The arrival at Palos.
“Can I obtain a night’s lodging here?” asked Gus.
“I reckon ye kin, stranger,” roared the host. “Yer a Yank!”
“O, no I am not,” replied the boy, who knew there had been a civil war not so very many years ago, and that the Texans were mostly all rebels. “I’m from Ohio.”
“Wal, what’s the odds?” demanded the host. “All Northern men are Yanks, and they aint ashamed of it, nuther. I’m one myself. I’m from the Green Mountains.”
“From Vermont?” cried Gus, who now began to feel more at his ease.
“That’s the very identical spot.”
“But you’re a Southerner now, I suppose?” said Gus, who thought that was the politest way in which he could ask the man if he was a rebel.
“Do you mean that I’m a gray-back?” exclaimed the host. “Not much. All the relations I ever had fit under the old flag, and I couldn’t be the first of the family to go agin it. I’m powerful glad to see you, stranger. Put it thar.”
The man held out an immense bony hand as he spoke, and Gus placed his own within it. A moment later he was doubled up with pain. The Green Mountain boy’s greeting was almost too cordial.