Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WEDDING GIFT. as long as the race track, and into a room large enough for the supreme court to sit. There were a field bed and half a dozen chairs, two tables and a washstand, an enormous black walnut wardrobe. Mosely tested the old mulberry pitcher, saw that it was filled, and that there was a cake of yellow soap and plenty of towels. “Tl get supper started,’ he said. ‘* Come down when you’re a mind to.”’ While Thumb washed up, Hambone sad- ly studied the wall paper, a quaint design of faded rose wreaths twining about broken columns, set in panels. “The bridal chamber, Thumb! And ’stead of a blushin’ bride. I draws you!” ‘““T hope we draws some good grub, an’ plenty of it,” sputtered Thumb from a froth of yellew suds. Downstairs again, they registered in Mosely’s ancient ledger, breaking the True Name Law of Massachusetts in doing so. Their host watched them with idle curiosity. “You're in good company, gents! The records go back to 1820. Dan’l Webster’s thar, three times. Pop Geers a dozen times. Not to mention two presidents and a few millionaire sports.” He retrieved the rusty pen and jabbed it back into a large Early Rose potato. ““ Supper’s ready. You'll have to make out with what we got. If you’d dropped in about twenty year earlier, I could of given you a brace of fat pa’tridges stuffed with chestnuts, some Medford rum, and an old peach brandy that’d knock your eye out! But I don’t pertend to run a hotel no more.”’ The dining room into which they were led was breath-taking in its immensity, Ex- tending the length of the house, it must have seated a hundred in its day. The one table remaining stood in the very middle, an oasis in a desert. Overhead hung an oil lamp by a chain. Mosely drew out a couple of pine chairs. ““The room overhead is the same size. Old ballroom. Got a fiddler’s throne up in the wall at one end, and a spring floor. The young bucks and their gals used to shake it down till cockcrow, when I was a <a? 413 The two yeggs appraised the layout of — the long table. Its clean but patched white | cloth bore a huge cruet containing vinegar, pepper, salt, mustard, and_ horseradish. Flanking it was a glass jar of pickles, a slab of butter that must have weighed a pound, a loaf of home made bread on a wooden platter. Their napkins were rolled in ivory rings, yellow with age and han- dling. A silver ice-water pitcher which tipped on a swivel stood within reach. A green glass shaped like a top hat was full of toothpicks. There was a large bowl of preserved currants, a plate of cottage cheese, and a yellow, blue-banded bowl containing a couple dozen sugared crul- — lers. Thus far they had got in their inventory when a third guest entered and seated him- self across from them with a pleasant word flung to Mosely. He was a small, mild- mannered man of middle age, with a sparse beard. He wore no coat, seemed surprised that there was company for supper, ee looked a trifle embarrassed. Thumb trod furtively upon Hambones foot. The stranger’s vest was unbuttoned, and the peterman’s eye focused upon the “gallusses ’ which were visible as he set- tled down in his chair. Upon the left one was pinned a five- pointed metal star! {SEE “ Mert Mr. Joe Grant, gents. Our con- stable, pound-keeper, overseer o’ the poor, and tax collector.” The three nodded, and Grant laughed shyly. “TI ain’t so busy, at that,” he explained. ‘* No strays in the pound for more’n a year, nobody on the town but one old codger we board out, and sence the tramps stopped coming, nobody to arrest.” “That leaves the tax collecting, once a year,’ Thumb laughed. “ Don’t time hang kinda heavy?” Mosely spoke up good-naturedly. ‘“* Oh, Joe’s consid’able of a tinker. Fixes clocks and donkey engines and sets saws — and such like. Always enough to keep him out of mischief.”’ | Eomichbooks:.co