“Very well,” said the stranger, an experienced traveler, therefore past the “kicking” stage; “take me to the finest.”
The procession faced about, headed down the track, retraced its steps, passed the depot, and continued on its way.
But we are not yet to “the finest hotel.” In fact, there is time to “view the landscape o’er” before we arrive, especially as the boys are quiet, remarkably quiet for Kentucky boys—“mighty say-nothin’ shavers,” as the landlady afterwards described them to her guest.
It was dusk, on a Sunday evening in September. The rain had just begun falling gently—the prelude to the first cool snap of the autumn. The stranger had left the train to spend the night, preparatory to his cross-country trip on the following day.
Montvale is a station on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, in the mountains of Kentucky, seventy-five or a hundred miles east of Lexington. It is of consequence chiefly because it is on the road to somewhere else—the point of departure from the railway to the country lying beyond. Contrary to the rule, its inhabitants seemed to realize its urban limitations, especially the meagerness of its population. The two boys, unprepared for such compliment, were surprised to hear it called a “place.”
At that time, less than a decade ago—and doubtless ever since,—Montvale straggled around over a wide expanse of flat woods and weedy fields, between ranges. Space to spare was the most striking thing about it. The land, too swampy for tillage, except after elaborate artificial drainage, was “good to fill a hole in the ground and hold the world together.”
The houses, after the “boxed” style of carpentry, seemed not to have been built, but to have grown up, like the weeds. They had never peeped into a paint-bucket; their complexion was that of the crawfish land on which they stood. Most of the doors, off the hinges, whether they ever had any or not, stood leaning against the inside wall, ready in case a storm or other emergency arose.
There was little direct communication between the homes, partly because the weeds overhung the pig-trails of travel; partly because it was about a Sabbath-day’s journey from each house to its nearest neighbor; partly because all paths led to or through the depot yard, as the literal and figurative center of the hamlet. The railway station was at once the market, the park, the amusement hall, the shipping center, the business section, the social resort, the lounging place, the nursery and playground of all Montvale. The railway track, with the path beside it, was the main and only street of the “place.”
Just as the traveler was wondering if they were going to tramp down to the next station, the leader said, “Out this hyer way,” turning off to the right, through a sea of white-topped weeds. The rain was still falling, and night had come on. A few pale rays of the moon, struggling through the clouds, showed the boys’ heads now and then bobbing above the watery weeds, like porpoises at play on the surface of the ocean.
At last, the little procession reached a plank fence with a gap in it. The boys stopped, confronted the traveler, and the leader said, “This is the finest hotel anywhar about hyer.”