“Shouldn’t wonder if I could put you there,” calmly rejoined the Cap’n.  “These forced lickidations to settle estates is something awful when the books ain’t been kept any better’n yours.  I shouldn’t be a mite surprised to find that the law would get a nab on you for cheatin’ your poor sister.”

Again the Colonel’s face grew white.

“All is,” continued the Cap’n, patronizingly, “if we can keep it all in the fam’ly, nice and quiet, you ain’t goin’ to git showed up.  Now, I ain’t goin’ to listen to no more abuse out of you.  I’ll give you jest one minute to decide.  Look me in the eye.  I mean business.”

“You’ve got me where I’ll have to,” wailed the Colonel.

“Is it pardnership?”

“Yas!” He barked the word.

“Now, Colonel Ward, there’s only one way for you and me to do bus’ness the rest of our lives, and that’s on the square, cent for cent.  We might as well settle that p’int now.  Fix up that toll bill, or it’s all off.  I won’t go into business with a man that don’t pay his honest debts.”

He came forward with his hand out.

The Colonel paid.

“Now,” said the Cap’n, “seein’ that the new man is here, ready to take holt, and the books are all square, I’ll ride home with you.  I’ve been callin’ it home now for a couple of days.”

The new man at the toll-house heard the Cap’n talking serenely as they drove away.

“I didn’t have any idee, Colonel, I was goin’ to like it so well on shore as I do.  Of course, you meet some pleasant and some unpleasant people, but that sister of yours is sartinly the finest woman that ever trod shoe-leather, and it was Providunce a-speakin’ to me when she—­”

The team passed away into the gloomy mouth of the Smyrna bridge.

III

Once on a time when the Wixon boy put Paris-green in the Trufants’ well, because the oldest Trufant girl had given him the mitten, Marm Gossip gabbled in Smyrna until flecks of foam gathered in the corners of her mouth.

But when Cap’n Aaron Sproul, late of the deep sea, so promptly, so masterfully married Col.  Gideon Ward’s sister—­after the irascible Colonel had driven every other suitor away from that patient lady—­and then gave the Colonel his “everlasting comeuppance,” and settled down in Smyrna as boss of the Ward household, that event nearly wore Gossip’s tongue into ribbons.

“I see’d it from a distance—­the part that happened in front of the toll-house,” said Old Man Jordan.  “Now, all of ye know that Kun’l Gid most gin’ly cal’lates to eat up folks that says ‘Boo’ to him, and pick his teeth with slivers of their bones.  But talk about your r’yal Peeruvian ragin’ lions—­of wherever they come from—­why, that Cap’n Sproul could back a ’Rabian caterwouser right off’m Caterwouser Township!  I couldn’t hear what was said, but I see Kun’l Gid, hoss-gad and all, backed right up into his own wagon; and Cap’n Sproul got in, and took the reins away from him as if he’d been a pindlin’ ten-year-old, and drove off toward the Ward home place.  And that Cap’n don’t seem savage, nuther.”