“It's fat Jim Bartlett!” he said in a shrill cracked treble. “Fat Jim Bartlett, who's seeing the last of his easy hoss-driving job.”
“Don't you believe it, pap!” said the stage driver good-naturedly.
The old man rapped on the new station platform with his heavy thorn walking stick.
“Why ain't there more doing, jedge?” he said. “You should ha' seen us here when the fust stage coach come through from clean acrost the mountings.”
“Do you remember that?” asked Colonel Sharp interestedly.
“Do I remember it! I've seen this here country grow outen the timber. It was rolling green for two hundred miles, smooth and round as a duck's breast, when I crost the mountings; not a clearing, not a road, not a house. I seen the fust booted foot that was put onto the trace; the fust shod hoof; I seen the fust grist of corn that was ground on the Little Wolf; I seen the fust barrel of whisky that was run outen a still; I seen the fust flat-bottomed boat that was poled up from the Ohio; I seen the fust wheeled cart that General Landray fetched in from Virginia, when he come with his niggers; and I seen the fust stage coach, and rid in it, too, long enough afore your time, fat Jim Bartlett! That's enough to crowd into one life time, ain't it?”
“You seen a plenty when you seen the stage, pap,” said Mr. Bartlett, tolerantly. “I believe in letting good enough alone, I do. The world got on pretty tolerable well for a many year without none of these here railroads!”
But the stage driver had the argument to himself; the judge and
Benson and their friends were entering the coach, and they had taken old Pap Randall with them. And then presently the miracle of steam and iron rumbled off down the track to cross the new railroad bridge which spanned the Little Wolf River not two hundred yards distant from where the old covered bridge stood, stained and weather-beaten, with here and there a board missing.
The river rippled beneath the bridges, the old and the new, where it had once swept in silent volume, soundless and deep. From the bank above, the big warehouses cast long black shadows.