He had been forced to turn his head sharply away when he passed the village tobacco store, for every nerve cried out for the solace of a good pipe, but he felt more than repaid for the sacrifice by Lou’s honest rapture over the poor things he had been able to get for her.
Breakfast finished, and the remainder of the ham stowed away in the milk-pan, they carefully skirted the house on the rise of the hill, and coming out once more upon the road, they forged ahead. The strained muscles of 46Jim’s back and side were still sore, but they troubled him less than the lack of a smoke, and for Lou it was as though a new world had opened before her eyes.
The pleasant, wheat-growing valley had been left behind them, and the road from being hilly grew steeper and more steep until it became a mere rutted trail over the mountains. More or less dilapidated farm-houses, each with its patch of cleared ground, appeared now and then, and before the gate of one of these a huge, canvas-covered wagon stood, bearing the ambitious legend:
TRAVELING DEPARTMENT STORE
BENJ. PERKINS
A genial-looking fat man in a linen duster and a wide-brimmed hat was just clambering in over the wheel when he spied the two pedestrians gazing at the turnout, and called good-naturedly:
“Want a lift? I’m goin’ inter New Hartz.”
“Thanks. That is just where we are going, 47too,” Jim replied promptly. “It’s awfully good of you to take us along.”
“Git right in; plenty of room with me on the front seat here,” the proprietor of the extraordinary department store responded heartily. “Yer sister ’d be nigh tuckered out ef you tried ter walk her inter town on a hot day like this.”
Jim hoisted Lou in over the big wheel and as he climbed up beside her the driver slapped the reins over the broad backs of the two horses, and they were off.