Up The Hill And Over Part 4

As he spoke, the horse, now going at a fairly respectable rate, turned into the main street of the town; a main street, thriftily prosperous but now somewhat a-doze in the sun. Half-way down, the intelligent animal stopped with another jerk for which the doctor was equally ill-prepared. Before them stood a modest red brick building, three stories in height, with a narrow veranda running across the lowest story just one step up from the pavement. On the veranda were green chairs and in the chairs reclined such portion of the male Coombers as could do so without fear and without reproach. Along the top of the veranda was a large sign displaying the words, "HOTEL IMPERIAL."

Callandar alighted nimbly from the democrat, that being the name of the light spring wagon in which he had travelled, and shook his good Samaritan by the hand. "Thank you very much," he said, "and I sincerely hope that the sunstroke will not have terminated fatally by the time you reach home."

The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly and again he fancied a twinkle in their mournfulness. "If it does," said the sad one tranquilly, "it will be the first time it ever has--giddap!"

As no one came forth to take his knapsack, Callandar slung it over his shoulder and entered the hotel. The parting remark of his conductor had left a smile upon his lips, which smile still lingered as he asked the sleepy-looking clerk for a room, and intimated that he would like lunch immediately.

"Dining room closed," said that individual shortly.

"What do you mean?"

"Dining room closes at two; supper at six."

"Do you mean to say that you serve nothing between the hours of two and six?"

"Serve you a drink, if you like," with an understanding grin at his questioner's dusty knapsack.

Forgetting that he had become a Presbyterian, the doctor made a few remarks, and from his manner of making them the clerk awoke to the fact that knapsacks do not a hobo make nor dusty coats a tramp. Now in Canada no one is the superior of any one else, but that did not make a bit of difference in the startling change of demeanour which overtook the clerk. He straightened up. He removed his toothpick. He arranged the register in his best manner and chose another nib for his pen. When Callandar had registered, the clerk was very sorry indeed that the hotel arrangements were rather arbitrary in the matter of meal hours. He was afraid that the kitchen fires were down and everything cold. Still if the gentleman would go to his room, he would see what could be done--

The gentleman went to his room; but in no enviable frame of mind. So wretched was his plight that he was not above valuing the covert sympathy of the small bell-boy who preceded him up the oilclothed stairs. He was a very round boy: round legs, round cheeks, round head and eyes so round that they must have been special eyes made on purpose.

There was also a haunting resemblance to some other boy! Callandar taxed his memory, and there stole into it a vision of a pool with willows. He chuckled.

"Boy," he said, "have you a little brother who is very fond of going to school?"

"Nope," said the boy. (It seemed to be a family word.) "I've got a brother, but he don't sound like that."

"You ought to be in school yourself, boy. What's your name?"

"Zerubbabel Burk."

"Is that all?"

"Yep. Bubble for short."

"Have you ever known what it is to be hungry?"

"Three times a day, before meals!"

"Well, I'm starving. Do you belong to the Boy Scouts?"

"Betyerlife."

"Well, look here. I am an army in distress. Commissariat cut off, extinction imminent! Now you go and bring in the provisions. And, as we believe in honourable warfare, pay for everything you get, but take no refusals--see?" He pressed a bill into the boy's ready hand and watched the light of understanding leap into the round eyes with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation.

"I get you, Mister! Here's your room, number fourteen."

The boy disappeared while still the key with its long tin label was jingling in the lock. The doctor opened the door of room number fourteen and went in.

Rooms, we contend, like people, should be considered in relation to that state in which it has pleased Providence to place them. To consider number fourteen in any environment save its own would be manifestly unfair since, in relation to all the other rooms at the Imperial, number fourteen was a good room, perhaps the very best. A description tempts us, but perhaps its best description is to be found in its effect upon Dr. Callandar. That effect was an immediate determination to depart by the next train, provided the next train did not leave before he had had something to eat.

He was aroused from gloomy musings by a discreet tap announcing the return of the scouting party. The scouting party was piled with parcels up to its round eyes and from the parcels issued an odour so delicious that the doctor's depression vanished.

"Good hunting, eh?"

"Prime, sir. 'Tisn't store stuff, either! As soon as I see that look in your eye I remembered 'bout the tea-fight over at Knox's Church last night and how they'd be sure to be selling off what's left, for the benefit of the heathen." The boy gave the roundest wink Callandar had ever seen and deposited his parcels upon the bed. "They always have 'bout forty times as much's they can use. Course I didn't get you any _broken_ vittles," he added, noticing the alarm upon the doctor's face.

"It's all as good as the best. Wait till you see!"

He began to clear the wash-stand in a businesslike manner, talking all the time. "This here towel will do for a cloth. It's bran' clean--cross my heart! I borrowed a dish or two offen the church. They know me....

We'll put the chicken in the middle and the ham along at this end and the pie over there where it can't slip off--"

"I don't like pie, boy."

"I do. Pie's good for you. We'll put the beet salad by the chicken and the cabbage salad by the ham and the chow-chow betwixt 'em. Then the choc'late cake can go by the pie--"

"Boy, I don't like chocolate cake."

"Honest? Ah, you're kiddin' me! Really? Choc'late cake's awful good for you. I love chocolate cake. This here cake was made by Esther Coombe's Aunt Amy--it's a sure winner! Say, Mister, what do you like anyway?"

"Ever so many more things than I did yesterday. By Jove, that chicken looks good!"

"Yep. That's Mrs. Hallard's chicken. I thought you'd want the best. She ris' it herself. And made the stuffin' too."

"Did she 'ris' the ham also?"

"Nope. It's Miss Taylor's ham. Home cured. The minister thinks a whole lot of Miss Taylor's curin'. Ma thinks that if Miss Taylor wasn't quite so hombly, minister might ask her jest on account of the ham. You try it--wait a jiffy till I sneak some knives!"

Callandar looked at the decorated wash-stand and felt better. He had forgotten all about the room, and when the knives came, in even less than the promised jiffy, he forgot everything but the varied excellences of the food before him. The chicken was a chicken such as one dreams of.

The salads were delicious, the homemade bread and b.u.t.ter fresh and sweet; the ham might well cause feelings of a tender nature towards its curer! The chocolate cake? He thought he might try a small piece and, having tried, was willing to make the attempt on a larger scale. The boy was a most efficient waiter, discerning one's desires before they were expressed. But when they got to the pie, the doctor drew up another chair at the pie side of the table and waved the waiter into it.

There was no false modesty about the boy; neither did he hold malice. If he had felt slightly aggrieved at not having been invited earlier, he forgot it after the first mouthful and for a time there was no further conversation in number fourteen. The doctor had temporarily discarded his theory that it is better to rise from the table feeling slightly hungry. The boy had never had so foolish a theory to discard. The chicken, the ham, the pie, disappeared as if conjured away. The boy grew rounder.

"Boy," said the doctor at last, "hadn't you better stop? You are 'swelling wisibly afore my werry eyes!'"

The boy shook his head, but presently he began to have intervals when he was able to speak.

"Better plant all you can," he advised. "Ma says the grub here would kill a cat. I eat at home. Ma wouldn't risk my stomach here.

It's fierce."

"But I'll have to eat, boy. Isn't there another hotel?"

"Yep; two. But you couldn't go to them. This here's the only decent one.

Gave you a nice room anyway." He looked around admiringly. "Going to stay long?"

"No--that is, yes--I don't know! How can I stay if I can't eat?"

The boy picked his round white teeth thoughtfully with a pin.

"You might get board somewheres."