red and is goin' to be drove out of house and home. And all on account of that fool 'mountain and Mahomet' business."
"WHICH?" asked Mr. Crocker.
"Never mind that, Cornelius," put in Phinney, sharply. "Why don't you let other folks' affairs alone? That was a secret that Olive told your sister and you've got no right to go blabbin'."
"Aw, hush up, Sim! I ain't tellin' no secrets to anybody but Ed here, and he ain't lived in East Harniss long or he'd know it already. The mountain and Mahomet? Why, them was the last words Sol and Olive had. 'Twas Sol's stubbornness that was most to blame. That was his one bad fault. He would have his own way and he wouldn't change. Olive had set her heart on goin' to Washin'ton for their weddin' tower. Sol wanted to go to Niagara. They argued a long time, and finally Olive says, 'No, Solomon, I'm not goin' to give in this time. I have all the others, but it's not fair and it's not right, and no married life can be happy where one does all the sacrificin'. If you care for me you'll do as I want now.'
"And he laughs and says, 'All right, I'll sacrifice after this, but you and me must see Niagara.' And she was sot and he was sotter, and at last they quarreled. He marches out of the door and says: 'Very good. When you're ready to be sensible and change your mind, you can come to me. And says Olive, pretty white but firm: 'No, Solomon, I'm right and you're not. I'm afraid this time the mountain must come