"Why covered bridges are covered at all," Hoots Monmouth said, taking
the
arm of C.C. Rimbaud as they crossed the street to the Inn Between,
"remains something of
a mystery.People have been building bridges,
of course, ever since Ogg and Noof walked across
the creek outside their
cave on an old mammoth tusk; but from the days of the Neandrathals right
up to the present, those bridges have, as a rule, been roofless. That fact,"
he
continued, " reflects two related truths: 1) very few people live on bridges,
and 2) when
approaching a bridge, the traveller is unlikely to say to himself,
'a bridge seems like a good
place to linger'. To those who say that
a covered bridge provides a bit of shelter on a lonely
road, a reasonable
man can be forgiven for pointing out that a barn provides the same service,
and
does so without jutting out over a cliff." Snow swirled in fluffy fractals across
the entryway
as opened the barroom door. "Indeed a covered bridge might well
be defined as a barn that
attempted to flee its field and got stuck trying to
cross the river."
