Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/42

 the top of the load six lengths of stovepipe and an ever-sliding mattress. The resentment of Lonely's father was more open, for in the very main street of all Chamboro he publicly flung two empty whiskey-bottles at the Harrison's bull-pup—a fact which was duly noted, remembered, and commented on.

"Now, what strange craft might that be?" querulously demanded old Cap'n Sands, of old Cap'n Steiner, as the two bent figures leaned on their sticks and watched her float majestically into port.

Yet so remarkably did the O'Malley conveyance resemble a gypsy camp in transit that many of the smaller children fled incontinently, while the fat old town constable guardedly followed the strange vehicle to its destination. And when it was discovered that the once myth-like and much-talked-of Argonaut of the Frozen North was to occupy the humble little house and bake-shop of the late Widow Elkins, and that he had boasted of being able to mix, mould, and bake six hundred loaves a night, the town of Chamboro felt that it had been cheated out of some glory, vaguely denominated, it is true, but still a glory. Nor