CHAPTER XVI
TOM TIT
“I’m dying to know who he is and what he is,” whispered Lil to Lucy, as they tidied themselves up a bit in the neat little room to which the gray-bearded host had shown them.
“So’m I! Did you ever see such a cute little room? It looks like a stateroom on the steamboat. Do you reckon we will sleep in here?”
It was a tiny little room with one great window. Two bunks were built in the wall opposite the window, one over the other. A little mirror hung over a shelf whereon the girls found a white celluloid comb and brush, spotlessly clean—indeed, the whole room was so clean that one doubted its ever having been occupied. The floor was scrubbed until Lucy said it reminded her of a well-kept kitchen table. A rag rug was the only decoration the room boasted and that was a beautiful thing of brilliant hue. The walls were whitewashed, also the doors, of which there were two, one opening into the main room and the other one, the girls fancied, into a cupboard.
“Ain’t it grand we got lost?” from Lil, as she made a vain endeavor to see her sunburned nose in the mirror that was hung so high she was sure Mr. Spring-keeper had never had a female visitor before, or if he had, it had been a giantess.
“Hurry up! Your nose is all right.—Maybe we can help him some, and I’m just dying to hear the story of his life. Do you reckon he will tell us all about himself and poor Tom Tit without our pumping him? I believe he is a king or something.”
Whether the old gentleman were a king or not, he could certainly cook a supper to a king’s taste. Skeeter’s nostrils were quivering with anticipatory enjoyment as the lost ones took their seats around the massive table in the comfortable living room.
“It looks like a room I saw at the movies last spring,” Frank had said to Skeeter, as they waited for the girls to finish dolling up. “That one had a stone fireplace and furniture that looked just like this, great big tables and chairs that must have been made out of solid oak or walnut or something. The hero had fashioned them himself with a jack-knife, I believe. The mantelpiece was high just like this one, but there were skins spread on the floor instead of these rag rugs.”
“It is a bully room, and, gee, what a good smell of eats.”
The supper was a simple one, consisting of corn pone and buttermilk, bacon and scrambled eggs.