Sometimes she spoke to him of her own accord, concerning the weather or other important topics. Once she even asked him if he were going to the Fourth of July ball at the town-hall. It took him until the next morning--like other warriors, Issy was cursed with shyness--to summon courage enough to ask her to go to the ball with him. Then he found it was too late; she was going with her cousin, Lennie Bloomer. But he felt that she had offered him the opportunity, and was happy and hopeful accordingly.
This, however, was before she went to Boston to study telegraphy.
When she returned, with a picture hat and a Boston accent, it was to preside at the telegraph instrument in the little room adjoining the post office at her father's store. When Issy bowed blushingly outside the window of the telegraph room, he received only the airiest of frigid nods. Was there what Lord Lyndhurst would have called "another"? It would seem not. Old Mr. Higgins, her father, encouraged no bows nor attentions from young men, and Gertie herself did not appear to desire them. So Issy gave up his tales of savage butchery for those of love and blisses, adored in silence, and hoped--always hoped.
But why had the blacksmith seemed surprised at the departure of Sam Bartlett, the "dudey" vacationist from the city, whose father had, years ago, been Beriah Higgins's partner in the fish business? And why had he coupled the Bartlett name with that of Gertie, who had been visiting her father's maiden sister at Trumet, the village next below East Harniss, as Denboro is the next above it? Issy's suspicions were aroused, and he wondered.
Suddenly he heard voices in the shop above him. The window was open and he heard them plainly.
"Well! WELL!" It was the blacksmith who uttered the exclamation.
"Why, Bartlett, how be you? What you doin' over here? Thought you'd gone back to Boston. I heard you had."
Slowly, cautiously, the astonished quahauger rose from the sawhorse and peered over the window sill. There were two visitors in the shop. One was Ed Burns, proprietor of the Denboro Hotel and livery stable. The other was Sam Bartlett, the very same who had left East Harniss that morning, bound, ostensibly, for Boston. Issy sank back again and listened.
"Yes, yes!" he heard Sam say impatiently; "I know, but--see here, Jake, where can I hire a horse in this God-forsaken town?"
"Well, well, Sam!" continued Larkin. "I was just figurin' that Beriah had got the best of you after all, and you'd had to give it up for this time. Thinks I, it's too bad! Just because your dad and Beriah Higgins had such a deuce of a row when they bust up in the fish trade, it's a shame that he won't hark to your keepin' comp'ny with Gertie. And you doin' so well; makin' twenty dollars a week up to the city--Ed told me that--and--"
"Yes, yes! But never mind that. Where can I get a horse? I've got to be in Trumet by eight to-night sure."
"Trumet? Why, that's where Gertie is, ain't it?"
"Look a-here, Jake," broke in the livery-stable keeper. "I'll tell you how 'tis. Oh, it's all right, Sam! Jake knows the most of it;
I told him. He can keep his mouth shut, and he don't like old crank Higgins any better'n you and me do. Jake, Sam here and Gertie had fixed it up to run off and git married to-night. He was to pretend to start for Boston this mornin'. Bought a ticket and all, so's to throw Beriah off the scent. He was to get off the train here at Denboro and I was to let him have a horse 'n' buggy.
Then, this afternoon, he was goin' to drive through the wood roads around to Trumet and be at the Baptist Church there at eight to-night sharp. Gertie's Aunt Hannah, she's had her orders, and bein' as big a crank as her brother, she don't let the girl out of her sight. But there's a fair at the church and Auntie's tendin' a table. Gertie, she steps out to the cloak room to git a handkerchief which she's forgot; see? And she hops into Sam's buggy and away they go to the minister's. After they're once hitched Old Dyspepsy can go to pot and see the kittle bile."
"Bully! By gum, that's fine! Won't Beriah rip some, hey?"
"Yes, but there's the dickens to pay. I've only got two horses in the stable to-day. The rest are let. And the two I've got--one's old Bill, and he couldn't go twenty mile to save his hide. And t'other's the gray mare, and blamed if she didn't git cast last night and use up her off hind leg so's she can't step. And Sam's GOT to have a horse. Where can I git one?"
"Hum! Have you tried Haynes's?"
"Yes, yes! And Lathrop's and Eldredge's. Can't git a team for love nor money."
"Sho! And he can't go by train?"
"What? With Beriah postmaster at East Harniss and always nosin' through every train that stops there? You can't fetch Trumet by train without stoppin' at East Harniss and-- What was that?"
"I don't know. What was it?"
"Sounded like somethin' outside that back winder."
The two ran to the window and looked out. All they saw was an overturned sawhorse and two or three hens scratching vigorously.
"Guess 'twas the chickens, most likely," observed the blacksmith.
Then, striking his blackened palms together, he exclaimed:
"By time! I've thought of somethin'! Is McKay is in town to-day.
Come over in the Lady May. She's a gasoline boat. Is would take Sam to Trumet for two or three dollars, I'll bet. And he's such a fool head that he wouldn't ask questions nor suspicion nothin'.
'Twould be faster'n a horse and enough sight less risky."
And just then the "fool head," his brain whirling under its carroty thatch, was hurrying blindly up the main street, bound somewhere, he wasn't certain where.
