“Say, Crupp, I’ll try to do something for Tappelmine, though I don’t know yet what it’ll be, an’ I don’t care if you do let me have about five sheers of that mill stock; I s’pose you won’t want more than you paid for it?”
CHAPTER IX.
SOME VOLUNTEER SHEPHERDS.
The mail-stage did not make its appearance at the usual hour on the day following Crupp’s conversation with Father Baguss, and during a lull in the desultory conversation which prevailed among those who were waiting for the mail, the postmaster displayed at his window his large, round face, devoid of its habitual jolly smile, and remarked,
“Too bad about Wainright, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?” asked half a dozen at once.
The postmaster looked infinitely more important all in a second. It is but seldom in this world that a man can tell a bit of news to an assembled crowd; and in an inland town, before the day of the omnipresent telegraph pole, the chances were proportionately fewer than elsewhere. The postmaster had a generous heart, however, and at the risk of losing his importance he opened his treasure-house all at once:
“He’s been pretty high on whiskey for two or three days,” said he, “and they say he’s got snakes in his boots now; anyhow, he’s made a sudden break for Louisville; he started on foot, an hour or two ago, for Brown’s Landing, seven miles below here, to catch a down-river steamboat; he was clear-headed enough to find out first that it wasn’t likely that the Excellence, that’s about due, wouldn’t have any freight to stop for here. His wife’s half wild about it, but there’s nothing the poor thing can do.”
“Poor, misguided man!” sighed Parson Wedgewell, who had arrived just in time to hear the story. “The ways of Providence are undoubtedly wise, but they are indeed mysterious. Judging according to our finite capacities, it would be natural to suppose that capabilities so unusual as those of Mr. Wainright would be divinely guided.”