The Skipper and the Skipped | Page 6

eyes were shining as she looked at him.
"Gideon has always had his own way, Cap'n Sproul," she faltered. "I
hope you won't feel too bitter against him. It would be awful--he so
headstrong--and you so--so--brave!" She choked this last out,
unclasping her hands.
"Well, I ain't no coward, and I never was," blurted the Cap'n.
"It's the bravest man that overcomes himself," she said. "Now, you
have good judgment, Cap'n. My brother is hot-headed. Every one
knows that you are a brave man. You can afford to let him go over the
bridge without--"
"Never!" the skipper howled, in his best sea tones. "You're the last
woman to coax and beg for him, if half what they tell me is true. He has
abused you wuss'n he has any one else. If you and the rest ain't got any
spunk, I have. You'll be one brother out if he comes slam-bangin' this
way ag'in."
She looked at him appealingly for a moment, then tiptoed over the
fragments of the gate, and hurried away through the bridge.
"You ain't no iron-clad, Kun'l Ward," muttered Sproul. "I'll hold ye
next time."
He set to work on the river-bank that afternoon, cutting saplings,
trusting to the squall of the faithful parrots to signal the approach of
passers.
But the next day, when he was nailing the saplings to make a truly
Brobdingnagian grid, one of the directors of the bridge company

appeared to him.
"We're not giving you license to let any one run toll on this bridge, you
understand," said the director, "but this fighting Colonel Ward with our
property is another matter. It's like fighting a bear with your fists. And
even if you killed the bear, the hide wouldn't be worth the damage. He
has got too many ways of hurting us, Cap'n. He has always had his own
way in these parts, and he probably always will. Let him go. We won't
get the toll, nor the fines, but we'll have our bridge left."
"I was thinking of resigning this job," returned the Cap'n; "it was not
stirrin' enough for a seafarin' man; but I'm sort of gittin' int'rested. How
much will ye take for your bridge?"
But the director curtly refused to sell.
"All right, then," said the skipper, chocking his axe viciously into a
sapling birch and leaving it there, "I'll fill away on another tack."
For the next two weeks, as though to exult in his victory, the Colonel
made many trips past the toll-house.
He hurled much violent language at the Cap'n. The Cap'n, reinforced
with his vociferous parrots, returned the language with great
enthusiasm and volubility.
Then came the day once more when the little woman sat down in a
chair in the shade of the woodbine.
"I took the first chance, Cap'n, while my brother has gone up-country,
to come to tell you how much I appreciate your generous way of doing
what I asked of you. You are the first man that ever put away selfish
pride and did just what I asked."
The seaman started to repudiate vigorously, but looked into her
brimming eyes a moment, choked, and was silent.
"Yes, sir, you're what I call noble, not to pay any attention to the boasts

my brother is making of how he has backed you down."
"He is, is he?" The Cap'n rolled up his lip and growled.
"But I know just how brave you are, to put down all your anger at the
word of a poor woman. And a true gentleman, too. There are only a few
real gentlemen in the world, after all."
The Cap'n slid his thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat and swelled
his chest out a little.
"There was no man ever come it over me, and some good ones have
tried it, ma'am. So fur as women goes, I ain't never been married, but I
reckon I know what politeness to a lady means."
She smiled at him brightly, and with such earnest admiration that he
felt a flush crawling up from under his collar. He blinked at her and
looked away. Starboard, with an embarrassing aptness that is
sometimes displayed by children, whistled a few bars of "A Sailor's
Wife a Sailor's Star Should Be."
"I don't mind owning up to you that my brother has imposed upon me
in a great many ways," said the little lady, her eyes flashing. "I have
endured a good deal from him because he is my brother. I know just
how you feel about him, Cap'n, and that's why it makes me feel that we
have a--a sort of what you might call common interest. I don't know
why I'm talking so frankly with you, who are almost a stranger, but I've
been--I have always lacked