Richmond must soon have seemed far behind Grandma Padgett's little
caravan, had not Fairy Carrie still drowsed in the carriage, keeping
the Richmond adventures always present.
They had parted from J. D. Matthews and the Virginian and his troop.
Jonathan and Thrusty Ellen were somewhere on the road ahead, but at a
point unknown to Robert and Corinne. They might turn off towards the
southwest if all the emigrants agreed to forsake the St. Louis route.
No one could tell where J. D. might be rattling his cart.
The afternoon which finally placed Richmond in diminishing
perspective, Robert rode with Zene and lived his campaign over again.
This was partly necessary because little Carrie lay on the back
carriage-seat. But it was entirely agreeable, for Zene wanted to know
all the particulars, and showed a flattering, not to say a
stimulating anxiety to get a good straight look at Bobaday's prowess
in rescuing the distressed. Said Zene:
“But what if her folks never turn up?”
“Then my pa will take her to live with us,” said Robert Day, “and
Grandma Padgett will do by her just as she does by aunt Krin and me.
She isn't a very lively little girl. I'd hate to play Blind Man with
her to be blinded; for seems as if she'd just stand against the wall
and go to sleep. But it'll be a good thing to have one still child
about the house: aunt Corinne fidgets so. I believe, though, her
folks are hunting her. Look what a fuss there was about us I When
people's children get lost or stolen, they hunt and hunt, and don't
give it up.”
In the carriage, aunt Corinne sitting by her mother, turned her head
at every fifth revolution of the wheels, to see how the strange
little girl fared.
“Do you s'pose she will ever be clear awake, Ma Padgett?” inquired,
aunt Corinne.
“She'll drowse it off by and by,” replied Ma Padgett. “The rubbing I
give her this morning, and the stuff the Richmond doctor made her
swallow, will bring her out right.”
“She's so pretty,” mused aunt Corinne. “I'd like to have her hair if
she never wanted it any more.”
“That's a covetous spirit. But it puts me in mind,” said Grandma
Padgett, smiling, “of my sister Adeline and the way she took to get
doll's hair.”
Aunt Corinne had often heard of sister Adeline and the doll's hair,
but she was glad to hear the brief tale told again in the pleasant
drowsing afternoon.
The Indiana landscape was beautiful in tones of green and stretches
of foliage. Whoever calls it monotonous has never watched its varying
complexions or the visible breath of Indian summer which never
departs from it at any season.
“Mother came in from meeting one day,” said Grandma Padgett, “and
went into her bedroom and threw her shawl on the bed. She had company
to dinner and was in a hurry. It was a fine silk shawl with fringe
longer than my hand. Uncle Henry brought it over the mountains as a
present. But Adeline come in and saw the fringe and thought what nice
doll hair it would make. So by and by mother has an errand in the
bedroom, and she sees her shawl travelling down behind the bed, and
doesn't know what to think. Then she hears something snip, snip, and
lifts up the valance and looks under the bed, and there sets Adeline
cutting the fringe off her shawl! She had it half cut off.”
“And what did Grandma do then?” aunt Corinne omitted not to ask.
“Oh, she punished Adeline. But that never had any effect on her.
Adeline was a funny child,” said Grandma Padgett, retrospective
tenderness showing through her blue glasses. “I remember once she got
to eatin' brown paper, and mother told her it would kill her if she
didn't quit it. Adeline--made up her mind she was going to eat brown
paper if it did kill her. She never doubted that it would come true
as mother said. But she prepared to die, and made her will and
divided her things. Mother found it out and put a stop to the
business. I remember,” said Grandma Padgett, laughing, “that I was
disappointed, because I had to give back what she willed to me! yet I
didn't want Adeline to die. She was a lively child. She jumped out of
windows and tom-boyed around, but everybody liked her. Once I had
some candy and divided fair enough, I thought, but Adeline after she
ate up what she had, said I'd be sorry if I didn't give her more,
because she was going, to die. It worked so well on my feelings that
next time I tried that plan on Adeline's feelings, and told her if
she didn't do something I wanted her to do _she'd_ be sorry; for
I was going to die. She said she knew it; everybody was going to die
some day, and she couldn't help it and wasn't going to be sorry for
any such thing! Poor Adeline: many a year she's been gone, and I'm
movin' further away from the old home.”
Grandma Padgett lifted the lines and slapped them on the backs of
old Hickory and Henry. Rousing themselves from coltish recollections
of their own, perhaps, the horses began to trot.
[Illustration: THE LAWYER.]
In Indiana, some reaches of the 'pike were built on planks instead
of broken stone, and gave out a hollow rumble instead of a flinty
roar. The shape and firmness of the road-bed were the same, but the
ends of boards sometimes cropped out along the sides. In this day,
branches of the old national thoroughfare penetrate to every part of
the Hoosier State. The people build 'pikes instead of what are called
dirt roads. There are, of course, many muddy lanes and by-ways. But
they have some of the best drives which have been lifted out of the
Mississippi Valley.
Though the small caravan had lost time, and Son Tip might be waiting
at the Illinois line before they reached that point, Grandma Padgett
said they would all go to morning meeting in the town where they
stopped Saturday night, and only drive a short piece on Sunday
afternoon. She hated to be on expense, but they had much to return
thanks for; and the Israelites made Sabbath day's journeys when they
were moving.
The first Sunday--which seemed so remote now--had been partially
spent in a grove where they camped for dinner, and Grandma Padgett
read the Bible, and made Bobaday and Corinne answer their catechism.
But this June Sunday was to be of a thanksgiving character. And they
spent it in Greenfield.
At Cambridge City little Carrie roused sufficiently to eat with
evident relish. But no such recollection of Dublin, Jamestown called
Jimtown for short, by some inhabitants, and only distinguished by its
location from another Jamestown in the State---Knightstown and
Charlottesville, remained to her as remained to Bobaday and Corinne.
The Indiana village did not differ greatly from the Ohio village
situated on the 'pike. There were always the church with a bonny
little belfry, and the schoolhouse more or less mutilated as to its
weather boarding. The 'pike was the principal street, and such houses
as sat at right angles to it, looked lonesome, and the dirt roads
weedy or dusty.
Greenfield was a country seat and had a court house surrounded by
trees. It looked long and straggling in the summer dusk. Zene, riding
ahead to secure lodgings, came back as far as the culvert to tell
Grandma Padgett there was no room at the tavern Court, was session,
and the lawyers on the circuit filled the house. But there was
another place, near where they now halted, that sometimes took in
travellers for accommodation's sake. He pointed it out, a roomy
building with a broad flight of leg steps leading up to the front
doors. Zene said it was not a tavern, but rather nicer than a tavern.
He had already prevailed on the man and woman keeping it to take in
his party.
Robert and aunt Corinne scampered up the log steps and Grandma
Padgett led Fairy Carrie; after them. A plain tidy woman met them at
the door and took them into a square room. There were the homemade
carpet, the centre-table with daguerreotypes standing open and
glaring such light as they had yet to reflect, samplers and colored
prints upon the walls, but there was also a strange man busy with
some papers at the table.
His hat stood beside him on the floor, and he dropped the sorted
papers into it. He was, as Grandma Padgett supposed, one of the
lawyers on the circuit. After looking up, he kept on sorting and
folding his papers.
The woman went out to continue her supper-getting. In a remote part
of the house bacon could be heard hissing over the fire. Robert and
Corinne sat upright on black chairs, but their guardian put Carrie on
a padded lounge.
The little creature was dressed in aunt Corinne's clothing, giving it
a graceful shape in spite of the broad tucks in sleeve, skirt and
pantalet, which kept it from draggling over her hands or on the floor,
She leaned against the wall, gazing around her with half-awakened
interest. The dark circles were still about her eyes, but her pallor
was flushed with a warmer color, Grandma Padgett pushed the damp
curls off her forehead.
“Are you hungry, Sissy?” she inquired.
“No, ma'am,” replied Carrie. “Yes, ma'am,” she added, after a
moment's reflection.
“She actually doesn't know,” said Bobaday, sitting down on the
lounge near Carrie. Upon this, aunt Corinne forsook her own black
chair and sat on the other side of their charge.
“Do you begin to remember, now?” inquired Robert Day, smoothing the
listless hands on Carrie's lap.
“How we run off with you--you know,” prompted aunt Corinne, dressing
a curl over her finger.
The child looked at each of them, smiling.
“Don't pester her,” said Grandma Padgett, taking some work out of
her dress pocket and settling herself by a window to make use of the
last primrose light in the sky.
“If we don't begin to make her talk, she'll forget how,” exclaimed
aunt Corinne. “Can't you 'member anything about your father and mother
now, Carrie?”
[Illustration: THE “YOUNG MAN WHO SOLD TICKETS” APPEARS AT THE DOOR.]
The man who was sorting his papers at the table, turned an attentive
eye and ear toward the children. But neither Bobaday nor Corinne
considered that he broke up the family privacy. They scarcely noticed
him.
“Grandma,” murmured Carrie vaguely, turning her eyes toward their
guardian by the window.
“Yes, that's Grandma,” said Bobaday. “But don't you know where your
own pa and ma are?”
“Papa,” whispered Carrie, like a baby trying the words. “Mamma.
Papa--mamma.”
“Yes, dear,” exclaimed aunt Corinne. “Where do they live? She's big
enough to know that if she knows anything.”
“Let's get her to sing a song,” suggested Bobaday. “If she can
remember a song, she can remember what happened before they made her
sing.”
“That papa?” said Carrie, looking at the stranger by the table.
“No,” returned aunt Corinne, deigning a glance his way. “That's only
a gentleman goin' to eat supper here. Sing, Carrie. Now, Bobaday
Padgett,” warned aunt Corinne, shooting her whisper behind the curled
head, “don't you go and scare her by sayin' anything about that pig-man.”
“Don't you scare her yourself,” returned Robert with a touch of
indignation. “You've got her eyes to stickin' out now. Sing a pretty
tune, Carrie. Come on, now.”
The docile child slid off the lounge and stood against it, piping
directly one of her songs. Yet while her trembling treble arose, she
had a troubled expression, and twisted her fingers about each other.
In an instant this expression became one of helpless terror. She
crowded back against the lounge and tried to hide herself behind
Bobaday and Corinne.
They looked toward the door, and saw standing there the young man
who sold tickets at the entrance of the pig-headed individual's show.
His hands were in his pockets, but he appeared ready to intone forth:
“Walk right in, ladies and gentlemen, and hear Fairy Carrie, the
child vocalist!” And the smoky torch was not needed to reveal his
satisfaction in standing just where he did.