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The City man, who was tall and handsome, ushered his guests into what he styled his hospital, and there, ranged in a row along the wall, were five shakedowns, with a child on each. Seldom have I beheld a finer sight than the sparkling lustre of their ten still glaring eyes! Two pleasant young domestics were engaged in feeding the smaller ones with jam and pudding.
I will have some shakedowns made up for you young gentlemen in my state cabin, while your three men can go forward, and the doctor will look after the one with the broken head." Tom, Gerald, and Billy thanked the good-natured captain for his kind offer, but hinted that, as they had had nothing but mashed yams and oil for the last two days, they should be thankful for something to eat.
On broaching the subject, however, we found to our delight, that cribs, couches, shakedowns, and all sorts of contrivances, with store of cloaks, garments, and blankets, had been got ready for our use. We were told off into parties; and the first to be sorted were the two Russians, an Italian, and myself.
The cabin reeked of corn-pone and bacon, and the odor of pelts. It had two shakedowns, on one of which I slept under a bearskin. A rough stone chimney was reared outside, and the fireplace was as long as my father was tall. There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it great buckhorns held my father's rifle when it was not in use.
Anderson and Ruth, and heard the story of their first exciting encounter, he no longer wondered at the boys' enthusiasm. That night the crowd slept, as four of them had before, in hastily arranged shakedowns; and when morning dawned, they looked out upon a sea so blue and sparkling they could scarcely realize that it was the gray, angry, heaving expanse of the night before.
It was in truth merely a log house with shakedowns, and stood across the rude road from his log farmhouse. And he gave me leave to sleep there and to work for my board until I cared to leave. It so chanced that on the second day after my arrival a pack-train came along, guided by a nettlesome old man and a strong, black-haired lass of sixteen or thereabouts.
I show you the bed. Come on." He preceded me up some back stairs into a room occupied by a lady in one bed, her female attendant in another and, in various shakedowns on the floor, another woman, two men and more children than I could count by the light of one candle. We picked our way among them to the farther end of the room where there was a door.
Each of the patients had retained possession of her parcel, or box, or bag, and round about the improvised shakedowns were piles of poor old things, sorry remnants of garments, straying among the sheets and the coverlets.
The din of the drinkers subsided at length, and toper after toper was helped to his bed. Then blankets were brought into Ralph and Sim, and rough shakedowns were made for them on the broad settles. Sim lay down and fell asleep. Ralph walked to and fro for hours. The quiet night was far worn towards morning when Brown, the landlord, tapped at the door and entered.
The hospitalities of the cabin were bargained for, the horses and Indian being quartered in a shed, while the gentleman and his sister were provided with shakedowns in the two partitions of the loft. The only inmates of the house besides the four whom we have mentioned was a girl some fifteen years of age, the daughter of one of the men.
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