Category: Novels

The Depot Master

Mr. Simeon Phinney emerged from the side door of his residence and paused a moment to light his pipe in the lee of the lilac bushes. Mr. Phinney was a man of various and sundry occupations, and his sign, nailed to the big silver-leaf in the front yard, enumerated a few of them...

Chapters

1. Chapter 1

Mr. Simeon Phinney emerged from the side door of his residence and paused a moment to light his pipe in the lee of the lilac bushes. Mr. Phinney was a man of various and sundry...

2. Chapter 2

And now life in East Harniss became temporarily fevered. Issy McKay dashed out of the station and rushed importantly up and down the platform. Ed Crocker and Cornelius Rowe emer...

3. Chapter 3

“That breakfast cost him twenty-five dollars; thirty really, because he added another five for an extry cup of coffee. I told him to make the check payable to 'Bearer,' as 'twas...

4. Chapter 4

“So he calls a meetin' of everybody interested, at his new house. About every respectable man in town was there, includin' me. Most of the billiard-room gang was there, likewise...

5. Chapter 5

The depot master and his friend, Mr. Phinney, were not the only ones whose souls were troubled that evening. Obed Gott, as he stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the meet...

6. Chapter 6

The morning train for Boston, at that season of the year, reached East Harniss at five minutes to six, an “ungodly hour,” according to the irascible Mr. Ogden Williams, who, in...

7. Chapter 7

Breakfast at Capt. Sol Berry's was a bountiful meal. The depot master employed a middle-aged woman who came in each day, cooked his meals and did the housework, returning to her...

8. Chapter 8

“Yup,” went on Captain Sol. “Well, when Nate got back to the house the professor was alone in the chair, lookin' sick and weak. Olivia was up in her room havin' a cryin' fit. Na...

9. Chapter 9

The methods of Messrs. Colt and Adams, the Boston firm of building movers, were certainly progressive, if promptness in getting to work is any criterion. Two days after the acce...

10. Chapter 10

These developments, Major Hardee's marriage and Mr. Gott's discomfiture, overshadowed, for the time, local interest in the depot master's house moving. This was, in its way, rat...

11. Chapter 11

“'Twas Henry G. Bradbury that took us out, him and his bran-new big tourin' car. You see, he landed to board with us the next day after Henrietta come--this Henry G. did--and he...

12. Chapter 12

“But we couldn't. In bobs a servant girl to know if we 'wanted anything.' We didn't, but she looked so shocked when she see me in my shirt sleeves that I put the coat on again,...

13. Chapter 13

“Comes quick now, Bailey. Plenty quick enough for me and Jonadab, I tell you that! After we got to our room the Cap'n went to sleep pretty soon and I set in the one chair, readi...

14. Chapter 14

“Dear! dear!” he exclaimed. “And I've been loafin' around the depot with Sol Berry and the rest of 'em instead of stayin' home with you, Sophrony. I KNEW I was doin' wrong, but...

15. Chapter 15

Surely, but very, very slowly, the little Berry house moved on its rollers up the Hill Boulevard. Right at its heels--if a house may be said to have heels--came the “pure Coloni...

16. Chapter 16

“So that was the end of it, hey?” said Captain Bailey. “Well, it's what you might expect, but it wa'n't much to be so anxious to tell; and as for PROVIN' anything about fortune...

17. Chapter 17

“I tell you, I had to take it that evenin',” he said. “All the time I was cookin' and while he was eatin' supper, Billings was rubbin' it into me about my bein' scared. Called m...

18. Chapter 18

The following morning, at nine o'clock, Issy McKay sat upon the heap of rusty chain cable outside the blacksmith's shop at Denboro, reading, as usual, a love story. Issy was tak...

19. Chapter 19

The eleventh of July. The little Berry house stood high on its joists and rollers, in the middle of the Hill Boulevard, directly opposite the Edwards lot. Close behind it loomed...