| by Thorp McCluskey |
Illustrated by |
Black Jem Willis watched the crisply-aproned tavern maid pour boiling hot water from a shiny teakettle into his rum and sugar. At last he lifted a grimy hand.
"Have done, Miss Jezebel," he said, with a ribald chuckle. "Would you have me drinking pap, my pretty lass? And how far mought it be to Boston Town?"
She tossed her head, and her blue eyes crackled as she answered him, "I am not called Jezebel, tinker, but Rosalind. And it would seem that pap's too strong for you, if but a bit of rum and supper have loosed your tongue so disrespectful. And as for Boston Town, tinker, it might be eighty mile, and it might be forty, but from Hooker's Crossing, seven mile down the pike, 'tis fifty-eight."
Black Jem, unable quickly to think of an apt retort, contented himself with sliding two silver shillings across the table-top and burying his nose in the fragrant drink. The tavern-maid, head held high, scooped up Jem's platter with its knuckle bone and soggy scraps of bread, and marched into the kitchen.
Black Jem leaned back against the pine-planked wall and watched the room through glowering, beetle-browed eyes. . . .
This small inn, huddled so close beside the Boston Pike, did, Black Jem enviously saw, a good business. Six or seven men, travelers like himself, were eating and drinking, prepatory to a night's slumber in the rooms overhead; the sounds of rigs in the yard outside and of men ahorseback were frequent and brisk. Black Jem, through a rosy, rum-induced mist, wondered savagely if he would ever have the gold with which to buy a place like this and settle down.
At a large table in the center of the room a party of young men were holding merry revelry. The center of the table groaned beneath two monstrous turkeys, now fast disappearing beneath the ravenous onslaughts of the youths, who were lubricating their esophagal passages with mighty potations from a stone jug of applejack, a drink authoritative as the speech of a Bishop.
Black Jem watched the jovial youths with interest. Only one, he saw, was not drinking, while the others were
encouraging the lad on to some feat
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