Pretty soon we came to the town, which was about a half a mile away from the depot and the hotel. We went through it without stopping, and then turned out into the country. In a few minutes we were right in the woods; not woods of great big trees, but woods of little trees. There wasn’t anything but woods any place, and uncle said it was that way for miles and miles.
“Nothin’ but jack-pine and scrub-oak,” says he. “Timber’s gone—butchered off. Once,” says he, “you could walk through here for days and never git away from the pine.”
We drove and drove and drove. In places it was so dark we couldn’t see Alfred’s tail, but he knew the way, and if it hadn’t been for bumps and holes that jarred and joggled us we would all have been asleep before we got to uncle’s house.
But we got there at last, and it was a log cabin. The front door was in the back, and there wasn’t any back door in the front. What I mean is that there wasn’t but one door, and that went into the kitchen.
“I figgered out,” says uncle, “that the place folks wanted to git most often was the kitchen, especial after comin’ off the river, so there’s where I put the door.” Then he recited another poem:
“This al’ shack is sure a dandy;
Everything is neat and handy.”
He led us through to the front of the house, where there was a bed and two cots for us. “Now,” says he, “git to bed. Breakfast’s at four, and Mary and Marthy’ll be all wrought up to see you. Good night,” says he, and off he went.
We were so tired we didn’t stop to talk, but just tumbled into bed and were off to sleep in a minute.