Cheeser, was best pondered by the light of day. Late at night sometimes, things seemed deeper and smokier than they were.
The hour finally arrived for Jonathan Bing to turn the lamp down, bolt the door, and crawl into bed. Ahab elected to spend the night on his pillow by the embers of the fire and was lost immediately in his dreams.
2
A Good Month for Traveling
Ahab awoke before Jonathan did because the fire had burned itself out, and the morning was frightfully cold. Jonathan was covered with blankets topped by a feather comforter that came up to his chin and covered his bed all the way to the floor. He wore his cloth nightcap and striped nightshirt and, all in all, he was as warm as a honeycake in a dwarf’s oven. Ahab climbed onto the bed and began burrowing beneath the covers pretending to search for some lost object. Awaking with a shout at the sudden cold thing that had crept into his bed, Jonathan slid over far to one side and let Ahab have the other.
He couldn’t fall asleep again, however, because of the ticking of his pocketwatch which lay nearby on the table. The harder he tried to ignore the noise, the louder it seemed to be. Then the bottom of his foot, which should have been feeling warm and content, began to itch and no mere scratching would suffice; it wanted to be up and about. But Jonathan was far too snug for any such foolishness. Then just when he’d managed to ignore the pocketwatch and the itch in his foot, Ahab set in to snore like a grizzly bear and began to flail his legs about. He was lost in a very active dream in which he seemed to be chasing a boatload of funny little men wearing tall hats along the banks of a river.
Jonathan, in a rage – not a wild rage, but one of those mild, morning rages – flew out of bed. Just as well, for the bells in the village struck seven times, and if he wished to be at the Guildhall by eight-thirty and have a load of cheeses with him to boot, he’d best make tracks.
His first duty each morning was to put the coffee on the stove. He ground a handful of dark, oily coffee beans, measured out a third of a cup of grounds, and threw them into the bottom of a porcelain-coated coffee pot which he filled three-fourths to the top with cold water. Jonathan then set about boiling another pan of water for oatmeal porridge and slicing wheat bread for toast. Soon the coffee water started to bubble and steam, and when it was just set to boil he took the pot off the stove to let the coffee steep. Its rich smell filled the kitchen, and there was nothing for it but that Jonathan should have a cup at once. As he was enjoying his toast and porridge and peach jam and sugared coffee, Ahab wandered in from the bedroom. Barely awake, he stretched deeply and stood by the table eyeing the slices of buttered toast. Jonathan tore off a piece, smeared a dab of jam on it, and tossed it to Ahab, who found the morsel very good indeed. Together, they decided on having another.
Breakfast finished, Jonathan trudged up the gravel path to the cheesehouse and pulled his wagon out from beneath its covering. With Ahab trotting alongside or resting now and again just inside the door, Jonathan carried out some two or three dozen cheeses of various shapes and sizes including a half dozen crocks of creamed cheese and three of the round swirly cheeses that he and the mayor had picked at the night before. Goat’s milk cheeses covered with rock salt hung from the ceiling, and there were wedges of fancy cheeses made with onions and bacon and sardines. Before long he had the wagon loaded and was off down the hill toward town, marveling at the clear sky and the thin crusts of frost on the rooftops and on the deep, still river that sailed along below on its way to the sea. At some point during his reveries, his wagon shook and suddenly grew heavier. When he looked over his shoulder, Jonathan discovered that Ahab had crawled up onto the rear of the cart and fallen asleep among the cheeses.
The Guildhall
Tim Lahaye, Jerry B. Jenkins