Old Caravan Days, Page 3

  CHAPTER III. THE TAVERN.

  But the little old man with a bag on his back was left out in thedusk, and aunt Corinne and her party went into the tavern parlor. Thelandlady brought a pair of candles in brass candlesticks, setting oneon 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 fireplacewas covered by a fireboard on which was pasted wallpaper like thatadorning the room. Grandma Padgett sat down in a rocking settee, andCorinne and Bobaday on two of the chairs ranged in solemn rows alongthe wall. They felt it would be presumption to pull those chairs aninch 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. Weepingwillows hung over the urns, and a weeping woman leaned on each. Therewas also a picture of Napoleon in scarlet standing on the green rockof St. Helena, holding a yellow three-cornered hat under his elbow.The house had a fried-potato odor, to which aunt Corinne did notobject. She was hungry. But, besides this, the parlor enclosed adozen other scents; as if the essences of all the dinners served inthe house were sitting around invisible on the chairs. There was notlacking even that stale cupboard smell which is the spirit of hungeritself.

  The landlady was very fat and red and also melancholy. She begantalking at once to Grandma Padgett about the loss of her childrenwhom the funeral urns commemorated, and Grandma Padgett sympathizedwith her and tried to outdo her in sorrowful experiences. But thiswas impossible; for the landlady had-lived through more ordeals thananybody else in town, and her manner said plainly, that no passingstranger should carry off her championship.

  So she made the dismal room so doleful with her talk that auntCorinne began to feel terribly about life, and Robert Day wished hehad gone to the barn with Zene.

  Then the supper-bell rung, and the landlady showed them into the bigbare dining-room where she forgot all her troubles in the clatter ofplates 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 satamong them. These men the landlady called the boarders: she placedGrandma Padgett's family at the other end of the table; it seemed thedecorous thing to her that a strip of empty table should separate theboarders and women-folks.

  There were stacks of eatables, including mango stuffed with cabbageand eggs pickled red in beet vinegar. All sorts of fruit butters andpreserves stood about in glass and earthen dishes. One end of thetable was an exact counterpart of the other, even to the stacks ofmighty bread-slices. Boiled cabbage and onions and thick corn-ponewith fried ham were there to afford a strong support through thenight's fast. Nothing was served in order: you helped yourself fromthe dishes or let them alone at your pleasure. The landlord appearedjust as jolly as his wife was dismal. He sat at the other end of thetable and urged everybody with jokes to eat heartily; yet all thisprofusion was not half so appetizing as some of Grandma Padgett'sfried chicken and toast would have been.

  After supper Bobaday went out to the barn and saw a whole street ofhorse-stalls, the farthest horse switching his tail in dim distance;and such a mow of hay as impressed him with the advantages of travel.A hostler was forking down hay for the evening's feeding, and Robertclimbed to his side, upon which the hostler good-naturedly took himby the shoulders and let him slide down and alight upon the spongypile below. This would have been a delightful sensation had Bobadaynot bitten his tongue in the descent. But he liked it better than thehouse where his aunt Corinne wandered uneasily up stairs which werehollowed in the middle of each step, and along narrow passages wherebits of plaster had fallen off.

  There was a dulcimer in the room aunt Corinne occupied with hermother. She took the hammer and beat on its rusty wires some timebefore going to bed. It tinkled a plea to her to let it alone, butwhat little girl could look at the queer instrument and keep herhands off it? The landlady said it was left there by a travellingshowman who could not pay his board. He hired the bar-room to give aconcert in, and pasted up written advertisements of his performancein various parts of the town. He sent free tickets to the preacherand schoolmaster, and the landlord's family went in for nothing.Nobody else came, though he played on the flute and harmonium,besides the dulcimer, and sang _Lilly Dale_, and _Roll on,Silver Moon_, so touchingly that the landlady wiped her eyes attheir mere memory. As he had no money to pay stage-fare further, andthe flute and harmonium--a small bellows organ without legs--wereeasier to carry than the dulcimer, he left it and trudged eastward.And no one at that tavern could tell whether he and his instrumentshad perished piecemeal along the way, or whether he had found crowdedhouses and forgotten the old dulcimer in the tide of prosperity.

  Grandma Padgett's party ate breakfast before day, by the light of acandle covering its candlestick with a tallow glacier. It made only ahole of shine in the general duskiness of the big dining-room. Thelandlady bade them a pathetic good-by. She was sure there weredangers ahead of them. The night stage had got in three hours late,owing to a breakdown, and one calamity she said, is only theforerunner of another.

  Zene had driven ahead with the load. It was a foggy morning, anddrops of moisture hung to the carriage curtains. There was themorning star yet trembling over the town. Aunt Corinne hugged herwrap, and Bobaday stuck his hands deep in his pockets. But Grandmasat erect and drove away undaunted and undamped. She merely searchedthe inside of the carriage with her glasses, inquiring as a lastprecaution:

  "Have we left anything behind?"

  "I got all my things," said Robert. "And my gold dollar's in mypocket."

  At this aunt Corinne arose and plunged into the carriage pocket onher side.