Old Caravan Days Part 6

A covered wagon appeared on the first crossroad, moving steadily between rows of elder bushes. The carriage waited its approach. A figure like Zene's sat resting his feet on the tongue behind the old gray and the old white.

"It's our wagon," said Robert Day. Presently Zene's countenance, and even the cast in his eyes, became a certainty instead of a wavering indistinctness, and he smiled with satisfaction while halting his vehicle at right angles with the carriage.

"Where have you been?" inquired Grandma Padgett.

"Over on t'other road," replied Zene, indicating the direction with his whip, "huntin' you folks. I knowed you hadn't made the right turn somehow."

Grandma Padgett mentioned her experience with the Dutch landlord and the ford, both of which Zene had avoided by taking another cross-road that he had neglected to indicate to them. He said he thought they would see the wagon-track and foller, not bein' fur behind. When he discovered they were not in his train, he was in a narrow road and could not turn; so he tied the horses and walked back a piece. He got on a corn-field fence and shouted to them; but by that time there was no carriage anywhere in the landscape.

"Such things won't do," said Grandma Padgett with some severity.

"No, marm," responded Zene humbly.

"We must keep together," said the head of the caravan.

"Yes, marm," responded Zene earnestly.

"Well, now, you may drive ahead and keep the carriage in sight till it's dinner-time and we come to a good place to halt."

Bobaday said he believed he would get in with Zene and try the wagon awhile. Springs and cushions had become tiresome. He half-stood on the tongue, to bring his legs down on a level with Zene's, and enjoyed the jolting in every piece of his backbone. He had had a surfeit of woman-society. Even the horsey smell of Zene's clothes was found agreeable. And above all, he wanted to talk about J. D.

Matthews, and tell the terrors of a bottomless ford and a house with a strange-sounding cellar.

"But the man was the funniest thing," said Bobaday. "He just talked poetry all the time, and Grandma said he was daft. I'd like to talk that way myself, but I can't make it jee."

Zene observed mysteriously, that there were some queer folks in this section.

Yes, Bobaday admitted; the landlord was as Dutch as sour-krout.

Zene observed that all the queer folks wasn't Dutch. He shook his head and looked so steadily at a black stump that Robert knew his eyes were fixedly cast on the horizon. The boy speculated on the possibility of people with crooked eyes seeing anything clearly. But Zene's hints were a stimulant to curiosity.

"Where did _you_ stay last night?" inquired Robert, bracing himself for pleasant revelations.

"Oh, I thought at first I'd put up in the wagon." replied Zene.

"But you didn't?"

"No: not _intirely_."

"What _did_ you do?" pressed Robert Day.

"Well, I thought I'd better git nigh some house, on account of givin' me a chance to see if you folks come by. I thought you'd inquire at all the houses."

"Did you stop at one?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ZENE EXCITES BOBADAY'S CURIOSITY.]

"I took the team out _by_ a house. It was plum dark then."

"I'd gone in to see what kind of folks they were first," remarked Bobaday.

"Yes, sir; that's what I'd orto done. But I leads them round to their feed-box after I watered 'em to a spring o' runnin' water. Then I doesn't know but the woman o' the house will give me a supper if I pays for it. So I slips to the side door and knocks. And a man opens the door."

Robert Day drew in his breath quickly.

"How did the man look?" he inquired.

"I can't tell you that," replied Zene, "bekaze I was so struck with the looks of the woman that I looked right past him."

Robert considered the cast in Zene's eyes, and felt in doubt whether he looked at the man and saw the woman, or looked at the woman and saw the man.

"Was she pretty?"

"Pretty!" replied Zene. "Is that flea-bit-gray, grazin' in the medder there, pretty?"

"Well," replied Bobaday, shifting his feet, "that's about as good-looking as one of our old grays."

"You don't know a horse," said Zene indulgently. "Ourn's an iron gray. There's a sight of difference in grays."

"Was the woman ugly?"

"Is a spotted snake ugly?"

"Yes," replied Robert decidedly; "or it 'pears so to me."

"That's how the woman 'peared to me. She was tousled, and looked wild out of her eyes. The man says, says he, 'What do you want?' I s'ze, 'Can I git a bite here?'"

Robert had frequently explained to Zene the utter nonsense of this abbreviation, "I s'ze," but Zene invariably returned to it, perhaps dimly reasoning that he had a right to the dignity of third person when repeating what he had said. If he said of another man, "says he," why could he not remark of himself, "I says he?" He considered it not only correct, but ornamental.

"The man says, says he, 'We don't keep foot-pads.' And I s'ze--for I was mad--'I ain't no more a foot-pad than you are,' I s'ze. 'I've got a team and a wagon out here,' I s'ze, 'and pervisions too, but I've got the means to pay for a warm bite,' I s'ze, 'and if you can't accommodate me, I s'pose there's other neighbors that can.'"

"You shouldn't told him you had money and things!" exclaimed Robert, bulging his eyes.

"I see that, soon's I done it," returned Zene, shaking a line over the near horse. "The woman spoke up, and she says, says she, 'There ain't any neighbor nigher than five miles.' Thinks I, this settlement looked thicker than that. But I doesn't say yea or no to it. And they had me come in and eat. I paid twenty-five cents for such a meal as your gran'marm wouldn't have set down on her table."

"What did they have?"

"Don't ask me," urged Zene; "I'd like to forget it. There was vittles, but they tasted so funny. And they kept inquirin' where I's goin' and who was with me. They was the uneasiest people you ever see. And nothing would do but I must sleep in the house. There was two rooms. I didn't see till I was in bed, that the only door I could get out of let into the room where the man and woman stayed."

Robert Day began to consider the part of Ohio through which his caravan was pa.s.sing, a weird and unwholesome region, full of shivering delights. While the landscape lay warm, glowing and natural around him, it was luxury to turn cold at Zene's night-peril.

"I couldn't go to sleep," continued Zene, "and I kind of kept my eye on the only window there was."

Robert drew a sigh of relief as he reflected that an enemy watching at the window would be sure Zene was looking just in the opposite direction.

"And the man and woman they whispered."

"What did they whisper about?"

"How do I know?" said Zene mysteriously. "Whisper--whisper--whisper--z-z!