Old Caravan Days | Page 6

to give her cold shivers with his revengeful grimaces. The culverts were solid arches of masonry which carried the 'pike unbroken in even a line across the many runs and brooks. The tunnel of the culvert was regarded by most children as the befitting lair of beggars, who perhaps would not object to standing knee-deep in water with their heads against a slimy arch.
"This is the very last culvert," sighed Corinne, relieved, as they rumbled across one and entered the village where they were to stop over night.
It was already dusk. The town dogs were beginning to bark, and the candles to twinkle. Zene's wagon was unhitched in front of the tavern, and this signified that the carriage-load might confidently expect entertainment. The tavern was a sprawled-out house, with an arch of glass panes over the entrance door. A fat post stood in front of it, upholding a swinging sign.
The tavern-keeper came out of the door to meet them when they stopped, and helped his guests alight, while a hostler stood ready to lead the horses away.
Aunt Corinne sprung down the steps, glad of the change after the day's ride, until, glancing down the 'pike over their late route, she saw tramping toward the tavern that little old man with a bag on his back.

CHAPTER III.
THE TAVERN.
But the little old man with a bag on his back was left out in the dusk, and aunt Corinne and her party went into the tavern parlor. The landlady brought a pair of candles in brass candlesticks, setting one on each end of the mantel. Between them were snuffers on a snuffer-tray, and a tall mass of paper roses under a glass case. The fireplace was covered by a fireboard on which was pasted wallpaper like that adorning the room. Grandma Padgett sat down in a rocking settee, and Corinne and Bobaday on two of the chairs ranged in solemn rows along the wall. They felt it would be presumption to pull those chairs an inch out of line.
It was a very depressing room. Two funeral urns hung side by side, done in India ink, and framed in chipped-off mahogany. Weeping willows hung over the urns, and a weeping woman leaned on each. There was also a picture of Napoleon in scarlet standing on the green rock of St. Helena, holding a yellow three-cornered hat under his elbow. The house had a fried-potato odor, to which aunt Corinne did not object. She was hungry. But, besides this, the parlor enclosed a dozen other scents; as if the essences of all the dinners served in the house were sitting around invisible on the chairs. There was not lacking even that stale cupboard smell which is the spirit of hunger itself.
The landlady was very fat and red and also melancholy. She began talking at once to Grandma Padgett about the loss of her children whom the funeral urns commemorated, and Grandma Padgett sympathized with her and tried to outdo her in sorrowful experiences. But this was impossible; for the landlady had-lived through more ordeals than anybody else in town, and her manner said plainly, that no passing stranger should carry off her championship.
So she made the dismal room so doleful with her talk that aunt Corinne began to feel terribly about life, and Robert Day wished he had gone to the barn with Zene.
Then the supper-bell rung, and the landlady showed them into the big bare dining-room where she forgot all her troubles in the clatter of plates and cups. A company of men rushed from what was called the bar-room, though its shelves and counter were empty of decanters and glasses. They had the greater part of a long table to themselves, and Zene sat among them. These men the landlady called the boarders: she placed Grandma Padgett's family at the other end of the table; it seemed the decorous thing to her that a strip of empty table should separate the boarders and women-folks.
There were stacks of eatables, including mango stuffed with cabbage and eggs pickled red in beet vinegar. All sorts of fruit butters and preserves stood about in glass and earthen dishes. One end of the table was an exact counterpart of the other, even to the stacks of mighty bread-slices. Boiled cabbage and onions and thick corn-pone with fried ham were there to afford a strong support through the night's fast. Nothing was served in order: you helped yourself from the dishes or let them alone at your pleasure. The landlord appeared just as jolly as his wife was dismal. He sat at the other end of the table and urged everybody with jokes to eat heartily; yet all this profusion was not half so appetizing as some of Grandma Padgett's fried chicken and toast would have been.
After supper Bobaday