He was fond of a joke, was the old Judge, and sais he, "'I'm afraid we shall illustrate that passage o' Scriptur', Mr.Slick,' said he, '"And their judges shall be overthrown in stony places." It's jist a road for it, ain't it ?' "Well we chattered along the road this way a leetle, jist a leetle faster than we travelled, for we made a snail's gallop of it, that's a fact; and night overtook us, as I suspected it would, at Obi Rafuse's, at the Great Lake; and as it was the only public for fourteen miles, and dark was settin' in, we dismounted, but oh, what a house it was! "Obi was an emigrant, and those emigrants are ginerally so fond of ownin' the soil, that like misers, they carry as much of it about 'em on their parsons, in a common way, as they cleverly can.

Some on 'em are awful dirty folks, that's a fact, and Obi was one of them.

He kept public, did Obi; the sign said it was a house of entertainment for man and beast.

For critters that ain't human, I do suppose it spoke the truth, for it was enough to make a hoss larf, if he could understand it, that's a fact; but dirt, wretchedness and rags, don't have that effect on me.
"The house was built of rough spruce logs, (the only thing spruce about it), with the bark on, and the cracks and seams was stuffed with moss.
The roof was made of coarse slabs, battened and not shingled, and the chimbly peeped out like a black pot, made of sticks and mud, the way a crow's nest is.

The winders were half broke out, and stopped up with shingles and old clothes, and a great bank of mud and straw all round, reached half way up to the roof, to keep the frost out of the cellar.