Fortunately the chairs were all "up" to the weight of the ladies, and the
remainder of the company easily accommodated itself to circumstances, in
the shape of sawn stumps, rough stools, and sundry boxes; and although
the company was large and the dining-table small, and although, at times,
we feared the table was about to fulfil its oft-repeated threat and fall
over, yet the dinner was there to be enjoyed, and, being bush-folk, and
hungry, our guests enjoyed it, passing over all incongruities with simple
merriment--a light-hearted, bubbling merriment, in no way comparable to
that "laughter of fools," that crackling of thorns under a pot, provoked
by the incongruities of the world's freak dinners. The one is the
heritage of the simple-hearted, and the other--all the world has to give
in exchange for this birthright.
The elder lads, one fourteen and one ten years of age, found Cheon by far
the most entertaining incongruity at the dinner, and when dinner was
over--after we had settled down on the various chairs and stumps that had
been carried out to the verandah again--they shadowed him wherever he
went.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245