tch. It
was ten-thirty.

"Get something from somebody." My hand made movement toward the men
about us and then in the direction of the shacks and sheds and cabins
of the negroes, scattered at wide intervals apart from the village,
which consisted of a long, rambling street with a white frame church
at one end, a gray one at the other, a court-house in the middle, and
a school-house at its back. "Get a buggy and something you can drive
and let's have a holiday--just by ourselves. What is that house over
there?"

I pointed to a square, old-fashioned red-brick building set well back
from the road and surrounded by great oak-trees, and smaller ones of
birch and maple and spruce and pine, and shrubs of various kinds. It
was Claxon's one redemption. Shading my eyes, I read the tin sign
swinging in the wind from a rod nailed at right angles to a sagging
post at its gateless yard. "Swan Tavern." The name thrilled. I was
no longer a twentieth-century person, but a lady of other days, and
if a coach and four with outriders had appeared I would have stepped
in it with delight. It did not appear, nor was Selwyn suddenly in
knee-breeches and buckles and satin coat and brocaded vest. Not even
my imagination could so clothe him. His practicality recalled me.

"I'll go over and find out what sort of place it is, and see if we
can get anything to ride in. Perhaps this man can tell me. Wait
here." He put out his hand as if to prevent my speaking first to the
man. I didn't intend to speak to him.

The man could tell him nothing. He lived seven miles back and had
come to the station to meet a friend who had failed to appear. There
were teams in the neighborhood that might be gotten. Swan Tavern
didn't have any. Used to, but most people nowaday, specially
drummers, wanted automobiles, and old Colonel Tavis, who owned the
place, wouldn't let an automobile come in his yard. Perhaps Major
Bresee might let him have his horse and buggy. The person who gave
the information changed his quid of tobacco from his left to his
right cheek and, spitting on the ground below the plank-loose
platform on which we were standing, pointed to a one-room
office-building down the street, then again surveyed us. Two or
three men across the road came over, and two or three others hanging
around the station drew nearer and nodded to us, while both of the
boys, hands in their pants pockets, stared up at Selwyn as if
something new had inde