"In Estes a Sabbath quiet broods at all times, broken only by the swish of the angler's rod, the merry peal of frightened laughter as some maiden lands her first trout, or the crunching of horses' hoofs in the hard gravel roads as a pleasure party clatters by. Children romp and play without fear of mosquitoes or snakes, troublesome poisonous insects being banished as thoroughly as if destroyed by some mysterious necromancer.
"Where in all the world can the lover go"—
"Stop, Jack, look into the depth of my eyes and skip those charming nooks, bowers and rock girt dens where so many rehearse the preliminary episode which leads to the altar. I know that by heart; skip the 'lover' pages and read about the coach ride from Lyons, for we will get to Lyons Friday, won't we?"
So after a glass of water, an orange and readjusting of pillows, Jack picked up his book again.
"The ride from Lyons is so fraught with surprises that one becomes distracted. Situated as it is in a veritable fiery furnace of red, rough, ragged precipices, monuments of the eruptive age when volcanoes vomited billowy lava over the face of the earth, Lyons is the antithesis of what the traveler expected at the end of a tortuously curved railroad track, over which the 'mixed' train of freight and disgruntled humanity has been jerked, jostled and jumped along for about three hours, covering forty miles.
"But a delicious dinner awaits; generally fried chicken, southern style. This does not mean a sun dried remnant of a wing, or the active extremity of a leg with a burnt bone protruding through gristly skin, but a nice, big piece of a yellow-legged Plymouth Rock, the real article, hatched by a mother hen acquainted with the business and not one of those Illinois river incubators that furnish spring chickens at all seasons of the year to be kept well frozen in cold storage until called for. This chicken is fried in ranch butter to a golden russet brown, if you happen to know what color cooking calls for, and a whole lot of it comes in on one great big platter, so you get a chance to pick a good joint, but any part of such a chicken is good."
"Jack, you are putting in a whole lot that is not in that book just to make me hungry. My mouth has been puckered up for half an hour to get a bite of that 'yaller leg.' We are near Springfield; let's eat."
Suiting the action to the word they joined the motley throng in the rush for the dining-room, as the train came to a stop for forty minutes.
Fresh Connecticut River shad and roe, new green peas, new potatoes in cream, lettuce, radishes.
"There, that will kill your chicken fever for a time," said Jack, as he ordered for both.