The Postmaster

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln

I'd have put for Colorado in a minute, but I couldn't; that store was on my shoulders and I couldn't leave. I telegraphed not to spare no expense and to write or wire every day. 'Twas all I could do, but I never spent such a worried time afore nor since. I was worried, not only about my partner, but about the business he'd put in my charge. There was new developments in that business and they kept on developin'.

'Twas the "Sign of the Windmill" that was troublin' me. As I told you, the weekly bills for that eatin'-house was big ones, but the fust three or four had been paid on the dot. Now, however, they wa'n't paid and they was just as big. Frank's account on our books kept gettin' larger and larger and, not only that, but anybody could see that the Windmill wa'n't doin' half the trade it begun with. There was more auto parties than ever, but the heft of 'em went right on by to the new road-house in Denboro. I remembered what the fleshy man told me and I judged that the word had been passed to the motorin' crew, just as he prophesied.

I went up to see Frank and had a talk with him. I found him in his office, settin' at a fine new roll-top desk, with the dark-complected stewardess alongside of him. She seemed to be helpin' him with his letters and accounts, which looked odd to me, and she glowered at me when I come in like a cat at a stray poodle. She didn't get up and go out, neither, till he hinted p'raps she'd better, and even then she whispered to him mighty confidential afore she went. 'Twas a queer way for hired help to act, but 'twa'n't none of my affairs, of course.

He was cordial enough till he found out what I was after and then he chilled up like a freezer full of cream. He was in the habit of payin' his bills, he give me to understand, and he'd pay this one when 'twas convenient. If I didn't care to sell the Windmill goods, that was my affair, of course, but his relations with my partner had been so pleasant that—and so forth and so on. I sneaked out of that office, feelin' like a henroost-thief instead of an honest man tryin' to collect an honest debt. I'd bungled things again. Instead of makin' matters better, I'd made 'em worse; come nigh losin' a good customer and all that. What business had an old salt herrin' like me to be in business, anyhow? That's how I felt when I was talkin' to him, and how I felt when I shut that office door and come out into the dinin'-room.

But the sight of that dinin'-room, tables all vacant, and two waiters where there had been four, fetched all my uneasiness back again. If ever a place had "Goin' down" marked on it 'twas the "Sign of the Windmill." I stewed and fretted all the way to the store and when I got there I found that another big order of groceries and canned goods had been delivered to the eatin' house while I was gone.

The next week'll stick in my mind till doomsday, I cal'late. Every blessed mornin' found me vowin' I'd stop sellin' that Windmill, and every night found more dollars added to the bill. You see, I didn't know what to do. If I'd been sole owner and sailin' master, I'd have set my foot down, I guess; but there was Jim Henry to be considered. I wrote a note to the Frank man, but he didn't even trouble to answer it.

Saturday noon came round and, after the mail was sorted, I wandered out to the front platform and set there, blue as a whetstone. The gang of summer boarders and natives, that's always around mail times, melted away fast and I was pretty nigh alone. Not quite alone; Alpheus Perkins, the fish man, was occupyin' moorin's at t'other end of the platform and he didn't seem to be in any hurry. By and by over he comes and sets down alongside of me.

"Cap'n Zeb," he says, fidgety like, "I s'pose likely you've been wonderin' why I don't pay your bill here at the store, ain't you?"

I hadn't, havin' more important things to think about, but now I remembered that he did owe consider'ble and had owed it for some time. Alpheus is as straight as they make 'em and usually pays his debts prompt.

"I know you must have," he went on, not waitin' for me to answer. "Well, I intended to pay long afore this, and I will pay pretty soon. But I've had trouble collectin' my own debts and it's held me back. If I could only get my hands on one account that's owin' me, I'd be all right. Say," says he, tryin' hard to act careless and as if 'twa'n't important one way or t'other: "Say," he says, "you know Mr. Frank, up here at the hotel, pretty well, don't you?"