The station agent, in black calico sleeve-protectors and celluloid eyeshade, stretched the upper half of his body out the cubby-hole that served him for an office.
“Oh, you Gash!” he called. “Give my love to all the ladies.”
The two groups on the platform waited, all expectant for the retort. Instantly it sped back to them, above the clacking voice of the train:
“That’s all you ever would give ’em, ain’t it?”
Mr. Gip Dismukes, who kept the livery stable, slapped Mr. Gene Brothers, who drove the bus, a resounding slap on the back.
“Ain’t he jest ez quick ez a flash?” he demanded of the company generally.
The station agent withdrew himself inside his sanctum, his sides heaving to his mirthful emotions. He had drawn a fire acknowledged to be deadly at any range, but he was satisfied. The laugh was worth the wound.
Through the favoured section traversed by the common carrier to whose care genius incarnate had just committed his precious person there are two kinds of towns—bus towns and non-bus towns. A bus town lies at an appreciable distance from the railroad, usually with a hill [94] intervening, and a bus, which is painted yellow, plies between town and station. But a non-bus town is a town that has for its civic equator the tracks themselves. The station forms one angle of the public square; and, within plain sight and easy walking reach, the post office and at least two general stores stand; and handily near by is a one-story bank built of a stucco composition purporting to represent granite, thus signifying solidity and impregnability; and a two-story hotel, white, with green blinds, and porches running all the way across the front; also hitch rails; a livery stable; and a Masonic Hall.
Swango belonged to the former category. It was over the hill, a hot and dusty eighth of a mile away. So, having watched the departing four-five accommodation until it diminished to a smudgy dot where the V of the rails melted together and finally vanished, the assembled Swangoans settled back in postures of ease to wait for the up train due at three-eight, but reported two hours and thirty minutes late. There would still be ample time after it came and went to get home for supper.
The contemptuous travelling man who once said that only three things ever happened in Swango—morning, afternoon and night—perpetrated a libel, for he wilfully omitted mention of three other daily events: the cannon-ball, tearing through without stopping in the early forenoon; the three-eight up; and the four-five down.