Gracie’s pensioners lived in a little house close by, the blacksmith’s wife and her six children; she had some medicine for them, and Arthur a few newspapers. While Gracie went to see them, Arthur led the horses to the inn; there was a swinging sign of George Washington over the door, which the pride of each successive owner had kept well varnished ever since the memorable night when he had stopped there,--though nothing else about the place was in repair. No one came to the door as Arthur walked up, and he tied his horses to a well-nibbled rail, and went in. There was a long bare entry leading from the front door, with a row of doors; each with a tin sign above it, “office,” “dining-room,” “ball-room” (now half obliterated), and “bar.” Arthur opened the last one, and went in. There was a high black stove with a hard-coal fire, in the centre of the room; around it on the floor a square wooden tray, filled with sand. The walls were covered with gay posters, a cattle show, an advertisement of melodeons, of a horse stolen, of an auction sale of a farm, farming utensils, a horse and cow, many sleighs and wagons and some household furniture. An old man sat in one corner, in carpet-slippers, with a newspaper, and a look upon him as if he had not been out-doors that day. “Well, Lem?” said Arthur, “business quiet, eh?” “There ain’t much business, Mr. Holyoke,” said the hotel-keeper, without changing his position, “’xcept what’s in here.” And he pointed to the bar, and the pitcher of water, and the row of tumblers behind it. “I want you to give my horses a feed,” said Arthur, “we came over from Great Barrington.” “Came over from Barrington, did ye?” said he. “And what’s the news in town?” And without waiting for an answer, the old man rose and hobbled to the side door. “Mike!” he cried, “Mike!” There was no answer. “I guess the feller must ha’ gone to Lee,” he added, grumbling. “There’s a cattle show there, to-day.” “Let me go,” said Arthur; “I’ll look after them.” “You’ll find the feed in the bin,” said the inn-keeper, relapsing into his stuffed chair, with a sigh of relief. “And what’s the news from your son, Mr. Hitchcock?” said Arthur, when he came back. “Lem’s still out in Ioway,” said Mr. Hitchcock. “There ain’t much call for a young feller of sperit to be loafin’ around here. I brought him up for the business; but I guess the old place’ll have to keep itself after I am gone.” “Still at your old books, Mr. Hitchcock, I see,” said Arthur, taking up a well-worn copy of Tom Paine. “Why, I didn’t know you read French!” And Arthur turned over with interest the leaves of a book the other had just laid down; it was a volume of Voltaire. “I l’arned it when I was a b’y in college. Perhaps ye didn’t know as I was a college-bred man?” “I might have known it,” said Arthur. “But you didn’t send Lem there?”