The Skipper and the Skipped Part 23

He glowered at the briskly wagging jaws and stuffed cheeks of the feeding proteges of Foreman Look.

"I reckon he'll wake up some day, same's you did, and reelize what they're tryin' to do to him. What you ought to done was settle in Vienny. We've heard out our way how them Smyrna bloodsuckers have--"

Cap'n Sproul whirled on the ancient detractor, whiskers bristling angrily. He had never been backward in pointing out Smyrna's faults.

But to have an outsider do it in the open forum of a firemen's muster was a different matter.

"Before I started in to criticise other towns or brag about my own, Trufant," he snorted, "I'd move over into some place where citizens like you, that's been dead ten years and ought to be buried, ain't walkin' round because there ain't soil enough left in town to bury 'em in." This was biting reference to Vienna's ledgy surface.

"I'd ruther walk on granite than have web feet and paddle in muck,"

retorted Uncle Trufant, ready with the ancient taunt as to the big bog that occupied Smyrna's interior.

"Ducks are good property," rejoined the Cap'n, serenely, "but I never heard of any one keepin' crows for pets nor raisin' 'em for market.

There ain't anything but a crow will light on your town, and they only do it because the sight of it makes 'em faint."

Stimulated because bystanders were listening to the colloquy, Uncle Trufant shook his cane under Cap'n Sproul's nose.

"That's what ye be in Smyrna--ducks!" he squealed. "You yourself come to your own when ye waddled off'm the deck of a s.h.i.+p and settled there.

Down here to-day with an el'funt and what's left of a busted circus, and singin' brag songs, when there ain't a man in this county but what knows Smyrna never had the gristle to put up a fight man-fas.h.i.+on at a firemen's muster. Vienny can shake one fist at ye and run ye up a tree. Vienny has allus done it. Vienny allus will do it. Ye can't fight!"

Hiram had c.o.c.ked his ear at sound of Uncle Trufant's petulant squeal.

He thrust close to them, elbowing the crowd.

"Fight! Why, you old black and tan, what has fightin' got to do with the makin' of a fire department? There's been too much fightin' in years past. It's a lot of old terriers like you that had made firemen looked down on. Your idee of fire equipment was a kag of new rum and plenty of bra.s.s knuckles. I can show ye that times has changed! Look at that picture there!" He waved his hairy hand at the ladies who were distributing the last of the lunch-baskets. "That's the way to come to muster--come like gents, act like gents, eat like gents, and when it's all over march with your lady on your arm."

"Three cheers for the ladies!" yelled an enthusiastic member of the Smyrna company. The cheers coming up had to crowd past food going down, but the effect was good, nevertheless.

"That's the idea!" shouted Hiram. "Peace and politeness, and everybody happy. If that kind of a firemen's muster don't suit Vienny, then her company better take the next train back home and put in the rest of the day firin' rocks at each other. If Vienny stays here she's got to be genteel, like the rest of us--and the Smyrna Ancients will set the pace. Ain't that so, boys?"

His men yelled jubilant a.s.sent.

Uncle Trufant's little eyes shuttled balefully.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he jeered. "I didn't know I'd got into the ladies' sewin'-circle. But if you've got fancy-work in them shoppin'-bags of your'n, and propose to set under the trees this afternoon and do tattin', I wouldn't advise ye to keep singin' that song you marched in here with. It ain't ladylike. Better sing, 'Oh, how we love our teacher dear!'"

"Don't you fuss your mind about us in any way, shape, or manner,"

retorted the foreman. "When we march we march, when we eat we eat, when we sing we sing, when we squirt"--he raised his voice and glared at the crowd surrounding--"we'll give ye a stream that the whole Vienny fire company can straddle and ride home on like it was a hobby-horse." And, concluding thus, he fondled his long mustaches away from his mouth and gazed on the populace with calm pride. Caesar on the plains of Pharsalia, Pompey triumphant on the sh.o.r.es of Africa, Alexander at the head of his conquering Macedonians had not more serenity of countenance to display to the mult.i.tude.

XIV

Up came trotting a brisk little man with a notebook in one hand, a stubby lead-pencil in the other, a look of importance spread over his flushed features, and on his breast a broad, blue ribbon, inscribed: "Chief Marshal."

"Smyrna has drawed number five for the squirt," he announced, "fallerin' Vienny. Committee on tub contests has selected Colonel Gideon Ward as referee."

Hiram's eyes began to blaze, and Cap'n Sproul growled oaths under his breath. During the weeks of their growing intimacy the Cap'n had detailed to his friend the various phases of Colonel Gideon's iniquity as displayed toward him. Though the affairs of Hiram Look had not yet brought him into conflict with the ancient tyrant of Smyrna, Hiram had warmly espoused the cause and the grudge of the Cap'n.

"I'll bet a thousand dollars against a jelly-fish's hind leg that he begged the job so as to do you," whispered Sproul. "I ain't been a brother-in-law of his goin' on two years not to know his shenanigan.

It's a plot."

"Who picked out that old cross between a split-saw and a bull-thistle to umpire this muster?" shouted the foreman of the Ancients, to the amazement of the brisk little man.

"Why, he's the leadin' man in this section, and a Smyrna man at that,"

explained the marshal. "I don't see how your company has got any kick comin'. He's one of your own townsmen."

"And that's why we know him better than you do," protested Hiram, taking further cue from the glowering gaze of Cap'n Sproul. "You put him out there with the tape, and you'll see--"

"'Peace and politeness, and everybody happy,'" quoted Uncle Trufant, maliciously. The serenity had departed from Foreman Look's face.

"You don't pretend to tell me, do ye, that the Smyrna Ancients are afraid to have one of their own citizens as a referee?" demanded the brisk little man suspiciously. "If that's so, then there must be something decayed about your organization."

"I don't think they're down here to squirt accordin' to the rules made and pervided," went on the ancient Vienna satirist. "They've brought Bostin bags and a couple of wimmen, and are goin' to have a quiltin'-bee. P'raps they think that Kunnel Gid Ward don't know a fish-bone st.i.tch from an over-and-over. P'raps they think Kunnel Ward ain't ladylike enough for 'em."

Not only had the serenity departed from the face of Foreman Look, the furious anger of his notoriously short temper had taken its place.

"By the jumped-up jedux," he shouted, "you pa.s.s me any more of that talk, you old hook-nosed c.o.c.katoo, and I'll slap your chops!"

The unterrified veteran of the Viennese brandished his cane to embrace the throng of his red-s.h.i.+rted townsmen, who had been crowding close to hear. At last his flint had struck the spark that flashed with something of the good old times about it.

"And what do you suppose the town of Vienny would be doin' whilst you was insultin' the man who was the chief of old Niag'ry Company for twenty years?" he screamed.

"There's one elephant that I know about that would be an orphin in about fifteen seconds," growled one of the loyal members of the Vienna company, the l.u.s.t of old days of rivalry beginning to stir in his blood.

"Would, hey?" shouted an Ancient, with the alacrity of one who has old-time grudges still unsettled. He put a sandwich back into his basket untasted, an ominous sign of how belligerency was overcoming appet.i.te. "Well, make b'lieve I'm the front door of the orphin asylum, and come up and rap on me!"

With a prompt.i.tude that was absolutely terrifying the two lines of red s.h.i.+rts began to draw together, voices growling bodingly, fists clinching, eyes narrowing with the reviving hatred of old contests.

The triumphal entry of the Smyrna Ancients, their display of prosperity, their monopoly of the plaudits and attention of the throngs, the a.s.sumption of superior caste and manners, had stirred resentment under every red s.h.i.+rt in the parade. But Vienna, hereditary foe, seemed to be the one tacitly selected for the brunt of the conflict.

"Hiram!" pleaded his wife, running to him and patting his convulsed features with trembling fingers. "You said this was all goin' to be genteel. You said you were goin' to show 'em how good manners and politeness ought to run a firemen's muster. You said you were!"

By as mighty an effort of self-control as he ever exercised in his life, Hiram managed to gulp back the sulphurous vilification he had ready at his tongue's end, and paused a moment.

"That's right! I did say it!" he bellowed, his eyes sweeping the crowd over his wife's shoulder. "And I mean it. It sha'n't be said that the Smyrna Ancients were anything but gents. Let them that think a bunged eye and a b.l.o.o.d.y nose is the right kind of badges to wear away from a firemen's muster keep right on in their h.e.l.lish career. As for us"--he tucked his wife's arm under his own--"we remember there's ladies present."

"Includin' the elephant," suggested the irrepressible Uncle Trufant, indicating with his cane Imogene "weaving" amiably in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Cap'n Sproul crowded close and growled into the ear of the venerable mischief-maker: "I don't know who set you on to thorn this crowd of men into a fight, and I don't care. But there ain't goin' to be no trouble here, and, if you keep on tryin' to make it, I'll give you one figger of the Portygee fandle-dingo."

"What's that?" inquired Uncle Trufant, with interest.

"An almighty good lickin'," quoth the peacemaker. "I ain't a member of a fire company, and I ain't under no word of honor not to fight."

The two men snapped their angry eyes at each other, and Uncle Trufant turned away, intimidated for the moment. He confessed to himself that he didn't exactly understand how far a seafaring man could be trifled with.

Vienna gazed truculently on Smyrna for a time, but Smyrna, obeying their foreman's adjurations, mellowed into amiable grins and went on with their lunches.