第71章

"Sho!" he exclaimed. "I want to know! You don't say! Now you mention it, seems as if I had noticed a little air stirrin'."Another gust tilted the carriage top. Debby clutched the arm still tighter.

"Why, it blows awful hard!" she cried. "I'd no idee it blew like this.""Want to 'bout ship and go home again?" whooped Bailey, hopefully.

But the widow didn't intend to give up the rare luxury of a "ride"which a kind Providence had cast in her way.

"No, no!" she answered. "I guess if you folks come all the way from Bayport I can stand it as fur's the Center. But hurry all you can, won't you? I'm kind of 'fraid of the springs.""Springs? What springs? Let go my arm, will you? It's goin' to sleep."Mrs. Beasley let go of the arm momentarily.

"I mean the springs on this carriage," she explained. "Last time I lent it to anybody--Solon Davis, 'twas--he said the bolts underneath was pretty nigh rusted out, and about all that held the wagon part on was its own weight. So we'll have to be kind of careful.""Well--I--swan--to--MAN!" was Mr. Bangs's sole comment on the amazing disclosure; however, as an expression of concentrated and profound disgust it was quite sufficient. He spoke but once during the remainder of the trip to the "Center." Then, when his passenger begged to know if "that Whittaker man" had been well since she left, he shouted: "Yes--EVER since," and relapsed into his former gloomy silence.

The widow's stop at the Atwood house, which was in the immediate rear of the Atwood store, was of a half hour's duration. Bailey refused to leave the seat of the sulky and sat there, speaking to no one; not even replying to the questions of a group of loungers who gathered to inspect the ancient vehicle, and professed to be in doubt as to whether it had been washed in with the tide or been "left" to him in a will.

At last Debby made her appearance, her arms filled with newspapers.

The latter she piled under the carriage seat, and then climbed to her former place beside the driver. Henry, in response to a slap from the reins, got under way once more. The axles squeaked and screamed.

"Gee!" cried one youngster, from the steps of the store. "It's the steam calliope. When's the rest of the show comin'?""Hi!" yelled another. "See how close they're hugged up together.

Ain't they lovin'! It's a weddin'!"

"Shut up!" roared the tortured Bailey, whose hat had blown back into the body of the sulky, leaving his bald head exposed to the cutting wind.

The audience begged him to give them a lock of his hair, and added other remarks of a personal nature concerning the youth and beauty of the bridal couple and their chariot. Mr. Bangs was in a state of dumb frenzy. Debby, who, without her trumpet, had heard nothing of all this, was smiling and garrulous.

"I found all the papers," she said. "They're right under the seat.

I'm goin' to look 'em over so's to have the interestin' parts all ready to show Miss Dorcas when we get home. Ain't it nice I found 'em?"In spite of her driver's remonstrances, unheard because of the nonadjustment of the trumpet, she reached under the seat and brought out the pile of Blazeton weeklies. With her feet upon the pile to keep it from blowing away, she proceeded to unfold one of the papers. It crackled and snapped in the wind like a loose mainsail.

"Keep that dratted thing out of my face, won't you?" shrieked the agonized Bailey. "How'm I goin' to see to steer with that smackin' me between the eyes every other second?"

"Hey? Did you speak to me?" asked the widow sweetly.

"Did I SPEAK? No, I screeched! What in tunket--""I want you to see this picture of the mayor's house in Blazeton.

Eva, my husband's niece, lives right acrost the road from him.

Many's the time I've set on their piazza and seen him come out and go to the City Hall.""Keep it out of my face, I tell you! Reef it! Furl it, you--you woman! I wish to thunder the piazza had caved in on you! I never see such an old fool in my born days. TAKE IT AWAY!"Mrs. Beasley removed the paper, but only to substitute another.

"Here's Eva's brother-in-law," she screamed. "He's one of the prominent business men out there, so they put him in the paper.

Ain't he nice lookin'?"

Bailey's comments on the prominent business man's appearance were anything but flattering. Debby continued to reach for more papers, carefully replacing those she had inspected in the pile beneath her feet. The wind blew as hard as ever; even harder, for it was now almost dead ahead. Henry plodded along. They were in the hollow at the foot of the last long hill, that from which the blacksmith shop had first been sighted.

"I know what I'll do," declared the passenger. "I'll hunt for that missin' husband advertisement of Desire Higgins's. Let's see now!

'Twill be down at the bottom of the pile, 'cause the paper it's in is a last year one."She bobbed down behind the high dashboard. Mr. Bangs stood up in order that her gymnastics might interfere, to a lesser degree, with his driving. The equipage began to move up the slope of the hill, bouncing and twisting in the frozen ruts.

"Here 'tis!" exclaimed Debby. "I remember it's in this number, 'cause there's a picture of the Palace Hotel on the front page.

Let's see--'Dog lost'--no, that ain't it. 'Corner lot for sale'--wish I had money enough to buy it; I'd like nothin' better than to live out there. 'Information wanted of my husband'--Here 'tis!

Um--hum!"

She straightened up and eagerly began reading the advertisement.

The hill was very steep just at its top, and the sulky slanted backward at a sharp angle. A terrific burst of wind tore around the corner of the bluff. It eddied through the sulky between the dashboard and the curtained sides. The widow, in her excitement at finding the advertisement, had inadvertently removed her feet from the pile of papers. In an instant the air was filled with whirling copies of the Blazeton Weekly Courier.