By and by there came almost a full half-minute of silence, and at the end of it Vosh burst out as if an idea had taken him by surprise.
"I do declare! I never saw any thing jollier'n this is, in all my born days."
"Vosh," said Corry, "Port can beat you at checkers. You ought to have seen the way he beat me to-day. You just try him a game."
"Now, Lavawjer," said his mother from beyond the table, "you kin play well enough for way up here, but you can't think of comin' up to sech a young feller as Porter Hudson. He'll beat ye, sure."
At all events, he needed no more than that to make him try to do it; and Penelope brought out the great square board, and the bag of home-made checkers.
It must be confessed, that, after his triumphant experience with Corry, Porter Hudson imagined himself to have quite taken the measure of up-country skill and science at that game. He sat down to his new trial, therefore, with a proud assurance of a victory to come. It would have been kind of Corry to have given his cousin the least bit of a warning, but that young gentleman had been himself too roughly handled to feel very merciful. Besides, he had some very small and lingering doubt as to the result, and was willing to wait for it.
He need not have had any doubt, since there was really no room for any. Vosh was a born checker-player, and it is never easy to beat a fellow of that sort. Nobody ever knows exactly how they do it, and they themselves cannot tell. Their spare men get to the king-row, and their calculations come out right; and if you are Porter Hudson, and are playing against them, you get beaten very badly, and there's no help for you.
Corry watched that game with a suppressed chuckle, but it was a dreadful puzzle to Port. Even Pen did not venture to suggest a single good move, and the older people talked very quietly.
Mrs. Stebbins was a proud woman when Susie exclaimed,—
"Vosh has won it!"