Chapter 27

But at that moment fully a score of men filed into the office, all of them with set faces and indignant demeanors. The Cap'n was not well posted on the breed of literati, but with half an eye he noted that these were not the ordinary sort of men. There were more silk hats, there were broad-brimmed hats, there was scrupulousness in attire, there was the disarray of Bohemianism. And it was plainly evident that these later arrivals had had word of conference with each other. Each held a "Per Consetena Tate" letter in his hand.

"I have met with some amazing situations in my time--in real life and in romance," stated a hard-faced man who had evidently been selected as spokesman. "But this seems so supremely without parallel that I am almost robbed of expression. Here are ten of us, each having the same identical letter of invitation to deliver the oration of the day here on this occasion."

"Ten, did you say? Eleven," said the first-comer. "Here is my letter."

"And the others have invitations to deliver discourses," went on the spokesman, severely. "As your name is signed to all these letters, Captain Aaron Sproul, first selectman of Smyrna, perhaps you will deign to explain to us what it all means."

Cap'n Sproul arose and then sat down; arose and sat down again. He tried to speak, but only a husky croak came forth. Something seemed to have crawled into his throat--something fuzzy and filling, that would not allow language to pass.

"Here are more than twenty prominent men, seduced from their manifold duties, called away up here to satisfy the rural idea of a joke--or, at least, I can see no other explanation," proceeded the hard-faced man. "It might be remarked in passing that the joke will be an expensive one for this town. Eleven distinguished men called here to deliver one oration in a one-horse town!"

The Cap'n did not like the bitter irony of his tone, and recovered his voice enough to say,

"You might cut the cards or spit at a crack, gents, to see which one does deliver the oration." But the pleasantry did not evoke any smile from that disgusted assemblage.

"It is safe to say that after this hideous insult not one of us will speak," declared one of the group. "But I for one would like some light on the insane freak that prompted this performance. As you are at the head of this peculiar community, we'd like you to speak for it."

Somewhat to his own surprise, Cap'n Sproul did not find in himself any especially bitter animosity toward Mr. Tate, just then, search his soul as he might.

These "lit'ry fellows," cajoled by one of their own ilk into this unspeakable muddle, were, after all, he reflected, of the sort he had scorned with all his sailor repugnance to airs and pretensions. Cap'n Sproul possessed a peculiarly grim sense of humor. This indignant assemblage appealed to that sense.

"Gents," he said, standing up and propping himself on the table by his knuckles, "there are things in this world that are deep mysteries. Of course, men like you reckon you know most everything there is to be known. But you see that on the bottom of each letter you have, there are the words: 'Per Consetena Tate.' There's where the mystery is in this case."

"I imagine it isn't so deep a mystery but that we can understand it if you will explain," said the spokesman, coldly.

"There's where you are mistaken," declared the Cap'n. "It would take a long time to tell you the inside of this thing, and even then you wouldn't know which, what, or whuther about it." In his heart Cap'n Sproul was resolved that he would not own up to these strangers the part his own negligence had played. He reflected for his consolation that he had not projected the centennial celebration of Smyrna. It occurred to him with illuminating force that he had pledged himself to only one thing: to pay the bills of the celebration as fast as they were presented to him. Consetena Tate was the secretary the town had foisted on his committee. Consetena Tate had made definite contracts. His lips twisted into a queer smile under his beard.

"Gents," he said, "there isn't any mystery about them contracts, however. This town pays its bills. You say no one of you wants to orate? That is entirely satisfactory to me--for I ain't runnin' that part. I'm here to pay bills. Each one of you make out his bill and receipt it. Then come with me to the town treasurer's office."

The tumultuous throngs that spied Cap'n Sproul leading that file of distinguished men to Broadway's store--Broadway being treasurer of Smyrna--merely gazed with a flicker of curiosity and turned again to their sports, little realizing just what effect that file of men was to have on the financial sinews of those sports. Cap'n Sproul scarcely realized it himself until all the returns were in. He simply hoped, that's all! And his hopes were more than justified.

"My Gawd, Cap'n," gasped Odbar Broadway when the notables had received their money and had filed out, "what does this mean? There ain't more'n a hundred dollars left of the surplus fund, and there ain't any of the prizes and appropriations paid yet! Who be them plug-hatters from all over God's creation, chalkin' up railroad fares agin us like we had a machine to print money in this town?"

"Them vouchers is all right, ain't they?" demanded the Cap'n. "Them vouchers with letters attached?"

"Yes, they be," faltered the treasurer.

"So fur as who strangers may be, you can ask Pote Consetena Tate, secretary, about that. They're lit'ry gents, and he's done all the official business with them."

Broadway stared at him, and then began to make some hasty figures.

"See here, Cap'n," he said, plaintively, "there's just about enough of that fund left to settle the committee bill here at my store. Have I got to share pro raty?"

"Pay yourself and clean it out. I'll countersign your bill," declared the chairman, cheerfully. "If there ain't any fund, I can go home. I'm infernal sick of this hellitywhoop noise."

And he trudged back up the hill to the quietude of his farm, with deep content.

He had been some hours asleep that night when vigorous poundings on his door awoke him, and when at last he appeared on his piazza he found a large and anxious delegation of citizens filling his yard.

"Cap'n," bleated one of the committee, "Broadway says there ain't any money to pay prizes with."

"Vouchers is all right. Money paid on contracts signed by your official secretary, that you elected unanimous," said the Cap'n, stoutly.

"We know it," cried the committeeman, "but we don't understand it."

"Then hunt up the man that made the contracts--Pote Tate," advised the selectman. "All the business I've done was to pay out the money. You know what stand I've took right along."

"We know it, Cap'n, and we ain't blamin' you--but we don't understand, and we can't find Consetena Tate. His folks don't know where he is. He's run away."

"Potes are queer critters," sighed the Cap'n, compassionately. He turned to go in.

"But how are we goin' to get the money to pay up for the sports, the fireworks, and things?"

"Them that hires fiddlers and dances all day and night must expect to pay said fiddlers," announced the Cap'n, oracularly. "I reckon you'll have to pass the hat for the fiddlers."

"If that's the case," called the committeeman, heart-brokenly, "won't you put your name down for a little?"

"Since I've had the rheumatiz I ain't been any hand at all to dance," remarked the Cap'n, gently, through the crack of the closing door.

And they knew what he meant, and went away down the hill, as sober as the cricket when he was departing from the door of the thrifty ant.

XXXIII

First Selectman Sproul halted for a few moments on the steps of the town house the next morning in order to gaze out surlily on the left-overs of that day of celebration. Smyrna's village square was unsightly with a litter of evil-smelling firecracker remnants, with torn paper bags, broken canes, dented tin horns and all the usual flotsam marking the wake of a carnival crowd.

Constable Nute came tramping to him across this untidy carpeting and directed his attention to the broken windows in the town house and in other buildings that surrounded the square.

"Actions of visitin' firemen, mostly," explained the constable, gloomily. "Took that way of expressin' their opinion of a town that would cheat 'em out of prize-money that they came down here all in good faith to get. And I don't blame 'em to any great extent."

"Nor I, either," agreed the Cap'n with a readiness that surprised Mr. Nute. "A town that doesn't pay its bills ought to be ashamed of itself."

The constable backed away a few steps and stared at this amazing detractor.

"I paid bills prompt and honest just as long as there was any money to pay 'em with," the Cap'n went on. "There's nothin' on _my_ conscience."

"Yes, but who did you pay the money to?" complained Nute, voicing the protest of Smyrna. "The least you could have done was to make them plug-hatters share pro raty with the fire-company boys--and the fire-company boys furnished the show; them plug-hatters didn't."

"It's always been my rule to pay a hundred cents on the dollar, and I paid the hundred cents so long as the cash lasted. Go hunt up your Pote Tate if you want to know why the plug-hatters had a good claim."

"He's back, Tate is, and we made him explain, and this town had no business in givin' a cussed fool like him so much power. If I had cut up the caper he has I'd have stayed away, but he's back for his folks to support him some more. He didn't even have gumption enough to beg vittles."

"Well, this town has had a hearty meal, and all is I hope it won't feel hungry for celebrations till it's time for the next centennial," observed the Cap'n. "There's one thing about this affair that I'm goin' to praise--it was hearty and satisfyin'. It has dulled the celebratin' appetite in this town for some time." He went into town office.

The constable followed and laid a paper before him. It was a petition of citizens for a special town-meeting; and there being a sufficient number of names on the paper, it became a matter of duty for Cap'n Sproul to call the meeting prayed for.

He quietly proceeded to draw up the necessary notice. Nute evidently expected that the Cap'n would promptly understand the meaning of the proposed meeting and would burst into violent speech. But the selectman hummed an old sea chanty while he hunted for a blank, and smiled as he penned the document.

"Committee has been to Squire Alcander Reeves to get some law on the thing," proceeded Nute, disappointed by this lack of interest in affairs. "Reeves says that since the show was advertised as a town shindig the town has got to stand behind and fid up for the money that's shy. Says it ain't supposed to fall on the committees to pay for what the town's beholden for."

"Let 'em go ahead and settle it to suit all hands," remarked the first selectman, amiably. "As the feller used to sing in the dog-watch:

"'Says Jonah, addressin' the whale, "I wish You'd please take notice that I like fish." Says the whale to Jonah, "It's plain to see That you are goin' to agree with me."'"

A considerable gathering of the taxpayers of Smyrna had been waiting on the platform of Odbar Broadway's store for the first selectman to appear and open the town office. Hiram Look had marshalled them there. Now he led them across the square and they filed into the office.

The Cap'n did not look up until he had finished his work on the notice. He handed the paper to Nute with orders to post it after the signatures of the two associate selectmen had been secured.

Then to his surprise Hiram Look received an extremely benignant smile from the Cap'n.

"You ain't objectin' any to the special town-meetin', then?" inquired Hiram, losing some of his apprehensiveness.

"I'm callin' it as quick as the law will let me--and happy to do so," graciously returned the first selectman.

Hiram took off his tall hat with the air of one who has been invited to remain, after anticipating violent rebuff.

"You know, don't you, what the voters want this special meetin' for?"

"Sartin sure," cried the Cap'n. "Got to have money to square up bills and take the cuss off'm this town of welchin' on a straight proposition to outsiders who came down here all in good faith after prizes."

"Exactly," cried Hiram, glowing. "Didn't I always tell you, boys, that though Cap'n Aaron Sproul might be a little gruff and a bit short, sea-capt'in fashion, he was all right underneath?"

There was a mumble of assent.

"There ain't a first selectman in this State that has shown any more science in handlin' his job than Cap'n Aaron Sproul of this town."

"When you come to remember back how he's grabbed in and taken the brunt every time there's been anything that needed to be handled proper, you've got to admit all what you've said, Mr. Look," assented another of the party.

"We know now that it was by Tate forgin' your name and runnin' things underhanded that the town got into the scrape it did," Hiram went on. "Them bills had to be paid to keep outsiders slingin' slurs at us. You done just right. The town will have to meet and vote more money to pay the rest of the bills. But probably it won't come as hard as we think. What I was goin' to ask you, Cap'n Sproul, was whether there ain't an overplus in some departments? We can use that money so far's it'll go."

"Pauper department has something extry," stated the first selectman, dryly. "I was thinkin' of buyin' a new furnace for the poor-farm, but we can let the paupers shiver through another winter so's to pay them squirtin' prizes to the firemen."

"We don't want to do anything that ain't just accordin' to Hoyle," said Hiram, flushing a little, for he sensed the satire. "We'll meet and vote the money and then we can sit back and take comfort in thinkin' that there's just the right man at the head of town affairs to economize us back onto Easy Street." He was eager to flatter. "This town understands what kind of a man it wants to keep in office. I take back all I ever said about opposin' you, Cap'n."

"And that's the general sentiment of the town," affirmed Odbar Broadway.

The face of the first selectman did not indicate that he was especially gratified.

"That is to say," he inquired grimly, "after I've fussed, figured, and struggled for most of two years to save money and pay off the debts of this town and have had the cash yanked away from me like honey out of a hive, I'm supposed to start in all over again and do a similar job for this town on a salary of sixty dollars a year?"

"We don't feel you ought to put it just that way," objected Hiram.

"That's the way it suits me to put it. You can do it to me once--you have done it--but this is where this partickler little busy bee stops makin' honey for the town of Smyrna to lap up at one mouthful. That special town-meetin' comes along all handy for me. You notice I ain't objectin' to havin' it held."

Constable Nute, who had been looking puzzled ever since the selectman had signed the call for the meeting, perked up with the interest of one who is about to hear a mystery explained.

"For," the Cap'n went on, "I was goin' to call one on my own hook so that I can resign this office. I serve notice on you now that when this town touches dock at that meetin' I step ashore with my little dunnage bag on my back."

"The town won't let you do it," blazed Hiram.

"I was shanghaied aboard. You want to be careful, all of ye, how you gather at the gangway when I start to walk ashore! It's fair warnin'. Take heed of it!"

There was an expression on his weather-worn countenance that checked further expostulation. Hiram angrily led them out after a few muttered expletives.

"I've heard of contrary tantryboguses in my time," stated Broadway when they were back at his store, "but that feller over there has got all of 'em backed into the stall. This town better wake up. We've let ourselves be bossed around by him as though Smyrna was rigged out with masts and sails and he was boss of the quarter-deck. Give me a first selectman that has got less brustles."

It was the first word of a general revolt. It is the nature of man to pretend that he does not desire what he cannot get. The voters of Smyrna took that attitude.

On the eve of the projected town-meeting Hiram Look strolled over to call on his friend Sproul. The latter had been close at home for days, informing his loyal wife that for the first time since he had settled ashore he was beginning to appreciate what peace and quiet meant.

"I don't know how it happened," he informed Hiram, "how I ever let myself be pull-hauled as much as I've been. Why, I haven't had time allowed me to stop and consider what a fool and lackey I was lettin' 'em make of me. When I left the sea I came ashore with a hankerin' for rest, comfort, and garden sass of my own raisin', and I've been beatin' into a head wind of hoorah-ste-boy ever since. From now on I'll show you a man that's settled down to enjoy life!"

"That's the right way for you to feel," affirmed Hiram. "You take a man that holds office and the tide turns against him after a while. It's turned against you pretty sharp."

"Don't see how you figger that," returned the Cap'n with complacency. "I'm gettin' out just the right time. Time to leave is when they're coaxin' you to stay. If I'd stayed in till they got to growlin' around and wantin' to put me out I'd have to walk up and down in this town like Gid Ward does now--meechin' as a scalt pup. That's why I'm takin' so much personal satisfaction in gettin' out--they want to keep me in."

"You ought to travel out around this town a little," returned his friend, grimly. "The way they're talkin' now you'd think they was goin' to have bonfires and a celebration when they get rid of you. Hate to hurt your feelin's, but I'm only reportin' facts, and just as they're talkin' it. Bein' a friend I can say it to your face."

The expression of bland pride faded out of Cap'n Sproul's face. For a moment he seemed inclined to doubt Hiram's word in violent terms. A few words did slip out.

The old showman interrupted him.

"Go out and sound the pulse for yourself. I never lied to you yet. You've cuffed the people around pretty hard, you'll have to admit that. Take a feller in politics that undertakes to boss too much, and when the voters do turn on him they turn hard. They've done it to you. They're glad you're goin' out. You couldn't be elected hog-reeve in Smyrna to-day."

The Cap'n glared at him, voiceless for the moment.

"I know it hurts, but I'm tellin' you the truth," Hiram went on, remorselessly. "If they don't stand up and give three cheers in town-meetin' to-morrow when you hand in your resignation I'll be much surprised."

"Who's been lyin' about me?" demanded the first selectman.

"It ain't that way at all! Seems like the town sort of woke up all of a sudden and realized it didn't like your style of managin'. The way you acted when the delegation came to you put on the finishin' touch. Now, Aaron, you don't have to take my word for this. Prob'ly it doesn't interest you--but you can trot around and find out for yourself, if it does."

The first selectman, his eyes gleaming, the horn of gray hair that he twisted in moments of mental stress standing straight up, rose and reached for his hat.

"Mutiny on me, will they?" he growled. "We'll jest see about that!"

"Where are you goin', Aaron?" asked the placid Louada Murilla, troubled by his ireful demeanor.

"I'm goin' to find out if this jeebasted town is goin' to kick me out of office! They'll discover they haven't got any Kunnel Gid Ward to deal with!"

"But you said you were out of politics, Aaron!" Dismay and grief were in her tones. "I want you for myself, husband. You promised me. I don't want you to go back into politics."

"I hain't ever been out of politics yet," he retorted. "And if there are any men in this town that think I'm down and out they'll have another guess comin'."

He marched out of the house, leaving his visiting friend in most cavalier fashion.

Hiram stared after him, meditatively stroking his long mustache.

"Mis' Sproul," he said at last, "you take muddy roads, wet grounds, balky animils, fool rubes, drunken performers, and the high price of lemons, and the circus business is some raspy on the general disposition. But since I've known your husband I've come to the conclusion that it's an angel-maker compared with goin' to sea."

"You had no business tellin' him what you did," complained the wife. "You ought to understand his disposition by this time."

"I ought to, but I see I don't," acknowledged the friend. He scrubbed his plug hat against his elbow and started for the door. "I'd been thinkin' that if ever I'd run up against a man that really wanted to shuck office that man was your husband. I reckoned he really knew what he wanted part of the time."

"Can't you go after him and make him change his mind back?" she pleaded.

"The voters of this town will attend to that. I was tellin' him the straight truth. If he don't get it passed to him hot off the bat when he tackles 'em, then I'm a sucker. You needn't worry, marm. He'll have plenty of time to 'tend to his garden sass this summer."

It was midnight when Cap'n Sproul returned to an anxious and waiting wife. He was flushed and hot and hoarse, but the gleam in his eye was no longer that of offended pride and ireful resolve. There was triumph in his glance.

"If there's a bunch of yaller dogs think they can put me out of office in this town they'll find they're tryin' to gnaw the wrong bone," he declared hotly.

"But you had told them you wouldn't take the office--you insisted that you were going to resign--you said--"

"It didn't make any diff'runce what I said--when I said it things was headed into the wind and all sails was drawin' and I was on my course. But you let some one try to plunk acrost my bows when I'm on the starboard tack, and have got right of way, well, more or less tophamper is goin' to be carried away--and it won't be mine."

"What have you done, Aaron?" she inquired with timorous solicitude.

"Canvassed this town from one end to the other and by moral suasion, the riot act, and a few other things I've got pledges from three-quarters of the voters that when I pass in my resignation to-morrow they'll vote that they won't accept it and will ask me to keep on in office for the good of Smyrna. This town won't get a chance to yoke me up with your brother Gid and point us out as a steer team named 'Down and Out!' He's 'Down' but I ain't 'Out' yet, not by a dam--excuse me, Louada Murilla! But I've been mixin' into politics and talkin' political talk."

"And I had so hoped you were out of it," she sighed, as she followed him to their repose.

She watched him make ready and depart for town hall the next morning without comment, but the wistful look in her eyes spoke volumes. Cap'n Sproul was silent with the air of a man with big events fronting him.

She watched the teams jog along the highway toward the village. She saw them returning in dusty procession later in the forenoon--signal that the meeting was over and the voters were returning to their homes.

In order to beguile the monotony of waiting she hunted up the blank-book in which she had begun to write "The Life Story of Gallant Captain Aaron Sproul." She read the brief notes that she had been able to collect from him and reflected with bitterness that there was little hope of securing much more data from a man tied up with the public affairs of a town which exacted so much from its first selectman.

Upon her musings entered Cap'n Sproul, radiant, serene. He bent and kissed her after the fashion of the days of the honeymoon.