“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.”
“Will we stay here, marm?”
“I'll see,” said Grandma Padgett. “Anyhow, I can't stand it in the
carriage again right away.”
“Let's camp here,” urged Robert. “J. D.'s got chicken all dressed to
broil on the coals, and lots of good things to eat.”
“He wouldn't have any money the last time, and I can't have such
doings again. I'm hungry, for I haven't enjoyed a meal since
yesterday. Mister, see here,” said Grandma Padgett, approaching the
cart.
J. D. moved backwards as she came as if pushed by an invisible pole
carried in the brisk grandmother's hands.
“Stand still, do,” she urged, laying a bank bill on his cart. She,
snapped her steel purse shut again, put it in her dress pocket, and
indicated the bill with one finger. “I don't lay this here for your
kindness to the children, you understand. You've got feelings, and
know I'm more than obliged. But here are a lot of us, and you buy
your provisions, so if you'll let us pay you for some, we'll eat and
be thankful. Take the money and put it away.”
Thus commanded, J. D. returned cautiously to the other side of the
cart, took the money and thrust it into his vest pocket without
looking at it. He then smiled again at Grandma Padgett, as if the
thought of propitiating her was uppermost in his mind.
“Now go on with your chicken-broiling,” she concluded, and he went
on with it, keeping at a distance from her while she stood by the
cart or when she sat down on a log by the fire.
“Here's your stick, Grandma,” said Robert Day, offering her a limb
of paw paw, stripped of all its leaves.
Grandma Padgett took it in her hands, reduced its length and tried
its limberness.
“If I had given my family such trouble when I's your age,” she said
to Corinne and Robert, “I should have been sprouted as I deserved.”
They listened respectfully.
“Folks didn't allow their children to run wild then. They whipped
them and kept them in bounds. I remember once father whipped brother
Thomas for telling a falsehood, and made welts on his body.”
Corinne and Robert had heard this tale before, but their
countenances, put on a piteous expression.
“You ought to have a sprouting,” concluded their guardian as if she
did not know how to compromise with her conscience, “but since you
meant to do a good turn instead of a bad one”--
“Oh, we never intended to run away, Grandma, and worry you so,”
insisted Robert.
“We's just sorry for the little girl,” murmured aunt Corinne.--“Why,
I'll let it pass this time. Only never let me know you to do such a
thing again.” The paw paw sprout fell to the ground, unwarped by use.
Corinne and Robert were hearty in promising never to run away with
Fairy Carrie or any other party again.
This serious business completed, the grandmother turned her
attention to the child in the cart.
“How sound asleep the little thing is,” she observed, smoothing
Fairy Carrie's cheek from dark eye-circle to chin, “and her flesh so
cold!”
“She's just slept that way ever since J. D. put her in his cart!”
exclaimed aunt Corinne. “We made her open her eyes and take some
breakfast in her mouth, but she went to sleep again while she's
eatin'.”
“And we let her sleep ever since,” added Bobaday. “It didn't make a
bit of difference whether the cart went jolt-erty-jolt over stones or
run smooth in the dust. And we shaded her face with bushes.”
“She's not well,” said their experienced elder. “The poor little
thing may have some catching disease! It's a pretty face. I wonder
whose child she is? You oughtn't to set up your judgment and carry a
little child off with you from her friends. I hardly know what we'll
do about it.”
“Oh, but they wern't her friends, Ma Padgett,” asserted aunt Corinne
solemnly. “She isn't the pig-headed man's little girl. Nor any of
them ain't her folks. Bobaday thinks they stole her away.”
“If she'd only wake up and talk,” said Robert, “maybe she could tell
us where she lives. But she was afraid of the show people.”
“I should think that was likely,” said Grandma Padgett.
In the heat of his sympathy, he confided to his grandmother what he
had seen of the darkened wagon the night they met the Virginians at
the large camp.
The paw paw stick had been laid upon the fire. It blackened
frowningly. But Robert and Corinne had known many an apple sprout to
preach them such a discourse as it had done, without enforcing the
subject matter more heavily.
Grandma Padgett reported that she had searched for her missing
family in the show tent, though she could not see why any sensible
boy or girl would want to enter such a place. And it was clear to her
the child might be afraid of such creatures, and very probable that
she did not belong to them by ties of blood. But they might prove her
lawful guardians and cause a small moving party a great deal of
trouble. “But we won't let them find her again,” said aunt Corinne.
“Ma, mayn't I keep her for my little sister?--and Bobaday would like
to have another aunt.”
“Then we'd be stealing her,” said Grandma Padgett. “If she's a lost
child she ought to be restored to her people, and travelling along
the 'pike we can't keep the showmen from finding her.”
Bobaday and Corinne gazed pensively at the stump fire, wondering how
grown folks always saw the difficulties in doing what you want to do.