The Graysons: A Story of IllinoisEggleston, Edward
General
The Graysons: A Story of Illinois
Eggleston, Edward
Illinois -- Fiction; Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Fiction; Presidents -- United States -- Fiction
The grocery-keeper did not say any more, but Zeke conjectured that the
meeting had adjourned to Jake Hogan's cabin for greater privacy. Zeke
made his way over there with much stumbling, for the night was rather a
dark one in the woods. The cabin which was now owned and occupied by
Hogan was, like most of the Broad Run dwellings, built of round logs
with the bark on; that is to say, the bark had been left on when the
house was built, but years of rain and sun had peeled off about half of
it, and left the house spotted and ragged. There was but one room, and
one might enter this without ceremony, for the door stood wide open,
though not on account of hospitality. This door was made of heavy
puncheons and had originally hung on wooden hinges, but the uppermost
hinge had come off six months before, and though Jake had "'lowed to
fix it" nearly every day since, it had not been repaired, for Hogan was
a public-spirited citizen, deeply interested in politics, and in
reformatory movements like the present one for hanging Tom Grayson; and
it was not to be expected that such a man could, in the nature of
things, spare time to put a paltry hinge on a door, when grave questions
were always likely to be mooted at the grocery. So every morning the
clumsy door was lifted aside; at bed-time it was with difficulty partly
hoisted and partly shoved back into its place. If the night was very
warm, the ceremony of closing the door was omitted. Locks were not
necessary in a neighborhood like Broad Run, where honesty was hardly a
virtue, there being so little temptation to theft. Jake's house
contained a rude home-made bedstead of poles, and two or three stools of
the householder's own manufacture. Hogan "'lowed" some day to make one
or two more stools and a table. At present, he and his wife patiently
ate from skillet and pot, until the table should be made. It was
something to have conceived the notion of a table, and with that Jake
rested. There was a large fire-place built of sticks and clay; it had
stones for andirons and was further furnished with a pot, not to mention
a skillet, which stood on two legs and a stone and had lost its handle.
Jake always 'lowed he'd get a new skillet; but he postponed it until he
should have more money than was absolutely needful to buy indispensable
clothes and whisky with. There was also a hoe, on which Mrs. Jake baked
cold water hoe-cakes when she had company to supper. For shovel, a rived
clapboard had been whittled into a handle at one end. Some previous
owner had been rich enough and extravagant enough to have the four-light
window glazed, but all the panes were now broken. An old hat, too shabby
even for Jake to wear, filled the place of one of the squares of glass;
the rest of the sash was left open for light and ventilation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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