A water-tank, and stables, and a gray house of two stories, with
gable ends and a verandah, are jammed hard against the hillside,
just where a stream has cut for itself a narrow canyon, filled with
pines. The pines go right up overhead; a little more and the
stream might have played, like a fire-hose, on the Toll House roof.
In front the ground drops as sharply as it rises behind. There is
just room for the road and a sort of promontory of croquet ground,
and then you can lean over the edge and look deep below you through
the wood. I said croquet GROUND, not GREEN; for the surface was of
brown, beaten earth. The toll-bar itself was the only other note
of originality: a long beam, turning on a post, and kept slightly
horizontal by a counterweight of stones. Regularly about sundown
this rude barrier was swung, like a derrick, across the road and
made fast, I think, to a tree upon the farther side.
On our arrival there followed a gay scene in the bar. I was
presented to Mr. Corwin, the landlord; to Mr. Jennings, the
engineer, who lives there for his health; to Mr. Hoddy, a most
pleasant little gentleman, once a member of the Ohio legislature,
again the editor of a local paper, and now, with undiminished
dignity, keeping the Toll House bar. I had a number of drinks and
cigars bestowed on me, and enjoyed a famous opportunity of seeing
Kelmar in his glory, friendly, radiant, smiling, steadily edging
one of the ship's kettles on the reluctant Corwin.
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