“Is it all right?” I asked dubiously.
“Well,” he considered, “being a neighbor, I don’t like to say. You might like it better at Orland, seven miles further.”
We decided on Orland and slushed along in mud so thick we could hardly hold the wheel stiff. Suddenly we heard an ominous sound,—a steady thump, thump, thump. I got out in the downpour and looked at the tires. They were hard. I peered at the engine. It purred with a mighty purr. So I climbed in again, and we started hopefully; again came the heavy thumping, a sound fit to rack a car into bits. However, as the engine still functioned we decided to go as long as we could, though the noise struck terror to our hearts. We were too weary and wet to wallow in the mud and dark, investigating engine troubles. I drove cautiously, and after what seemed hours we reached Orland. The thumping now had become violent, but we didn’t care. A roof and a bed were practically within our grasp.
It was a neat little town with white buildings and shady trees. Had we been motoring through on a sunny afternoon we might have said, “What a sweet place!” But we were too tired for æsthetic appreciation. Across the street was a large, comfortable white hotel, with broad hospitable porch. We hastened to rap on the door.
After a quarter of an hour, we ceased to hasten, but we continued to knock intermittently. Then Toby blew the horn as viciously as she knew how. The silent town seemed to recoil from our rude noise and gather the bed quilts closer about it. But no response came from the hotel. From the second floor came sounds of slumbering. Becoming expert we counted three people asleep. The three snores dwindled to two snores and a cough, after our experiment with the horn, and later diminished to a cough and two voices, speaking in whispers. We wanted to call out that we knew they were awake, and why didn’t they come down and let us in, but we knew they had no intention of stirring. We were in a state of enraged helplessness. We rapped until it was quite apparent the hotel was resolved not to establish a dangerous precedent by admitting strangers after midnight. Then we gave up. But Orland owed us a bed and if we could we were going to exact it. We felt as if it were a duel between the town and ourselves.
Our last knock brought a head from a little room over the store next door, and a woman’s voice called, “Who is it?”
“Two ladies from Boston,” we answered, guilefully using the magic words which in happier climes had brought cheerful repartee and prompt sustenance. We did not get the expected reaction, but her tone was apprehensive, if kind, when she asked, “What do you want?”
We told her, though she might have guessed.
“Knock again,” she said. “There’s someone there. They ought to hear you.”
“They hear us all right,” we said, loud enough for the cough and two voices not to miss, “but they won’t let us in. Do you know of any place where we can go?”