On the other side of the train of cars, station agent John D. Wilkins saw an old-fashioned carryall drive up, conducted by an elderly woman of austere demeanor. She was dressed in black alpaca, and her look was stern and severe, and, necessarily, highly respectable. He saw a young man and a young woman descend from the train, and saw the young man hand the young woman into the carryall behind the elderly lady. Then, as the young man turned as though to look for some one following him, he heard the young woman say:
“Winkelman, dear, I don’t care what her age is, you must spank your aunt!”
* * *
When Mr. John D. Wilkins heard what he heard, he forgot the rules of the railroad company, according to which he should have remained on the platform until the train had left. He knew that just at 6:30 his particular crony, Mr. Hiram Stalls, telegraph operator at Bunker’s Mills, and news-gatherer for the Bunker’s Mills Daily Eagle, went off duty in his telegraphic capacity, and became an unalloyed journalist. He caught Mr. Stalls in the act of saying goodnight, and he talked to him over the wire in dot and dash thus:
“That you, Hi? Meet me at the station when the 7:21 gets in. I’ve got a news item for you that will make the Eagle scream this trip, sure.”
If Mr. Wilkins had not been so zealous in breaking his employer’s rules in the interest of personal journalism, he would have heard the young man thus enjoined to inflict humiliating punishment upon a parent’s sister, respond to this cruel counsel in these words:
“It will only make her cry more;—why, where the deuce is the brat, anyway?”
Moreover, he would have seen Mr. Beebe pilot an Irish nurse and a bundled-up baby around the rear of the train, and then jump on the platform as the cars started, with all the vigor and energy which the possession of a real mean story about a fellow human being can impart to the most aged and stiffened limbs. But he didn’t. What would become of the gossip business if those engaged in it stopped to find things out?