Old Caravan Days | Page 6

an "old beggar" got a chance at you there was no telling in
what part of the world he would make merchandise of you! They
always suspected the beggar boys and girls were kidnapped children.
While it was desirable to avoid these people, it was even more desirable
that a little girl should not offend them.
Aunt Corinne revolved in her mind the remark she had made to the
little old man with a bag on his back. She could take no more pleasure
in the views along the 'pike; for she almost expected to see him start out
of a culvert 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