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.
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