“Nice and high, but too far from the water. Here’s where we turn off, isn’t it? What’s the sign board say?”
“‘Lloyd 3½ miles,’” Dan read. “We’re almost halfway, then. It hasn’t seemed far. How are your legs?”
“Just getting limbered up,” replied Ned stoutly. “And it’s only a little after twelve. We can make it by half-past one without hurrying, I guess. Forward, brave comrade!”
The new road, which led northward at right angles from the turnpike, was narrower and offered harder walking, but they made good time and at one o’clock were out on the Saybrook road with their destination only a mile distant. Lloyd was a tiny hamlet at the intersection of two main lines of travel, but it was a pretty, old-fashioned place, with huge elms drooping over comfortable white houses and many tiny gardens still vivid with autumn flowers: phlox and nasturtiums and cosmos. The railroad passed Lloyd fully a mile away, but for all that the hotel when they reached it was by no means deserted, a fact readily explained by the four or five automobiles standing in front or in the little yard at the side. It was a rambling white building with a veranda running along in front, and a swinging sign hung from a big elm at the corner. “Washington’s Head” was the original legend on the board, and under it was a weather-faded likeness of the Father of his Country. But, so the story went, a visiting artist, finding, perhaps, time heavy on his hands, had some years before turned the capital H into a D, so that now the sign informed the world at large that “Washington’s Dead.”
“I don’t know how you feel,” said Ned as they went up the steps, “but I’m starved to death.”
“I feel a bit hungry myself,” acknowledged Dan. “I wonder if dinner is ready.”
It was, and after washing the marks of the road from their hands and faces they graciously allowed the proprietor of the inn to conduct them to their seats in the dining-room. What followed after may be left to the imagination. There was an old-fashioned vegetable soup to start with of which Ned remarked that they had managed to get everything into it save the kitchen stove. And then there was fish and roast chicken and vegetables and apple fritters and salad and ice cream and lemon pie and cake and cheese and crackers and coffee. And if Ned missed a single item or Dan allowed anything to get by him I have been grossly misinformed. And afterwards they struggled out to the veranda, sank into two chairs, placed their heels on the rail and stared somnolently across the street at a funny little old story-and-a-half house almost hidden by shrubbery and box hedges. There was little conversation for a while. The sun was nice and warm, the breeze was broken by the corner of the veranda and life was very blissful and sleepy. Finally,
“I suppose we ought to start back before long,” murmured Ned drowsily.
“Yes.” Dan lifted his eyelids and nodded lazily. Then he shut his eyes again and returned to a condition halfway between slumber and wakefulness.
“Good night,” muttered Ned. Later by ten minutes,