“Did you notice Scotty?” asked Marjorie, approaching Jean, who sat on a wagon-tongue, trying to think of something out of the ordinary to jot in her journal.
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s been preening his feathers like a turkey-gobbler for the last half-hour. Guess our pretty widow and her aristocratic mamma have caught up with our train. Just watch him! See how the ex-scientist, ex-statesman, ex-orator, and now ex-almost-anything is making a fool of himself!”
“All people, of both sexes, get a spell of the simples, sooner or later,” laughed Jean. “Daddie says that when the system is in the right condition to catch it, one gets it bad.”
“Guess I’ll ride out and look over the town a little, Annie,” said the Captain to his wife after the family had retired for the night. “I want to look out a little for our Scotty. He seems to need a guardian.”
Scotty, though a characteristic specimen of the educated Scotchman, was a loyal adherent of the institutions of his adopted country. He had been a member of the constitutional conventions of two border States, and was known as a writer and orator of no mean ability. But, like many another brilliant man, he had passed his fortieth year without acquiring a home, a family, or a competence. He was well versed in the “Rise and Fall of Republics,” and had travelled much in foreign lands,—themes of which he never tired. But he could never reduce ox-driving to a science.
Captain Ranger rode to the top of the bluffs, where he leisurely contemplated the scene. Lights reflected from town and river danced and gleamed, but barely made the darkness visible in the muddy streets. Church bells rang, steamers whistled, and longshoremen tugged at heavy loads. Powerful horses propelled great, clumsy freight-wagons through the unpaved streets. Foot passengers picked their way through slop and mud.
“Railroads will come here some day,” said the Captain to himself. “They will compete with the river traffic and cripple it. Other towns, like Chicago, will divert the trade, and there is no telling what the end will be. What a busy, bustling world it is, anyhow!”
“Halloa, Captain!”
“Well, I’m blanked if it isn’t Scotty!”