The Skipper and the Skipped | Page 4

and he ain't never goin' to pay
toll till the bridgemen pay him for loss of time on logs. It's been what
you might call a stand-off for a good many years. Best thing is to let
him run toll. That's what your uncle thought. I reckoned you knew all
about Kun'l Gid Ward. Why, everybody knows--"
"Say, you let up on that string right now and here," snorted the Cap'n.
Old Man Jordan trotted away.
While the skipper was still pondering on the matter of Colonel
Ward--the meditation had lasted over into the next day--there was a
roar on the bridge, and the subject of his reflections passed in a swirl of
dust on his return trip. He was standing up in his wagon as before, and
he saluted the indignant toll-man with a flick of his whip that started
the dust from the latter's pea-jacket.
"He's been over to the home place to see his sister Jane," volunteered
Uncle Jordan, again on his way to the village with eggs. "She ain't
never got married, and he ain't never got married. Old Squire Ward left
his whole property to the two of 'em, and the Kun'l ain't ever let it be
divided. He runs the whole estate and domineers over her, and she don't
dast to say her soul's her own. If I was Jane I'd have my half out and git
married to some nice man, and git a little comfort out'n life. He don't
give her none--don't let her have the handlin' of a cent of money. She's

a turrible nice sort of woman. There's risin' a hundred thousand dollars
in her share, if the truth was known, and there's been some pretty good
men shine up around her a little, but the Kun'l has run 'em away with a
picked stick."
"Has, hey?"
"There ain't no Jack the Giant-Killers in these parts," sighed Old Man
Jordan, hooking his bucket upon his arm and shambling away.
For several days Cap'n Sproul was busy about the gable end of the
bridge during his spare moments and hours, climbing up and down the
ladder, and handling a rope and certain pulleys with sailor dexterity.
All the time his grim jaw-muscles ridged his cheeks. When he had
finished he had a rope running through pulleys from the big gate up
over the gable of the bridge and to the porch of the toll-house.
"There," he muttered, with great satisfaction, "that's the first bear-trap I
ever set, and it ain't no extra sort of job, but I reckon when old grizzly
goes ag'inst it he'll cal'late that this 'ere is a toll-bridge."
Then came days of anxious waiting. Sometimes a teamster's shouts to
his horses up around the willows sent the Cap'n hobbling to the end of
the rope. An unusual rattling in the bridge put him at his post with his
teeth set and his eyes gleaming.

II
One day a mild and placid little woman in dove-gray came walking
from the bridge and handed over her penny. She eyed the skipper with
interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow
while she studied the parrots who were waddling about their cages.
"I never heard a parrot talk, sir," she said. "I hear that yours talk. I
should dearly love to hear them."
"Their language is mostly deep-water flavor," said the Cap'n, curtly,

"and 'tain't flavored edsackly like vanilla ice-cream. There's more of the
peppersass tang to it than ladies us'ly enjoys."
The little woman gave a chirrup at the birds, and, to the skipper's utter
astonishment, both Port and Starboard chirruped back sociably. Port
then remarked: "Pretty Polly!" Starboard chirruped a few cheery bars
from "A Sailor's Wife a Sailor's Star Should Be." Then both parrots
rapped their beaks genially against the bars of the cages and beamed on
the lady with their little button eyes.
"Well, I swow!" ejaculated the Cap'n, rubbing his knurly forefinger
under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the lady. "If
that ain't as much of an astonisher as when the scuttle-butt danced a jig
on the dog-vane! Them two us'ly cusses strangers, no matter what age
or sect. They was learnt to do it." He gazed doubtfully at the birds, as
though they might possibly be deteriorating in the effeminacies of
shore life.
"I always was a great hand with pets of all kinds," said the lady,
modestly. "Animals seem to take to me sort of naturally. I hear you
have long followed the sea, Cap'n Sproul--I believe that's the name,
Cap'n Sproul?"
"Sproul it is, ma'am--Aaron for fore-riggin'. Them as said I follered the
sea was nearer than shore-folks us'ly be. Took my dunnage aboard at
fourteen, master at twenty-four, keel-hauled by rheumatiz at