"over"--supper-time was six-thirty; it was now seven-thirty. The young
man seemed no little surprised, even indignant, that any one should be
ignorant of the fact that supper-time at Sheldon Center was half-past
six; and this, by the way, was a surprise we encountered more than once
on our journey. Supper-time in the American road-house is an hour
severely observed, and you disregard it at the peril of your empty
stomach, for no larders seem so hermetically sealed as the larders of
American country hotels after the appointed hour, and no favour so
impossible to grant as even a ham sandwich, if you should be so much a
stranger to local ordinances as to expect it after the striking of the
hour. Indeed, you are looked on with suspicion for asking, as something
of a tramp or dangerous character. Not to know that supper-time at
Sheldon Center was half-past six seemed to argue a sinister disregard of
the usages of civilization.

As we ruefully contemplated a supperless couch, a comely young woman, who
had been looking us over from a room in the rear of the bar, came
smilingly forward and volunteered to do the best she could for us. She
was evidently the rough fellow's wife, goddess of the kitchen, and final
court of appeal. What a difference a good-natured, good-looking woman
makes in a place! 'Tis a glimpse into the obvious, but there are
occasions on which such commonplaces shine with a blessed radiance, and
the moment when our attractive hostess flowered out upon us from her
forbidding background was one of them. With her on our side, we forgot
our fears, and, with an assured air, asked her husband to show us to our
rooms. Lamp in hand, he led us up staircases and along corridors--for the
hotel was quite a barracks--thawing out into conversation on the way. The
place, he explained, was a little out of order, owing to "the ball"--an
event he referred to as a matter of national knowledge, and being, we
understood, the annual ball of harvesting. The fact of the lamps not