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Updated: June 11, 2025
"Well, now, I s'pose," he drawled, "it's about time to hitch up them horses. Want to come and help, Joe and David?" Joel gave a skip of delight and released Davie's jacket. "Oh, whickety yes!" he cried. Little David did not answer, but smiled his pleasure, and the tavern-keeper's wife went into the house to get her bundle of cookies ready. But just as they got to the barn Joel hung back suddenly.
It would have served no purpose to have gone home, since his entire wardrobe, except for the shirt on his back, was in the tavern-keeper's possession, besides he had not a moment to lose, for the sun was peeping at him over the horizon. Unobserved he gained the edge of the town and the highroad that led past Boggs' and stole a fearful glance over his shoulder.
Tisbett sat down and gathered up the reins and drove round with such a flourish that it never had been surpassed, it seemed to the people on the tavern porch. And the one woman got in with her basket, and the tavern-keeper's wife ran down the steps and stood on her tiptoes and handed up to Joel the bundle of cookies, begging them to come again.
A few days later, without much pomp or ceremony, the opening of the scantily-furnished poorhouse took place. A few beds had been put up; the rest of the furniture was the product of the tavern-keeper's sale, except that a supporter of the scheme had decorated each of the three bedrooms with a Bible text surrounded by wreaths of flowers painted on cardboard.
Like enough he'll git a trouncing from his father," she added cheerfully, as some compensation. "What is a trouncing?" asked Joel, suddenly, as they hurried on. "The land alive, don't know what a trouncing is!" ejaculated the tavern-keeper's wife. "It's a whipping, and Jim's father knows how to give it good, I tell you." Joel stood still. Little David stared in horror in Mrs. Green's face.
It was four o'clock that summer afternoon when the three women Margaret Bean, the tavern-keeper's wife, and the storekeeper's wife who had followed Dorothy and Eugene into the lane to pry upon them set forth to communicate by word of mouth the scandalous proceedings they had witnessed; and long before midnight all the village knew.
Tisbett was standing on the porch, just starting for them, when the two boys ran up. And in front of him was the tavern-keeper's wife, telling the whole story as far as she knew it, the old farmer hitching forward his chair to catch every word. When the stage-driver saw them, he hemmed loudly, and made a sign for Mrs. Green to stop.
The tavern-keeper's young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he never saw anybody go into it or come out of it except at night; he did not know any particular reason for this state of things; had had some little curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of the mystery by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was "ha'nted"; had noticed that there was a light in there the night before.
Her neighbor's daughter would surely know. Had the reckless youth quarreled with the girl? No, no! One of the tavern-keeper's slaves, Ino told her, had whispered something to Alexander, whereupon he had instantly followed the man into the house. Melissa knew that it could be no trivial matter which detained him there, and hurried after him into the tavern.
At one time she would hear the tavern-keeper's geese going at the back of the huts to her kitchen-garden, and she would run out of the hut with a long stick and spend half an hour screaming shrilly by her cabbages, which were as gaunt and scraggy as herself; at another time she fancied that a crow had designs on her chickens, and she rushed to attack it wi th loud words of abuse.
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