The Skipper and the Skipped | Page 8

of my sister!"
"Do you want to hear a word on that?" demanded the Cap'n, grimly. He
came close up, whirling the cudgel. "You're an old, cheap,
ploughed-land blowhard, that's what you are! You've cuffed 'round
hired men and abused weak wimmen-folks. I knowed you was a
coward when I got that line on ye. You don't dast to stand up to a man
like me. I'll split your head for a cent." He kept advancing step by step,
his mien absolutely demoniac. "I've married your sister because she
wanted me. Now I'm goin' to take care of her. I've got thutty thousand
dollars of my own, and she's giv' me power of attorney over hers. I'll
take every cent of what belongs to her out of your business, and I know
enough of the way that your business is tied up to know that I can
crowd you right to the wall. Now do ye want to fight?"
The tyrant's face grew sickly white, for he realized all that threat meant.
"But there ain't no need of a fight in the fam'ly--and I want you to
understand that I'm a pretty dum big part of the fam'ly after this. Be ye
ready to listen to reason?"
"You're a robber!" gasped the Colonel, trying again to muster his anger.
"I've got a proposition to make so that there won't be no pull-haulin'
and lawyers to pay, and all that."
"What is it?"
"Pardnership between you and me--equal pardners. I've been lookin' for

jest this chance to go into business."
The Colonel leaped up, and began to stamp round his wagon.
"No, sir," he howled at each stamp. "I'll go to the poor-farm first."
"Shouldn't wonder if I could put you there," calmly rejoined the Cap'n.
"These forced lickidations to settle estates is something awful when the
books ain't been kept any better'n yours. I shouldn't be a mite surprised
to find that the law would get a nab on you for cheatin' your poor
sister."
Again the Colonel's face grew white.
"All is," continued the Cap'n, patronizingly, "if we can keep it all in the
fam'ly, nice and quiet, you ain't goin' to git showed up. Now, I ain't
goin' to listen to no more abuse out of you. I'll give you jest one minute
to decide. Look me in the eye. I mean business."
"You've got me where I'll have to," wailed the Colonel.
"Is it pardnership?"
"Yas!" He barked the word.
"Now, Colonel Ward, there's only one way for you and me to do
bus'ness the rest of our lives, and that's on the square, cent for cent. We
might as well settle that p'int now. Fix up that toll bill, or it's all off. I
won't go into business with a man that don't pay his honest debts."
He came forward with his hand out.
The Colonel paid.
"Now," said the Cap'n, "seein' that the new man is here, ready to take
holt, and the books are all square, I'll ride home with you. I've been
callin' it home now for a couple of days."
The new man at the toll-house heard the Cap'n talking serenely as they

drove away.
"I didn't have any idee, Colonel, I was goin' to like it so well on shore
as I do. Of course, you meet some pleasant and some unpleasant people,
but that sister of yours is sartinly the finest woman that ever trod
shoe-leather, and it was Providunce a-speakin' to me when she--"
The team passed away into the gloomy mouth of the Smyrna bridge.

III
Once on a time when the Wixon boy put Paris-green in the Trufants'
well, because the oldest Trufant girl had given him the mitten, Marm
Gossip gabbled in Smyrna until flecks of foam gathered in the corners
of her mouth.
But when Cap'n Aaron Sproul, late of the deep sea, so promptly, so
masterfully married Col. Gideon Ward's sister--after the irascible
Colonel had driven every other suitor away from that patient lady--and
then gave the Colonel his "everlasting comeuppance," and settled down
in Smyrna as boss of the Ward household, that event nearly wore
Gossip's tongue into ribbons.
"I see'd it from a distance--the part that happened in front of the
toll-house," said Old Man Jordan. "Now, all of ye know that Kun'l Gid
most gin'ly cal'lates to eat up folks that says 'Boo' to him, and pick his
teeth with slivers of their bones. But talk about your r'yal Peeruvian
ragin' lions--of wherever they come from--why, that Cap'n Sproul could
back a 'Rabian caterwouser right off'm Caterwouser Township! I
couldn't hear what was said, but I see Kun'l Gid, hoss-gad and all,
backed right up into his own wagon; and Cap'n Sproul got in, and took
the reins away from him as