Old Caravan Days Part 12

"Yes, but what did it look like?"

Her nephew stared doubtingly upon her.

"Will you holler if I tell you?"

Aunt Corinne went through an impressive pantomime of deeding and double-deeding herself not to holler.

"Will you be afraid all the rest of the night?"

No; aunt Corinne intimated that her courage would be revived and strengthened by knowing the worst about that wagon.

He pierced her with his dilating eyes, and beckoned her to put up her ear for the information.

"You ain't goin' to play any trick," remonstrated his relative, "like you did when you got me to say grandmother, grandmother, thith--thith--thith, and then hit my chin and made me bite my tongue?"

Robert was forced to chuckle at the recollection, but he a.s.sured aunt Corinne that grandmother, grandmother, thith--thith--thith was far from his thoughts. He hesitated, with aunt Corinne's ear jogging against his chin. Then in a loud whisper he communicated:

"_It_ was a man with a pig's _head on_ him!"

CHAPTER XII. JONATHAN AND THRUSTY ELLEN.

Aunt Corinne drew back into a rigid att.i.tude. "I don't believe it!"

she said.

Robert Day pa.s.sed over her incredulity with a flickering smile.

"People don't have pigs' heads on them!" argued aunt Corinne. "Did he grunt?"

"And he had a tush stickin' out from his lower jaw," added Robert.

They gazed at each other in silent horror. While this awful pantomime was going on, the flap of Grandma Padgett's tent was lifted, and a voice of command, expressing besides astonishment and alarm, startled their ears with--

"Children!"

Aunt Corinne leaped up and turned at bay, half-expecting to find the man with the pig's head gnashing at her ear. But what she saw in the sinking light was a fine old head in a night-cap, staring at them from the tent. Bobaday and his aunt were so rapid in retiring that their guardian was unable to make them explain their conduct as fully as she desired. They slept so long in the morning that the camp was broken up when Grandma Padgett called them out to breakfast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VIRGINIAN AND HIS CHILDREN.]

Zene wanted the tent of aunt Corinne to stretch over the wagon-hoops.

He had already hitched the horses, restoring the gray and the white to their former condition of yoke-fellows, and these two rubbed noses affectionately and had almost as much to whisper to each other as had Robert and Corinne over their breakfast.

The darkened wagon was nowhere to be seen. Corinne climbed a tall stump as an observatory, and Bobaday went a piece into the bushes, only to find that all that end of the camp was gone. The colony of Virginians was also partly under way.

Aunt Corinne felt a certain sadness steal over her. She had brought herself to admit the pig-headed man, with limitations. He might have a pig's head on him, but it wasn't fast. He did it to frighten children. She had fully intended to see him and be frightened by him at any cost. Now he was gone like a bad dream in the night. And she should not know if the little girl was stolen. She could only revenge herself on Robert Day for having seen into that darkened wagon, with the stove-pipe sticking out when she had not, by sniffing doubtfully at every mysterious allusion to it. They did not mention the pigheaded man to Grandma Padgett, though both longed to know if such a specimen of natural history had ever come under her eyes. She would have questioned then about the walk that led to this discovery. Her prejudices against children's prowling away from their elders after dark were very strong.

Aunt Corinne thought the pig-headed man might have come to their carriage when they were ready to start, instead of the Virginian.

"Right along the pike?" he inquired cheerfully.

"I believe so," said Grandma Padgett.

"You'll be in our company then as far as you go. It'll be better for you to keep in a big company."

"It will indeed," said Grandma Padgett sincerely.

"Oh, you'll keep along to Californy," said the Virginian.

"To the Illinois line," amended Grandma Padgett, at which he laughed, adding:

"Well, we'll neighbor for a while, anyhow."

"Let your little boy and girl ride in our carriage," begged Robert Day, seizing on this relief from monotony.

"Yes do," said his grandmother, turning her gla.s.ses upon the little boy and girl. Aunt Corinne had been inspecting them as they stood at their father's heels, and bestowing experimental smiles on them. The boy was a clear brown-eyed fellow with b.u.t.ternut trousers up to his arm-pits, and a wool hat all out of shape. The little girl looked red-faced and precise, the color from her lips having evidently become diluted through her skin. Over a linsey petticoat she wore a calico belted ap.r.o.n. The belt was as broad as the length of aunt Corinne's hand, for in the course of the morning aunt Corinne furtively measured it. Although it was June weather, this little girl also wore stout shoes and yarn stockings.

"Well, they might get in if they won't crowd you," a.s.sented their father. "You're all to take dinner with us, my wife says."

The children were hoisted up the steps, which they climbed with agile feet, as if accustomed to scaling high cart wheels. Bobaday sat by his grandmother, and the back seat received this addition to the party without at all crowding aunt Corinne. She looked the boy and girl over with great satisfaction. They were near her own age.

"Do you play teeter in the woods?" she inquired with a fidget, by way of opening the conversation.

The boy rolled his eyes towards her and replied in a slow drawl, sometimes they did.

Robert Day then put it to him whether he liked moving.

"I like to ride the leaders for fawther," replied the boy.

"What's your name?" inquired aunt Corinne, directing her inquiry to both.

The little girl turned redder, answering in a broad drawl like her brother, "His name's Jonathan and mine's Clar'sy Ellen."

Aunt Corinne looked down at the hind wheel revolving at her side of the carriage, and her lips unconsciously moved in meditation.

"Thrusty Ellen!" she repeated aloud.

"Clar'sy Ellen," corrected the little girl, her broad drawl still confusing the sound.

Aunt Corinne's lips continued to move. She whispered to the hind wheel, "Mercy! If I was named Jonathan and Thrusty Ellen, I'd wish my folks'd forgot to name me at all!"

CHAPTER XIII. FAIRY CARRIE AND THE PIG-HEADED MAN.