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 went out to the barn and saw a whole street of
horse-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 Robert
climbed to his side, upon which the hostler good-naturedly took him
by the shoulders and let him slide down and alight upon the spongy
pile below. This would have been a delightful sensation had Bobaday
not bitten his tongue in the descent. But he liked it better than the
house where his aunt Corinne wandered uneasily up stairs which were
hollowed in the middle of each step, and along narrow passages where
bits of plaster had fallen off.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34