They were enjoying a full midday meal at a village inn, for their lodging-place was so far on it could hardly be reached before late evening. Now that they were getting up into the hill country, where water was more plentiful and the heat not so intense, Don Manuel was pressing on at the full speed of the train in his desire that all, but especially the children, should be at Santiago for the feast of St. James. They were sitting at table in a long open room, at whose further end stood the mules and donkeys, their halters thrown over wall-pegs ingeniously made of ham-bones. Swallows flashed and called among the rafters. Pigeons with rainbow necks flew down to share the crumbs. A dog and two or three cats hunted about under the table for scraps. An enterprising hen, with a brood of fluffy chickens twit-twit-twittering behind her, bore in at the open door with the determined air of a militant suffragette and flew heavily across the room, lighting, to the children’s glee, right on Bastiano’s astonished head. The turkey and the pig, a gaunt black pig with stiff bristles, tried to join the party, but the dog, recalled to a sense of duty, promptly drove them out. The muleteers were making merry over their favorite dish of big yellow peas boiled to a pap in olive oil, and flanked, on this occasion, by a platter of fried fish, but the children preferred an omelet tossed up in a twinkling out of the freshly laid eggs that they had helped the _ventera_ find in the hay-scented stable. Meanwhile Grandfather was feasting them with riddles and with a treat of roasted chestnuts, singing as they munched: “More than a score of neighbors who dwell Each in a satin hall, Like a little brown nun in a little brown cell, And never go out to call.” And again: “A jewel-case from her treasury The courteous forest gave to me As through brown leaves I trod; A chest as glossy as chest could be, A chest locked tight without a key; The carpenter was God.” At this the _ventera_, a dumpling of a body with roguish round eyes, held a secret consultation with Grandfather and then stood laughing at Pilarica and Rafael while he puzzled them with an entirely new riddle: “Oh, this will make your patience melt, The meaning is so shady; The lady has a soft brown belt, But the belt it has no lady.”