Read Online Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs - Free Book Online

perception—gave the other one a nudge, and both reined up but made no move to guide their horses toward my porch. They merely studied the building.
    “I like a shady porch,” the big man said to no one in particular.
    “As do I,” I added with proprietary pride. I gestured to the trees along the front of the building. A line of young ash trees grew right next to the boardwalk and porch. Others sprouted as if from the porch itself. “My wife told me, when I bought this establishment, that I should chop down these trees, that they were too close to the hotel, but I said I would not kill a tree.”
    When the big man sniggered, I realized the absurdity of my statement, which the stranger latched onto like a snapping turtle. “That’s a mite interesting,” he said, and I could only shake my head at my folly, waiting for his verbal, though humorous, challenge. “Wooden porch. Wooden columns. Wooden sign. Wooden doors. Wooden windowsills. Wooden rafters. Two whole stories of wooden sides.” He glanced upward and, although he could not see the roof from his position, chanced a guess. “Wooden shingles, too. Yet no trees got killed.”
    “It’s a house made of cards,” I said. “Simply painted to resemble wood.”
    The big man’s bluish gray eyes twinkled, accented by a well-groomed mustache and goatee and that fine black hat. Broad-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion, he had to pack, by my guess, more than 200 pounds on a solid, six-foot frame.
    “I’ve been pining for a real hotel,” the second man said, which surprised me. I could find wisdom and humor in the first man’s features, but never would have expected wit from his companion. His hair was blacker than a raven at midnight, his face so bronze, I would have thought him a savage Indian were it not for the thick mustache and Van Dyke. An intimidating man, his face a scowl even while enjoying this play on words, almost six feet in height, but seemingly thinner, less solid than the rider with the goatee. In fact, I did not notice their similarity in height until they had dismounted a few minutes later.
    “Since the Big Woods.” The first one nodded. “The lumberjack we met told us that…”—he pointed at the wooden sign, red and blue lettering on the curved plank hanging from the wooden columns like an archway—“the Flanders Hotel had the hardest beds this side of the timberline.”
    “Not so,” replied I, keeping my face a mask, enjoying this repartee.
    “Not so.” His head bobbed and he asked the second one. “What do you think?”
    “I don’t know. He said that rather woodenly”
    My rejoinder: “Would your rather I bark out my answer?”
    “No,” said the first man, “but perhaps we should branch out in a different direction. How is the food in this hotel?”
    “I suggest you try our cherries. Or maybe walnuts.”
    “Are you leaving anything out?” the second one came back.
    “Merely the maple syrup.”
    “Well,” the first one said, turning to his companion, “my head is burning like pitch pine. You.…”
    “You never could see the forest for the trees, Capt’n,” the second one fired back, excited to have come up with something to keep this silly exchange going.
    “That’s my cross to bear. Want to stay?”
    “Oh, wouldn’t I!”
    They swung from their horses, and the first one, now grinning widely, shook my hand and announced: “We’re running the white flag up the pole and quitting this game.”
    With a curt nod, I told him: “It was becoming a bore.”
    He shook his head, and bellowed, then asked seriously: “Are you Mister Flanders?”
    “Thomas Vought,” I said. “I bought Joe Flanders out three years ago.”
    I whistled for the stable boy to take their mounts away, and led the two men to the register, wondering how they would sign their names, for if they tried some tree or wood allusion, I would be suspicious of them, branding them highwaymen or, worse, men who didn’t know when to end a joke. I can read