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"That is funny. I'm always forgetting," said Mrs Bilkins, as she faded from the room. After some time, she came back with a coarse cloth, a thick plate, a wooden-handled knife, together with a fork made of some pliant material; these she put before Mavis. The coarse food and more of the stout put fresh heart into the girl.
"He got smokin' in it out of the wind," said Stanley, "and set it ablaze, and did a bolt." "After shutting the door behind him with the colt inside," commented Silver. He searched the grass on the outskirts of the shed for footmarks. Something glimmering in the dusk caught his eye. It was a wooden-handled sheath-knife. Silver picked it up and showed it to the girl. She said nothing.
A man in dingy-blue undershirt, the sleeves rolled back upon forearms remarkable for their knotting, swelling muscles, was frying great thick steaks upon the top of the stove, enveloped in the smoke and odor of his own cooking. In the middle of the room was a long table, covered with worn oil-cloth, set out with plates and cups of heavy white ware and with black wooden-handled knives and forks.
There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city people in the summer months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a table d'hote of some pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech, a two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored elements, where games of checkers were played on the back of the bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and coffee, where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early passengers, where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere, and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce in human beings, as the Grotta del Cane does in dogs in the well-known experiments related by travellers.
There were two public-houses in the place: one dignified with the name of the Mountain House, somewhat frequented by city-people in the summer months, large-fronted, three-storied, balconied, boasting a distinct ladies'-drawing-room, and spreading a table d'hote of some pretensions; the other, "Pollard's Tahvern," in the common speech, a two-story building, with a bar-room, once famous, where there was a great smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other bucolic-flavored elements, where games of checkers were played on the back of the bellows with red and white kernels of corn, or with beans and coffee, where a man slept in a box-settle at night, to wake up early passengers, where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled whips and coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic flavor of the atmosphere, and middle-aged male gossips, sometimes including the squire of the neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a question or two about the news, and then fall into that solemn state of suspended animation which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related by travellers.
In the middle of the floor directly above a trap-door which leads to a "potato-hole" beneath stands a ponderous walnut table, and on it sits a nest of wooden trays; while, flanking these, on one side, is a nicely-folded tablecloth, and, on the other, a wooden-handled butcher-knife and a well-worn Bible. Around the room are ranged a few "split-bottomed" chairs, exclusively for use, not ornament.
"Yes, I know what you mean," said Pen smiling; "but I want the bread for him," and he pointed to the wounded boy. The peasant-girl showed on the instant that though she could not understand the stranger's words his signs were clear enough. She broke off another piece of the bread and took down the little wooden-handled pail, which was half-full of warm milk.
Put away rather more choicely were wooden-handled knives, two-tined forks, and dishes of glass and china; and sometimes little tin cups painted red or blue and charmingly gilded, or cooky-cutters in the shape of dogs and horses. All these rare and delightful articles he was willing to exchange for rags.
Attached to a belt, or hung across his shoulder, he carries a little skin pouch and an ornamented bamboo, containing betel-nut, tobacco, and lime, and a small German wooden-handled knife is generally stuck between his waist-cloth of bark and his bare shin. Each man also possesses a "cadjan," or sleeping-mat, made of the broad leaves of a pandanus neatly sewn together in three layers.
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