“I want to stop here over night,” said Grandma Padgett. “We're moving, and our wagon is somewhere on this road. Have you seen anything of a wagon—and a white and a gray horse?”
“Oh, yes,” said the tavern keeper, nodding his head. “Dere is lots of wakkons on de road aheadt.”
“Well, we can't go further ourselves. Can you take the lines?”
“Oh, nein,” said the tavern-keeper mildly. “I don't keep moofers mit my house. Dey goes a little furter.”
“You don't keep movers!” said Grandma Padgett indignantly. “What's your tavern for?”
“Oh, yah,” replied the host with undisturbed benevolence. “Dey goes a little furter.”
“Why have you put out a sign to mislead folks?”
The tavern keeper took the pipe out of his mouth to look up at his sign. It swayed back and forth in the valley breeze, as if itself expostulating with him.
“Dot's a goot sign,” he pronounced. “Auf you go up te hill, tere ist te house I put up mit te moofers. First house. All convenient. You sthay tere. I coom along in te mornin'. Tere ist more as feefty famblies sthop mit tat house. Oh, nien, I don't keep moofers mit te tafern.”
“This is a queer way to do,” said Grandma Padgett, fixing the full severity of her glasses on him. “Turn a woman and two children away to harbor as well as they can in some old barn! I'll not stop in your house on the hill. Who'd 'tend to the horses?”