Produced by Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team. This file was produced from images generously made
available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
Microreproductions.
OLD CARAVAN DAYS
By Mary Hartwell Catherwood
CONTENTS.
I. THE START
II. THE LITTLE OLD MAN WITH A BAG ON HIS BACK
III. THE TAVERN
IV. THE SUSAN HOUSE
V. THE SUSAN HOUSE CELLAR
VI. MR. MATTHEWS
VII. ZENE'S MAN AND WOMAN
VIII. LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK
IX. THE GREAT CAMP MEETING
X. THE CRY OF A CHILD IN THE NIGHT
XI. THE DARKENED WAGON
XII. JONATHAN AND THRUSTY ELLEN
XIII. FAIRY CARRIE AND THE PIG-HEADED MAN
XIV. SEARCHING
XV. THE SPROUTING
XVI. THE MINSTREL
XVII. THE HOUSE WITH LOG STEPS
XVIII. “COME TO MAMMA!”
XIX. FAIRY CARRIE DEPARTS
XX. SUNDAY ON THE ROAD
XXI. HER MOTHER ARRIVES
XXII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY-SCHOOL
XXIII. FORWARD
XXIV. THE TOLL-WOMAN
XXV. THE ROBBERS
XXVI. THE FAIR AND THE FIERCE BANDIT
XXVII. A NIGHT PICTURE OF HOME
OLD CARAVAN DAYS.
CHAPTER I. THE START.
In the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, on the fifth day of
June, the Padgett carriage-horses faced the west, and their mistress
gathered the lines into her mitted hands.
The moving-wagon was ready in front of the carriage. It was to be
driven by Zene, the lame hired man. Zene was taking a last drink from
that well at the edge of the garden, which lay so deep that your face
looked like a star in it. Robert Day Padgett, Mrs. Padgett's
grandson, who sat on the back seat of the carriage, decided that he
must have one more drink, and his aunt Corinne who sat beside him,
was made thirsty by his decision. So the two children let down the
carriage steps and ran to the well.
It was like Sunday all over the farm, only the cattle were not
straying over the fields. The house was shut up, its new inhabitants
not having arrived. Some neighbor women had come to bid the family
good-bye again, though it was so early that the garden lay in heavy
dew. These good friends stood around the carriage; one of them held
the front-door key in trust for the new purchaser. They all called
the straight old lady who held the lines grandma Padgett. She was
grandma Padgett to the entire neighborhood, and they shook their
heads sorrowfully in remembering that her blue spectacles, her
ancient Leghorn bonnet, her Quaker shoulder cape and decided face
might be vanishing from them forever.
“You'll come back to Ohio,” said one neighbor. “The wild Western
prairie country won't suit you at all.”
“I'm not denying,” returned grandma Padgett, “that I could end my
days in peace on the farm here; but son Tip can do very little here,
and he can do well out there. I've lost my entire family except son
Tip and the baby of all, you know. And it's not my wish to be
separated from son Tip in my declining years.”
The neighbors murmured that they knew, and one of them inquired as
she had often inquired before, at what precise point grandma
Padgett's son was to meet the party; and she replied as if giving new
information, that it was at the Illinois State line.
“You'll have pretty weather,” said another woman, squinting-in the
early sun.
“Grandma Padgett won't care for weather,” observed the neighbor with
the key. “She moved out from Virginia in the dead o' winter.”
“Yes; I was but a child,” said grandma Padgett, “and this country
one unbroken wilderness. We came down the Ohio River by flatboat, and
moved into this section when the snow was so deep you could ride
across stake-and-rider fences on the drifts.”
“Folks can get around easier now, though,” said the squinting
neighbor, “since they got to going on these railroads.”
“I shipped part of my goods on the railroad,” remarked grandma
Padgett with--a laugh. “But I don't know; I ain't used to the things,
and I don't know whether I'd resk my bones for a long distance or
not. Son Tip went out on the cars.”
“The railroads charge so high,” murmured a woman near the back
wheels. “But they do say you can ride as far West as you're a goin'
on the cars.”
“How long will you be gettin' through?” inquired another.
“Not more than two or three weeks,” replied grandma Padgett
resolutely. “It's a little better than three hundred and fifty miles,
I believe.”
“That's a long distance,” sighed the neighbor at the wheels.
But aunt Corinne and her nephew, untroubled by the length of
pilgrimage before them, ran from the well into the garden.
“I wish the kerns were ripe,” said aunt Corinne. “Look out, Bobaday!
You're drabblin' the bottoms of your good pants.”
“'Twouldn't do any good if the kerns were ripe,” said Bobaday,
turning his pepper-and-salt trousers up until the linings showed.
“This farm ain't ours now, and we couldn't pull them.”
Aunt Corinne paused at the fennel bed: then she impulsively
stretched forth her hand and gathered it full.
“I set out these things,” said aunt Corinne, “and I ain't countin'
them sold till the wagon starts.” So she gathered sweetbrier, and a
leaf of sage and two or three pinks.
“O Bobaday,” said aunt Corinne--this name being a childish
corruption of Robert Day: for aunt Corinne two years younger than her
nephew, and had talked baby talk when he prided himself on distinct
English--“you s'pose brother Tip's got a garden like this at the new
place? Oh, the pretty little primroses! Who'll watch them pop open
to-night? How you and me have sat on the primrose bed and watched the
t-e-e-nty buds swell and swell till finally--pop! they smack their lips
and burst wide open!”
“We'll have a primrose bed out West,” said Bobaday. “We'll plant
sweet anise too, and have caraway seeds to put in the cakes. Aunt
Krin, did you know grandma's goin' to have green kern pie when we
stop for dinner to-day?”
“I knew there was kern pie made,” said aunt Krin. “I guess we better
get into the carriage.”
She held her short dress away from the bushes, and scampered with
Bobaday into the yard. Here they could not help stopping on the
warped floor of the porch to look into the empty house. It looked
lonesome already. A mouse had ventured out of the closet by the tall
sitting-room mantel; and a faint outline of the clock's shape
remained on the wall.
The house with its trees was soon fading into the past. The
neighbors were going home by the road or across fields. Zene's wagon,
drawn by the old white and gray, moved ahead at a good pace. It was
covered with white canvas drawn tight over hoops which were held by
iron clamps to the wagon-sides. At the front opening sat Zene,
resting his feet on the tongue. The rear opening was puckered to a
round O by a drawing string. Swinging to and fro from the hind axle,
hung the tar-bucket. A feed box was fitted across the hind end of the
wagon. Such stores as might be piled to the very canvas roof, were
concealed from sight by a black oilcloth apron hanging behind Zene.
This sheet of oilcloth was designed for an additional roof to keep
the goods dry when it rained.
Under the wagon, keeping well away from the tar-bucket, trotted
Boswell and Johnson. Bobaday named them; he had read something of
English literature in his grandfather's old books. Johnson was a fat
black and white dog, who was obliged to keep his tongue out of his
mouth to pant during the greater part of his days. He had fits of
meditation, when Boswell galloped all over him without provoking a
snap. Johnson was, indeed, a most amiable fellow, and had gained a
reputation as a good watch dog, because on light nights he barked the
shining hours away.
Boswell was a little short-legged dog, built like a clumsy weasel;
for his body was so long it seemed to plead for six legs instead of
four, to support it, and no one could blame his back for swaying a
little in the middle. Boswell was a brindled dog. He had yellow spots
like pumpkin seeds over his eyes. His affection for Johnson was
extreme. He looked up to Johnson. If he startled a bird at the
roadside, or scratched at the roots of a tree after his imagination,
he came back to Johnson for approval, wagging his tail until it made
his whole body undulate. Johnson sometimes condescended to rub a nose
against his silly head, and this threw him into such fire of delight
that he was obliged to get out of the wagon-track, and bark around
himself in a circle until the carriage left him behind. Then he came
up to Johnson again, and panted along beside him, with a smile as
open and constant as sunshine.
No such caravan as the Padgett family has been seen moving West
since those days when all the States were in a ferment: when New York
and the New England States poured into Ohio, and Pennsylvania and
Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee into Indiana, Illinois, and even--as a
desperate venture, Missouri. The Old National Turnpike was then a
lively thoroughfare. Sometimes a dozen white-covered wagons stretched
along in company. All classes of society were represented among the
movers. There were squalid lots to--be avoided as thieves: and there
were carriages full of families who would raise Senators, Presidents,
and large financiers in their new home. The forefathers of many a man
and woman, now abroad studying older civilization in Europe, came
West as movers by the wagon route.
Aunt Corinne and her nephew were glad when Zene drove upon the
'pike, and the carriage followed. The 'pike had a solid rumbling base
to offer wheels. You were comparatively in town while driving there,
for every little while you met somebody, and that body always
appeared to feel more important for driving on the 'pike. It was a
glittering white highway the ruts worn by wheels were literally worn
in stone. Yet never were roadsides as green as the sloping 'pike
sides. No trees encroached very close upon it, and it stretched in
endless glare. But how smoothly you bowled along! People living aside
in fields, could hear your progress; the bass roar of the 'pike was
as distinct, though of course not as loud, as the rumble of a train.
Going through Reynoldsburg however, was the great triumphal act of
leave-taking. The Padgetts went to church in Reynoldsburg. To-day it
is a decayed village, with many of its houses leaning wearily to one
side, or forward as if sinking to a nap. But then it was a lively
coach town, the first station out from the capital of the State.
[Illustration: THE STAGE SWEPT BY LIKE A FLASH.]
The Reynoldsburgers looked forth indifferently. They saw movers
every hour of the day. But with recognition growing in their faces,
many of them hastened to this particular carriage for parting words
with grandma Padgett and the children. Robert Day set up against the
high back, accepting his tribute of envious glances from the boys he
knew. He was going off to meet adventures. They--had to stay at home
and saw wood, and some of them would even be obliged to split it when
they had a tin box full of bait and their fish-poles all ready for
the afternoon's useful employment. There had been a time when Robert
thought he would not like to be called “movers.” Some movers fell
entirely below his ideas. But now he saw how much finer it was to be
travelling in a carriage than on the swift-shooting cars. He felt
sorry for the Reynoldsburg boys. One of them hinted that he might be
expected out West himself some day, and told Robert to watch down the
road for him. He appeared to think the West was a large prairie full
of benches, where folks sat down and told their adventures in coming.
Bobaday considered his position in the carriage the only drawback to
the Reynoldsburg parade. He ought to be driving. In the course of the
journey he hoped grandma Padgett would give up the lines--which she
had never yet done.
They drove out of Reynoldsburg. The tin-covered steeple on the
church dazzled their eyes for perhaps the last time.
Then coming around a curve in the 'pike appeared that soul-stirring
sight, the morning stage from Columbus. Zene and grandma Padgett drew
off to the side of the road and gave it a wide passage, for the stage
had the same right of way that any regular train now has on its own
track. It was drawn by six of the proudest horses in the world, and
the grand-looking driver who guided them, gripped the complication of
lines in his left hand while he held a horn to his mouth with the
right, and through this he blew a mellow peal to let the
Reynoldsburgers know the stage was coming. The stage, billowing on
springs, was paneled with glittering pictures, gilded on every part,
and evidently lined with velvet. Travellers inside looked through the
open windows with what aunt Corinne considered an air of opulent
pride. She had always longed to explore the interior of a stage, and
envied any child who had been shut in by the mysterious click and
turn of the door-handle. The top was crowded with gentlemen looking
only less important than the luxurious passengers inside: and behind
on a vast rack was such a mountain of-baggage swaying with the stage,
but corded firmly to place, and topped with bandboxes, that aunt
Corinne believed their moving wagon would not have contained it all.
Yet the stage swept past like a flash. All its details had to be
gathered by a quick eye. The leaders flew over the smooth
thoroughfare, holding up their heads like horse princes; and Bobaday
knew what a bustle Reynoldsburg would be in during the few minutes
that the stage halted.
After viewing this sumptuous pageant the little caravan moved
briskly on toward Columbus. Zene kept some distance ahead, yet always
in sight. And in due time the city began to grow around them. The
'pike never lost its individuality among the streets of the capital.
They saw the great penitentiary surrounded by stone walls as thick as
the length of a short boy. They saw trains of cars trailing in and
out; manufactories, and vistas of fine streets full of stores. They
even saw the capitol building standing high up on its shaded grounds,
many steps and massive pillars giving entrance to the structure which
grandma Padgett said was one of the finest in the United States. It
was not very long before they reached the western side of the city
and were crossing the Scioto River in a long bridge and entering what
was then a shabby suburb called Frankfort. At this point aunt Corinne
and her nephew entered unbroken ground.