“It’s a tug, that’s what it is,” Pee-wee said; “I can see the smoke.  It’s going up in a big column.”

“It’s more than a column, its a whole volume,” Westy said, looking around.  “There must be books on that boat; the smoke is coming out in volumes.”

All the while we were getting nearer to the bridge and it was easier rowing, because the tide was on the turn.

Now maybe if you fellows that read this don’t live in the country where there’s a river, you won’t understand about tides and bridges and all that.  So I’ll tell you how it is, because, gee, we’re used to all that, us fellows.

Jimmy Van Dorian, he lives right near the bridge in a little shanty and he’s lame and he’s a bridge tender.  You don’t get much for being a bridge tender and mostly old veterans are bridge tenders.  Anyway, they don’t get much out our way, because big boats don’t come up and they don’t have to open the bridge often.

When we got down to the bridge we saw that the tide was right up so we even had to duck our heads to get under, and right on the other side of the bridge was a tugboat standing facing upstream and its whistle was screeching and screeching just like a dog stands and barks when he’s mad.  It seemed awful funny because it was a small tug and it made so much noise.

“It ought to be named the Pee-wee,” Westy said.

“Nobody’s paying much attention to it,” I told him.

Just as we came under the bridge we could see a big fat man, oh, Christopher, wasn’t he fat, standing up in the pilot house pulling and pulling the whistle rope, for the bridge to open.  Sometimes he’d pull it very fast, just like you do with the receiver on the telephone when you’re good and mad because Central don’t answer.  And it was pretty near as bad as the telephone, too, because he went on tooting and tooting and tooting and nobody paid any attention to him.

CHAPTER XXIX

JIMMY, THE BRIDGE-TENDER

Pretty soon the big fat man stuck his head out of the window and he shouted, “What’s the matter, is everybody deaf around here?  Here, you boys, where’s the bridgeman?” Honest, you’d think I had the bridgeman in my pocket.  I told him I didn’t know where the bridgeman was.  Oh, but he looked mad.  He had an awful red face and white whiskers and I guess he must have been used to ordering people around—­anyway, he looked that way.

He said, “Here I am on the down tide, the water going out every minute and got to run up to North Bridgeboro yet.  It’s a—­” he said what kind of an outrage it was, but I wouldn’t tell you.  Oh, he was hopping mad.  “I’ll get stuck hard and fast in the consarned mud,” he said, “if I ain’t back and past this here Sleepy Hollow in forty minutes—­that’s what I will!”

I hollered up to him that I’d row across to Jimmy’s house and see if he was asleep.

“Asleep!” that’s just the way he shouted.  “Do bridgeman sleep on full tide up this way?  Don’t he know the harbor and waterway laws?  I’ll make it hot for ’im—­I will.”  And then he began pulling the whistle faster and faster.