"That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am, is the blowin'. It's all in gettin' the bellers to work even like. There's a good many what kin learn the playin' part of it without no teacher; but there has to be lessons to learn the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when ye're at home?" she asked sharply, as if to guage the social standing of the new guest.
W—— modestly confessed to never having possessed such an instrument.
"Down in these parts," rejoined the young woman, as she "worked the bellers" into a strain or two of "Hold the Fort," apparently to show how easy it came to trained feet, "no house is now considered quite up to the fashi'n as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now over, she soon departed, evidently much disgusted at W——'s lack of organic culture.
The bed-chamber into which we were shown was a marvel. It opened off the main room and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard. Seven feet square, with a broad, roped bedstead occupying the entire length, a bedside space of but two feet wide was left. Much of this being filled with butter firkins, chains, a trunk, and a miscellaneous riff-raff of household lumber, the standing-room was restricted to two feet square, necessitating the use of the bed as a dressing-place, after the fashion of a sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room was also the wardrobe for the women of the household, the walls above the bed being hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest collection of calico and gingham gowns, bustles, hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter underwear I think I had ever laid eyes on.
Much of this condition of affairs was not known, however, until next morning; for it was as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint rays of light which came straggling through the cracks in the board partition separating us from the sitting-room candle. We had no sooner crossed the threshold of our little box than the creaky old cleat door was gently closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess upon the outside, as the only means of keeping it shut; and we were left free to grope about among these mysteries as best we might. We had hardly recovered from our astonishment at thus being locked into a dark hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk, and were quietly laughing over this odd adventure, when the landlady applied her mouth to a crack and shouted, as if she would have waked the dead: "Hi, there! Ye'd better shet the winder to keep the bugs out!" A few minutes later, returning to the crack, she added, "Ef ye's cold in the night, jest haul down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which ye'll find on the wall."
Repressing our mirth, we assured our good hostess that we would have a due regard for our personal safety. The window, not at first discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall, some two feet square, which brought in little enough fresh air, at the best. It was fortunate that the night was cool, although our hostess's best gowns were not needed to supplement the horse-blankets under which we slept the sleep of weary canoeists.
