Reader discretion is advised for competitive hotelkeeping, weaponized compliments, excessively responsive baggage service, comparative lamp polishing, and one Albany trombonist whose innocent question threatens to improve two excellent establishments beyond all reasonable necessity.
THE TWO BEST HOTELS IN THE COUNTRY
When I was twelve Father took me into Chateaugay and left me holding the mare at the depot while he attended to a freight box. She would have stood without me. I had the reins looped over my arm when the Albany train came in. Eight musicians got off, besides a man who performed magic and juggled, with instrument cases, two trunks of apparatus, painted hoops in a basket, and a long brass trombone which its owner would not let anybody else carry.
The trombone player asked me which was the best hotel. I had read the paper, and told him Chateaugay had two of the best hotels in the country. The Union House of Morgan and Duffie was first-class in all respects, and Roberts and Ladd kept a house comparable with any hotel in the country. Those were the editor’s words, or very nearly. I have seen the notice since, but at twelve I understood it to mean that a stranger could choose either road and not make a mistake.
“Yes, miss,” the trombone player said, “but which is the better best?”
I thought he was making fun of the paper. He was not. A traveling show had to consider meals, beds, horses, lamps, early calls, and property which could not all be put under one man’s arm. If Chateaugay possessed two of the best hotels in the country, he said, a man from Albany had a right to know by what remaining part one surpassed the other. Father’s business kept us in the village that night, and after he put the mare up I could go with the show people so long as I carried no instrument. That is how I heard so much of the question.
The question reached both houses before the trunks did. I do not remember who carried it. News in the village generally arrived without its baggage. Morgan and Duffie accepted the compliment, and Roberts and Ladd accepted it too. None said the other house was poor, or even second-rate. That would have settled matters cheaply. Each said the newspaper was correct and welcomed an examination.
The trombone player first proposed that the best hotel must have the best table. Four musicians dined at the Union House and four at Ladd’s, while the magician ate part of his dinner at each because there was no proper way to divide him. Both tables were abundant and well served. One party praised the coffee at Ladd’s, and the other praised the Union House rolls. At the next meal Morgan and Duffie used covered coffee pots, and Roberts and Ladd brought rolls from the oven in smaller lots so none cooled in the basket.
“Then the table does not decide it,” said the trombone player.
“Not yet,” Mr. Ladd said.
“And perhaps never,” said Mr. Duffie, though he said it pleasantly.
The next definition was sleep. A hotel was best if a traveler slept best there. The bass player said he had slept at Ladd’s without once hearing the stairs. Before night the Union House had examined every stair tread and put a strip beneath the one board that gave a sound. Then a guest said the Union House pillows suited him particularly, and Ladd’s offered a choice of two sizes. Neither house had possessed a bad bed. The trouble was that every praise became an instruction.
I discovered that part myself. I remarked that Ladd’s boy had carried two valises together without striking either against the door. That afternoon the Union House brought out a narrow baggage truck which went through its doorway exactly. I then said the Union House office bell was answered before it had stopped trembling. At Ladd’s they placed the boy where he could see the bell as well as hear it. After that I kept my opinions to myself, for I had begun to feel that a preference was something like ordering work and ought not to be done by a child without money.
Other guests learned the same caution. A gentleman praised Morgan and Duffie’s team at the harness shop, and Roberts and Ladd had their freshest horses brought around before the words reached the barber’s. A woman said at the post office that Ladd’s parlor was agreeably light, and by supper the Union House lamps had newly trimmed wicks and polished chimneys. Then Ladd’s polished theirs. Both houses had always cared for their lamps and horses. They now cared for them comparatively.
The trombone player next said the better house might be the one that knew what a guest wanted before he asked. This sounded sensible until Mr. Roberts asked whether a hotel ought to know that the guest wished to be left alone. The musician admitted it should.
“And if we leave him alone,” Mr. Morgan asked, “how is he to observe that we knew it?”
The trombone player said he did not know.
“And if he wishes to discover which hotel is best?” Mr. Ladd asked.
“Then each must assist him,” said the musician.
“But assisting him has so far made us equal.”
“It appears so.”
The argument had not become angry. It had merely found a chair and refused to get up.
The show itself supplied the final trial. Its people had to be taken to the hall, fetched after the performance, awakened for the morning train, and reunited with every trunk, horn, hoop, club, coat, and music roll. The eight musicians divided evenly between the two hotels. The magician took his supper at one and his bed at the other, so neither house could claim him entire. Each proprietor wrote down the requested waking times. One musician wanted six o’clock, another ten minutes after six, and the trombone player asked to be called at six and again at a quarter past in case the first call did not persuade him.
Every call was made. Every breakfast was ready. Both teams came at the appointed times, the baggage was checked by piece, and the long trombone remained in its owner’s hands. Nothing was lost, delayed, chilled, overcooked, or forgotten. This was excellent hotel keeping, but it was poor evidence.
At the depot Mr. Duffie asked whether the better best had now been found.
The trombone player said, “If best means without a fault we encountered, both are best.”
“Then what does better mean?” Mr. Roberts asked.
“That one has something the other lacks.”
“And when we discover such a thing?”
“The other supplies it.”
“Then must one of us refuse improvement so the editor may be proved exact?”
The musician considered this and said that refusal would prevent that house from being first-class in all respects. Everybody agreed, though the agreement helped nobody. Father came from the stable with the mare and asked why half the village was needed to see off an eight-piece orchestra.
The show went back toward Albany without choosing. Afterward people praised the Union House or Ladd’s with greater care, and commonly mentioned the other before the sentence ended. The editor also became exact. In the next notice Morgan and Duffie received the same number of printed lines as Roberts and Ladd, with the names set in type of the same size. I remember counting the lines twice. There were eleven for each.
#Chateaugay #HistoricalFiction #AdirondackFiction #VillageComedy #TravelingShow #HotelRivalry #PeriodHospitality #NorthCountryStories #DryHumor #ShatageeWoods
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?