loft, where Skenedonk had already stretched himself in
his blanket, as he loved to do:

"Chambermaid, light up!"

"You drive your slaves too hard, landlord," said Pierre Grignon.

"You'd think I hadn't any, Mr. Grignon; for they're never in the way
when they're wanted."

"One industrious man you certainly have."

"Yes, Sam is a good fellow; but I'll have to go out and wake him up and
make him rub the horses down."

"Never mind," said Pierre Grignon. "I'm going to take these travelers
home with me."

"Now I know how a tavern ought to be kept," said the landlord. "But
what's the use of my keeping one if Pierre Grignon carries off all the
guests?"

"He is my old friend," I told the landlord.

"He's old friend to everybody that comes to Green Bay. I'll never get so
much as a sign painted to hang in front of the Palace Tavern."

I gave him twice his charges and he said:

"What a loss it was to enterprise in the Bay when Pierre Grignon came
here and built for the whole United States!"

The Grignon house, whether built for the whole United States or not, was
the largest in Green Bay. Its lawn sloped down to the Fox River. It was
a huge square of oak timbers, with a detached kitchen, sheltered by
giant elms. To this day it stands defying time with its darkening frame
like some massive rock, the fan windows in the gables keeping guard
north and south.

A hall divided the house through the center, and here Madame Grignon
welcomed me as if I were a long-expected guest, for this was her custom;
and as soon as she clearly remembered me, led me into a drawing-room
where a stately old lady sat making lace.

This was the grandmother of the house. Such a house would have been
incomplete without a grandmother at the hearth.

The furniture of this hall or family room had been brought from
Montreal; spindle chairs and a pier table of mahogany; a Turkey carpet,
laid smoothly on the polished floor to be spurned aside by young dancers
there; some impossible sea pictures, with patron saints in the clouds
over mariners; an immense stuffed sofa, with an arm dividing it across
the center;--the very place for those head-to-head conversations with
young men which the girls of the house called "twosing." It was, in
fact, the favorite "twosing" spot of Green Bay.

Stools there were for children, and armchairs for old people were not
lacking. The small yellow spinning wheel of Madame Ursule, as I found
afterwards Madame Grignon wa