Old Caravan Days Part 15

"Seems like I heard somebody laugh, marm," said Zene.

"Well, suppose you did," said Grandma Padgett. "The whole world won't mourn just because we're in trouble."

"But it sounded like Corinne," said Zene uncertainly.

Grandma Padgett's gla.s.ses glared upon him.

"You'd' be more apt to hear her crying," she exclaimed. "When did you hear it?"

"Just now. I jumped right off the load."

Hickory and Henry, anxious to taste the creek, would have moved forward, but were checked by both pairs of hands.

"What direction?"

"I don't feel certain, marm," said Zene, "but it come like it was from that way through the woods."

Grandma Padgett stretched her neck out of the carriage toward the right.

"Is that a sled track?" she inquired. "It's gittin' so dim I can't see.".

Zene said there was a sled track, pointing out what looked like a double footpath with a growth of gra.s.s and shrubs along the centre.

"We'll drive in that way," she at once decided, "and if we get wedged among the trees, we'll have to get out the best way we can."

Zene turned the gray and white, and led on this new march. Hickory and Henry, backed from the creek without being allowed to dip their mouths, reluctantly thumped the sled track with their shoes, and pretended to distrust every tall stump and every glaring sycamore limb which rose before their sight. Scrubby bushes sc.r.a.ped the bottom of the carriage bed. Now one front wheel rose high over a chunk, and the vehicle rolled and creaked. Zene's wagon cover, like a big white blur, moved steadily in front, and presently Hickory and Henry ran their noses against it, and seemed to relish the knock which the carriage-pole gave the feed-box. Zene had halted to listen.

It was dark in the woods. A rustle could be heard now and then as of some tiny four-footed creature moving the stiff gra.s.s; or a twig cracked.

The frogs in the creek were tuning their ba.s.s-viols. A tree-toad rattled on some unseen trunk, and the whole woods heaved its great lungs in the steady breathing which it never leaves off, but which becomes a roar and a wheeze in stormy or winter weather.

"There isn't anything"--began Grandma Padgett, but between thing and "here" came the distinct laugh of a child.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHERE'S BOBADAY?"]

Zene cracked his whip over the gray and the white, and the wagon rumbled ahead rapidly, jarring against roots, and ends of decayed logs, turning short in one direction, and dipping through a long sheltered mud-hole to the very wheel-hubs, brushing against trees and under low branches until guttural remonstrances were sc.r.a.ped out of the cover, and finally descending into an abrupt hollow, with the carriage rattling at its hind wheels.

Grandma Padgett had been through many experiences, but she felt she could truly say to her descendants that she never gave up so entirely for pure joy in her life as when she saw Robert and Corinne sitting in front of a fire built against a great stump, and talking with a fat, silly-looking man who leaned against a cart-wheel.

CHAPTER XV. THE SPROUTING.

"Why, Bobaday Padgett," exclaimed aunt Corinne, "if there isn't our wagon--and Ma Padgett."

Both children came running to the carriage steps, and their guardian got down, trembling. She put her arms around them, and after a silent hug, shook one in each hand.

The fire illuminated wagon and carriage, J. D. Matthew's cart, and the logs and bushes surrounding them. It flickered on the blue spectacles and gave Grandma Padgett a piercing expression while she examined her culprits.

"Where have you been, while Zene and I hunted up and down in such distress?"

"We's going right back to the tavern soon's he could get us there,"

Robert hastened to explain. "It's that funny fellow, J. D., Grandma.

But he thought we better go roundabout, so they wouldn't catch us."

Zene, limping down from his wagon, listened to this lucid statement.

"O Zene," exclaimed aunt Corinne, "I'm so glad you and Ma Padgett have come! But we knew you wouldn't go on to Brother Tip's without us. Bobaday said you'd wait till we got back, and we ran right straight out of town."

"You ought to be well sprouted, both of you," said Grandma Padgett, still trembling as she advanced toward the fire. "Robert Day, break me a switch; break me a good one, and peel the leaves off. So you came across this man again, and he persuaded you to run away with him, did he?"

J. D. Matthews, who had stood up smiling his widest, now moved around to the other side of his cart and crouched in alarm.

Grandma Padgett now saw that the cart was standing level and open, and within it there appeared a nest of brown curls and one slim, babyish hand.

"What's that?" she inquired.

"Why, don't you see, Grandma?" exclaimed Robert, "that's Fairy Carrie that we ran away with. They made her sing at the show. We just went in a minute to see the pig-headed man. I had my gold dollar. And she felt so awful. And we saw her behind the tent."

"She cried, Ma Padgett," burst in aunt Corinne, "like her heart was broke, and she couldn't talk at all. Then they were coming out to make her go in again, and we said didn't she want to go to you? You wouldn't let her live with a pig-headed man and have to sing. And she wanted to go, so they came out. And we took hold of her hands and ran. And they chased us. And we couldn't go to the tavern 'cause they chased us the other way: it got dark, and when Bobaday hid us under a house, they chased past us, and we waited, oh! the longest time."

"And then," continued Robert, "when we came out, we didn't know which way to go to the tavern, but started roundabout, through fields and over fences, and all, so the show people wouldn't see us. Aunt Corinne was scared. And we stumbled over cows, and dogs barked at us.

But we went on till after 'while just as we's slippin' up a back street we met J. D. and the cart, and he was so good! He put the poor little girl in the cart and pushed her. She was so weak she fell down every little bit when we's runnin'. Aunt Corinne and me had to nearly carry her."

"Well, why didn't he bring you back to the tavern?"

"Grandma, if he had, the show people would been sure to get her! We thought they'd travel on this morning. And we were so tired! He took us to a cabin house, and the woman was real good. The man was real good, too. They had lots of dogs. We got our breakfast and stayed all night. They knew we'd strayed off, but they said J. D. would get us back safe. I gave them the rest of my dollar. Then this morning we all started to town, but J. D. had to go away down the road first, for some eggs and things. And it took us so long we only got this far when it came dusk."

"J. D. took good care of us," said aunt Corinne. "Everybody knows him, and he is so funny. The folks say he travels along the pike all through Indiana and Ohio."

"Well, I'm obliged to him," said Grandma Padgett, still severely; "we owe him, too, for a good supper and breakfast he gave us the other time we saw him. But I can't make out how he can foot it faster than we can ride, and so git into this State ahead of us."

Mr. Matthews now came forward, and straightening his bear-like figure, proceeded to smile without apprehension. He cleared his voice and chanted:

Sometimes I take the wings of steam, And on the cars my cart I wheel.

And so I came to Richmond town Two days ago in fair renown.

"Oh," said Grandma Padgett.

"What's that he's givin' out, marm?" inquired Zene.

"It's a way he has," she explained. "He talks in verses. This is the pedler that stayed over in that old house with us, near by the Dutch landlord and the deep creek. Were you going to camp here all night?"

she inquired of J. D.

"We wanted him to," coaxed aunt Corinne, "my feet ached so bad. Then we could walk right into town in the morning, and he'd hide Fairy Carrie in his cart till we got to the tavern."

"Zene," said Grandma Padgett, "you might as well take out the horses and feed them. They haven't had much chance to-day."