Aunt Corinne occupied with her mother a huge apartment over the
sitting-room, in which was duplicated the fireplace below. At this
season the fireplace was closed with a black board on which paraded
balloon-skirted women cut out of fashion plates.
The chimneys were built in two huge stacks at the gable-ends of the
house, outside the weather boarding: a plan the architects of this
day utterly condemn. The outside chimney was, however, as far beyond
the stick-and-clay stacks of the cabin, as our fire-stone flues are
now beyond it. This house with log steps no longer stands as an old
landmark by the 'pike side in Greenfield. But on that June morning it
looked very pleasant, and the locust-trees in front of it made the
air heavy with perfume. There is no flower like the locust for
feeding honey to the sense of smell. Half the bees from William
Sebastian's hives were buzzing overhead, when Bobaday and aunt
Corinne sat down by Zene on the log steps to unload their troubles.
All three were in their Sunday clothes. Zene had even greased his
boots, and looked with satisfaction on the moist surfaces which he
stretched forth to dry in the sun.
He had not seen Carrie borne away, but he had been to the show
afterwards, and heard her sing one of her songs. He told the children
she acted like she never see a thing before her, and would go dead
asleep if they didn't stick pins in her like they did in a woman he
seen walkin' for money once. Robert was fain to wander aside on the
subject of this walking woman, but aunt Corinne kept to Fairy Carrie,
and made Zene tell every scrap of information he had about her.
“After I rubbed the horses this mornin',” he proceeded, “I took a
stroll around the burg, and their tent and wagon's gone!”
“Gone!” exclaimed aunt Corinne. “Clear out of town?”
Zene said he allowed so. He could show the children where the tent
and wagon stood, and it was bare ground now. He had also discovered
the time-honored circus-ring, where every summer the tinseled host
rode and tumbled. But under the circumstances, a circus-ring had no
charms.
“Then they've got her,” said Bobaday. “We'll never see the pretty
little thing again. If I'd been a man I wouldn't let that woman have
her, like Grandma Padgett did. Grown folks are so funny. I did wish
some grand people would come in the night and say she was their
child, and make the show give her up.”
Aunt Corinne arose to fly to her mother and Mrs. Sebastian with the
news. But the central door opening on the instant and Mrs. Sebastian,
her husband and guest coming out, aunt Corinne had not far to fly.
“The woman is a stealer,” she added to her breathless recital. “She
didn't even send my things back.”
“She's welcome to them,” said Grandma Padgett, shaking her head,
“but I feel for that child, whether the rightful owners has her or
not.”
“This is Lord's Day,” said William Sebastian to the children, “along
the whole length of the pike, and across the whole breadth of the
country. Thy little friend will get her First Day blessing.”
He wore a gray hat, half-high in the crown, and a gray coat which
flapped his calves when he walked. His trousers were of a cut which
reached nearly to his armpits, but this fact was kept from the public
by a vest crawling well toward his knees. Yet he looked beautifully
tidy and well-dressed. His wife, who was not a Quaker, had by no
means such an air of simple grandeur.
Grandma Padgett and aunt Corinne, somewhat reluctantly followed by
Zene, were going to the Methodist church. Already its bell was
filling the air. But Robert hung back and asked if he might not go to
Quaker meeting.
“Thee couldn't sit and meditate,” said William Sebastian.
Bobaday assured William Sebastian he could sit very still, and he
always meditated. When he ran after his grandmother to get her
consent, it occurred to him to find out from Zene how the pig-headed
man was, and if he looked as ugly as ever. But aunt Corinne scorned
the question, and quite flew af him for asking it.
The Methodist services Robert knew by heart: the open windows, the
high pulpit where the preacher silently knelt first thing, hymn books
rustling cheerfully, the hymn given out two lines at a time to be
sung by the congregation, then the kneeling of everybody and the
prayer, more singing, and the sermon, perhaps followed by an
exhortation, when the preacher talked loud enough for the boys
sitting out on the fence to hear every word. Perhaps a few children
whispered, or a baby cried and its mother took it out. Everybody
seemed happy and astir. After church there was so much handshaking
that the house emptied very slowly.
But on his return he described the Quaker meeting to aunt Corinne.
“They all sat and sat,” said Bobaday. “It was a little bit of a
house and not half so many folks could get in it as sit in the
corners by the pulpit in Methodist meeting. And they sat and sat, and
nobody said a word or gave out a hymn. The women looked at the cracks
in the floor. You could hear everything outdoors. After a long time
they all got up and shook hands. Mrs. Sebastian said to Mr. Sebastian
when we came away, 'The spirit didn't appear to move anybody this
morning.' And he said, 'No: but it was a blessed meeting.'”
“Didn't your legs cramp?” inquired aunt Corinne.
“Yes; and my nose tickled and I wanted to sneeze.”
“But you dursn't move your thumb even. That lawyer that ate supper
here last night would like such a meeting, wouldn't he?”
The lawyer was coming up the log steps while Robert spoke of him.
And with him was a lady who looked agitated, and whom he had to assist.
Robert and Corinne, at the open sitting-room window, looked at each
other with quick apprehension.
“Aunt Krin, _that's_ her mother,” said aunt Krin's nephew. His
young relative grasped his arm and exclaimed in an awe-struck whisper:
“Bobaday Padgett!”