Old Caravan Days Part 25

At Terra Haute, where they halted for the night, Robert Day was made to feel the only sting which the caravan mode of removal ever caused him.

The tavern shone resplendent with lights. When Grandma Padgett's party went by the double doors of the dining-room, to ascend the stairs, they glanced into what appeared a bower or a bazaar of wonderful sights. They had supper in a temporary eating-room, and the waiter said there was a fair in the house. Not an agricultural display, but something got up by a ladies' sewing-society to raise money for poor people.

Now Robert Day and Corinne knew all about an agricultural display.

They had been to the State Fair at Columbus, and seen cattle standing in long lines of booths, quilts, and plows, and chickens, pies, bread, and fancy knitting, horses, cake stands, and crowds of people.

They considered it the finest sight in the world, except, perhaps, a fabulous crystal palace which was or had been somewhere a great ways off, and which everybody talked about a great deal, and some folks had pictured on their window blinds. But a fair got up by a ladies'

sewing-society to raise money for the poor, was so entirely new and tantalizing to them that they begged their guardian to take them in.

Grandma Padgett said she had no money to spare for foolishness, and her expenses during the trip footed up to a high figure. Neither could she undertake to have the trunks in from the wagon and get out their Sunday clothes. But in the end, as both children were neatly dressed, and the fair was to help the poor, she gave them a five-cent piece each, over and above admission money, which was a fip'ney-bit, for children, the waiter said. Zene concluded he would black his boots and look into the fair awhile also, and as he could keep a protecting eye on her young family, and had authority to send them up-stairs in one hour and a half by the bar-room time, Grandma Padgett went to bed. She was glad the journey was so nearly over, for every night found her quite tired out.

Zene, magnifying his own importance and authority, ushered aunt Corinne and Robert into the fair, and limped after them whenever he thought they needed admonition or advice. The landlord's pert young son noticed this and made his intimates laugh at it. Besides, he was gorgeously attired in blue velvet jacket and ruffles and white trousers, and among the crowds of grown people coming and going, other children shone in resplendent attire. Aunt Corinne felt the commonness of her calico dress. She had a "white" herself, if Ma Padgett had only let her put it on, but this could not be explained to all the people at the fair. And there were so many things to look at, she soon forgot the white. Dolls of pink and pearly wax, with actual hair, candy or wooden dogs, cats, and all domestic animals, tables of cakes, and lines of made-up clothing which represented the sewing society's labors. There was too much crowding for comfort, and too much pastry trodden into the floor; and aunt Corinne and her nephew felt keen anxiety to spend their five-cent pieces to the best advantage. She was near investing in candy kisses, when yellow and scarlet-backed books containing the history of "Mother Hubbard," or the "Babes in the Woods," or "Little Red Riding Hood," attracted her eye, and she realized what life-long regret she must have suffered for spending five cents on candy kisses, when one such volume might be hers for the same money.

Just as aunt Corinne laid her silver on the book counter, however, and gave her trembling preference to the "History of Old Dame Trot and her Cat," Bobaday seized her wrist and excitedly told her there was a magic-lantern show connected with the fair, which could be seen at five cents per pair of eyes. Dame Trot remained unpurchased, and the coin returned to aunt Corinne's warm palm. But she inquired with caution,

"What's a magic-lantern show?"

"Why, the man, you know," explained Robert, "has pitctures in a lantern, and throws light through 'em, and they spread out on a wet sheet on the wall. The room's all dark except the place on the wall.

A Chinese man eatin' mice in his sleep: he works his jaws! And about Saul in the Bible, when he was goin' to kill the good people, and it says, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' And when they let him down in a basket. And there's a big star like grandma's star quilt, only it keeps turning all kinds of colors and working in and out on itself. And a good many more. Zene went in. He said he wanted to see if we ought to look at it. And he'll stand by the door and pay our money to the man if we want to go. There's such a crowd to get in."

Robert Day's aunt caught the fire of his enthusiasm and went straight with him to the door wherein the magic lantern performed. A crowd of children were pushing up, but Zene, more energetic than courteous pushed his charges ahead so that they gained chairs before the landlord's son could make his choice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT THE SEWING SOCIETY FAIR.]

He sat down directly behind Robert and aunt Corinne, and at once began to annoy them with impertinent remarks.

"Movers' young ones are spry," said the landlord's son, who had been petted on account of his pretty face until he was the nuisance of the house. "I wouldn't be a movers' young one."

Robert felt a stinging throb in his blood, but sat still, looking at the wall. Aunt Corinne, however, turned her head and looked witheringly at the blue-jacketed boy.

"Movers' young ones have to wear calico," he continued, "and their lame pap goes lippity-clink around after them."

"He thinks Zene's our father!" exclaimed aunt Corinne, blazing at the affront she received.

"Don't mind him," said Robert, slowly. "He's the hostler's boy, and used to staying in the stable. He doesn't know how to behave when they let him into the house."

This bitter skirmishing might have become an open engagement at the next exchange of fires, for the landlord's son stood up in rage while his chums giggled, and Robert felt terribly equal to the occasion. He told Zene next day he had his fist already doubled, and he didn't care if the landlord put them all in jail. But just then the magic light was turned upon the wall, the landlord's son was told by twenty voices to sit down out of the way, the lantern man himself sternly commanding it. So he sunk into his seat feeling much less important, and the wonders proceeded though Aunt Corinne felt she should always regret turning her back on the Dame Trot book and coming in there to have Zene called her lame pap, while Robert wondered gloomily if any stigma did attach to movers' children. He had supposed them a cla.s.s to be envied.

This grievance put the robbers out of his mind when they trotted ahead next day. The Wabash River could scarcely soothe his ruffled complacence. And never an inch of the Wabash River have I seen that was not beautiful and restful to the eye. It flows limpidly between varying banks, and has a trick of throwing up bars and islands, wooded to the very edges--captivating places for any tiny Crusoe to be wrecked upon. Skiffs lay along the sh.o.r.e, and small steamers felt their way in the channel. It was a river full of all sorts of promises; so shallow here that the pebbles shone in broad sheets like a floor of opals wherever you might wade in delight, so deep and shady with sycamore canopies there, that a good swimmer would want to lie in ambush like a trout, at the bottom of the swimming hole, half a June day.

Perhaps it was the sight of the Wabash River which suggested washing clothes to Grandma Padgett. She said they were now near the Illinois State line, and she would not like to reach the place with everything dirty. There was always plenty to do when a body first got home, without hurrying up wash-day.

So when they pa.s.sed a small place called Macksville, and came to Sugar Creek, she called a halt, and they spent the day in the woods.

Sugar Creek, though not sweet, was clear. Zene carried pails full of it to fill the great copper kettle, and slung this over a fire. The horses munched at their feed-box or cropped gra.s.s, wandering with their heads tied to their forefeet to prevent their cantering off.

Grandma Padgett at the creek's brink, set up her tubs and buried herself to the elbows in suds, and aunt Corinne with a matronly countenance, a.s.sisted. All that day Robert went barelegged, and splashed water, wading out far to dip up a gourdful; and he thought it was fun to help stretch the clothes-line among saplings, and lift the scalded linen on a paddle into the tub, losing himself in the stream. Ordinary washdays as he remembered them, were rather disagreeable.

Everybody had to wake early, and a great deal of fine-split wood was needed. The kitchen smelt of suds, and the school-lunch was sc.r.a.ps left from Sunday instead of new cake, turnovers and gingerbread.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRANDMA PADGETT'S WASHING-DAY IN THE WOODS.]

But this woods wash-day was an experience to delight in, like sailing on a log in the water, and pretending you are a bold navigator, or lashing the rocking-chair to a sled for a sleighride.

It was something out of the common. It was turning labor into fantastic tricks.

They had an excellent supper, too, and after dusk the clothes stood in glintly array on the line, the camp-fire shone ruddy in a place where its smoke could not offend them, and they were really like white stones encircling an unusual day.

But when Robert awoke in the night they gave him a pang of fright, and he was sorry his grandma had decided to let them bleach in the dew of the June woods. From his bed in the carriage he could see both the road and the lines of clothes. A horseman came along the road and halted. He was not attracted by the camp-fire, because that had died to ashes. He probably would not have heard the horses stamp in their sleep, for his own horse's feet made a noise. And the wagon cover was hid by foliage. But woods and sight were not dark enough to keep the glint of the washing out of his eyes. Robert saw this rider dismount and heard him walking cautiously into their camp.

CHAPTER XXVII. A NIGHT PICTURE OF HOME.

Here at last was the robber. After you have given over expecting a robber, and even feel that you can do without him, to find him stealing up in the night when you are camped in a lonely place and not near enough either tent or wagon to wake the other sleepers for reinforcements, is trying to the nerves.

Bobaday sat up in the carriage, bracing his courage for the emergency. He could take a cushion, jump out and attack the man with that. It was not a deadly weapon, and would require considerable force back of it to do damage. The whip might be better. He reached for the whip and turned the handle uppermost. There was no cave at hand to trap this robber in, but a toll-woman should not show more spirit than Robert Day Padgett in the moment of peril.

Though the robber advanced cautiously, he struck his foot against a root or two, and stumbled, making the horse take irregular steps also, for he was leading his horse with the bridle over his arm.

And he came directly up to the carriage. Robert grasped the whip around the middle with both hands, but some familiar att.i.tude in the stranger's dim outline made him lower it.

"Bobby," said the robber, speaking guardedly, "are you in here?"

"Pa Padgett," exclaimed Robert Day, "is that you?"

"Hush! Yes. It's me, of course. Don't wake your grandma. Old folks are always light sleepers."

Pa Padgett reached into the carriage, shook hands with his boy, and kissed him. How good the bushy beard felt against Bobaday's face.

He said nothing about robbers, while his father unsaddled his horse and tied the animal snugly to a limb.

Then Pa Padgett put his foot on the hub and sprang into the carriage.

"Is there room for me to stretch myself in here tonight too?"

"Of course there is. But don't you want to see grandma and aunt Krin?"

"Wait till morning. We'll all take an early start. Have they kept well?"

"Everybody's well," replied Bobaday. "But how did you know we were here?"

"I'd have pa.s.sed by," said Pa Padgett, "if I hadn't seen all that white strung along. Been washing clothes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I made out the carriage, and something like a wagon back in the bushes. So I came up to examine."

"We thought you'd be at the State line," said Robert.

"Oh, I intended to ride out till I met you," replied his father.

"But I'd have missed you on the plain road; and gone by to the next town to stop for you, if it hadn't been for the washing. You better go to sleep again now. Have you had a nice trip?"