The outside door closed with a slam; “Brother Obed” had fled.

A little later, when the rest of the former creditors of the Major came out into the moonlight, they found their companion standing by the gate gazing stonily into vacancy.  “Hen” Leadbetter, who, with Higgins, brought up the rear of the procession, said reflectively: 

“When he fust fetched out that stack of money I couldn’t scarcely b’lieve my eyes.  I begun to think that we fellers had put our foot in it for sartin, and had lost a mighty good customer; but, of course, it’s all plain enough now.”

“Yes,” remarked Weeks with a nod; “I allers heard that P’lena kept a mighty good balance in the bank.”

“It looks to me,” said Higgins slyly, “as if we owed Obed here a vote of thanks.  How ’bout that, Obed?”

And then Major Hardee’s new brother-in-law awoke with a jump.

“Aw, you go to grass!” he snarled, and tramped savagely off down the hill.

CHAPTER IX

THE WIDOW BASSETT

These developments, Major Hardee’s marriage and Mr. Gott’s discomfiture, overshadowed, for the time, local interest in the depot master’s house moving.  This was, in its way, rather fortunate, for those who took the trouble to walk down to the lower end of the Boulevard were astonished to see how very slowly the moving was progressing.

“Only one horse, Sim?” asked Captain Hiram Baker.  “Only one!  Why, it’ll take you forever to get through, won’t it?”

“I’m afraid it’ll take quite a spell,” admitted Mr. Phinney.

“Where’s your other one, the white one?”

“The white horse,” said Simeon slowly, “ain’t feelin’ just right and I’ve had to lay him off.”

“Humph! that’s too bad.  How does Sol act about it?  He’s such a hustler, I should think—­”

“Sol,” interrupted Sim, “ain’t unreasonable.  He understands.”

He chuckled inwardly as he said it.  Captain Sol did understand.  Also Mr. Phinney himself was beginning to understand a little.

The very day on which Williams and his foreman had called on the depot master and been dismissed so unceremoniously, that official paid a short visit to his mover.

“Sim,” he said, the twinkle still in his eye, “his Majesty, Williams the Conqueror, was in to see me just now and acted real peevish.  He was pretty disrespectful to you, too.  Called your outfit ‘one horse.’  That’s a mistake, because you’ve got two horses at work right now.  It seems a shame to make a great man like that lie.  Hadn’t you better lay off one of them horses?”

“Lay one off?” exclaimed Simeon.  “What for?  Why, we’ll be slow enough, as ’tis.  With only one horse we wouldn’t get through for I don’t know how long.”

“That’s so,” murmured the Captain.  “I s’pose with one horse you’d hardly reach the middle of the Boulevard by—­well, before the tenth of the month.  Hey?”