The Landlord at Lion's Head — Volume 1Howells, William Dean
General
The Landlord at Lion's Head — Volume 1
Howells, William Dean
Artists -- Fiction; Massachusetts -- Fiction
Westover was not at Lion's Head again till the summer before Jeff's
graduation. In the mean time the hotel had grown like a living thing. He
could not have imagined wings in connection with the main edifice, but it
had put forth wings--one that sheltered a new and enlarged dining-room,
with two stories of chambers above, and another that hovered a parlor and
ball-room under a like provision of chambers. An ell had been pushed back
on the level behind the house; the barn had been moved farther to the
southward, and on its old site a laundry built, with quarters for the
help over it. All had been carefully, frugally, yet sufficiently done,
and Westover was not surprised to learn that it was all the effect of
Jackson Durgin's ingenuity and energy. Mrs. Durgin confessed to having no
part in it; but she had kept pace, with Cynthia Whitwell's help, in the
housekeeping. As Jackson had cautiously felt his way to the needs of
their public in the enlargement and rearrangement of the hotel, the two
housewives had watchfully studied, not merely the demands, but the
half-conscious instincts of their guests, and had responded to them
simply and adequately, in the spirit of Jackson's exterior and structural
improvements. The walls of the new rooms were left unpapered and their
floors uncarpeted; there were thin rugs put down; the wood-work was
merely stained. Westover found that he need not to ask especially for
some hot dish at night; there was almost the abundance of a dinner,
though dinner was still at one o'clock.
Mrs. Durgin asked him the first day if he would not like to go into the
serving-room and see it while they were serving dinner. She tried to
conceal her pride in the busy scene--the waitresses pushing in through
one valve of the double-hinged doors with their empty trays, and out
through the other with the trays full laden; delivering their dishes with
the broken victual at the wicket, where the untouched portions were put
aside and the rest poured into the waste; following in procession along
the reeking steamtable, with its great tanks of soup and vegetables,
where, the carvers stood with the joints and the trussed fowls smoking
before them, which they sliced with quick sweeps of their blades, or
waiting their turn at the board where the little plates with portions of
fruit and dessert stood ready. All went regularly on amid a clatter of
knives and voices and dishes; and the clashing rise and fall of the wire
baskets plunging the soiled crockery into misty depths, whence it came up
clean and dry without the touch of finger or towel. Westover could not
deny that there were elements of the picturesque in it, so that he did
not respond quite in kind to Jeff's suggestion--"Scene for a painter, Mr.
Westover."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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