"To unlearn, you mean," said Mr. D - -. "To tell you the truth,
Mrs. Moodie, ladies and gentlemen have no business in the woods.
Eddication spoils man or woman for that location. So, widow
(turning to our hostess), you are not tired of living alone yet?"
"No, sir; I have no wish for a second husband. I had enough of the
first. I like to have my own way - to lie down mistress, and get up
master."
"You don't like to be put out of your old way," returned he, with a
mischievous glance.
She coloured very red; but it might be the heat of the fire over
which she was frying the pork for our dinner.
I was very hungry, but I felt no appetite for the dish she was
preparing for us. It proved salt, hard, and unsavoury.
D - - pronounced it very bad, and the whiskey still worse, with which
he washed it down.
I asked for a cup of tea and a slice of bread. But they were out of
tea, and the hop-rising had failed, and there was no bread in the
house. For this disgusting meal we paid at the rate of a quarter of
a dollar a-head.
I was glad when the horses being again put to, we escaped from the
rank odour of the fried pork, and were once more in the fresh air.
"Well, mister; did not you grudge your money for that bad meat?"
said D - -, when we were once more seated in the sleigh. "But in
these parts, the worse the fare the higher the charge."
"I would not have cared," said I, "if I could have got a cup of tea."
"Tea! it's poor trash. I never could drink tea in my life. But I
like coffee, when 'tis boiled till it's quite black. But coffee is
not good without plenty of trimmings."
"What do you mean by trimmings?"
He laughed. "Good sugar, and sweet cream. Coffee is not worth
drinking without trimmings."
Often in after years have I recalled the coffee trimmings, when
endeavouring to drink the vile stuff which goes by the name of
coffee in the houses of entertainment in the country.
We had now passed through the narrow strip of clearing which
surrounded the tavern, and again entered upon the woods. It was near
sunset, and we were rapidly descending a steep hill, when one of the
traces that held our sleigh suddenly broke. D - - pulled up in order
to repair the damage. His brother's team was close behind, and our
unexpected stand-still brought the horses upon us before J. D - -
could stop them. I received so violent a blow from the head of one
of them, just in the back of the neck, that for a few minutes I was
stunned and insensible.
