At Terra Haute, where they halted for the night, Robert Day was made
to feel the only sting which the caravan mode of removal ever caused
him.
The tavern shone resplendent with lights. When Grandma Padgett's
party went by the double doors of the dining-room, to ascend the
stairs, they glanced into what appeared a bower or a bazaar of
wonderful sights. They had supper in a temporary eating-room, and the
waiter said there was a fair in the house. Not an agricultural
display, but something got up by a ladies' sewing-society to raise
money for poor people.
Now Robert Day and Corinne knew all about an agricultural display.
They had been to the State Fair at Columbus, and seen cattle standing
in long lines of booths, quilts, and plows, and chickens, pies,
bread, and fancy knitting, horses, cake stands, and crowds of people.
They considered it the finest sight in the world, except, perhaps, a
fabulous crystal palace which was or had been somewhere a great ways
off, and which everybody talked about a great deal, and some folks
had pictured on their window blinds. But a fair got up by a ladies'
sewing-society to raise money for the poor, was so entirely new and
tantalizing to them that they begged their guardian to take them in.
Grandma Padgett said she had no money to spare for foolishness, and
her expenses during the trip footed up to a high figure. Neither
could she undertake to have the trunks in from the wagon and get out
their Sunday clothes. But in the end, as both children were neatly
dressed, and the fair was to help the poor, she gave them a five-cent
piece each, over and above admission money, which was a fip'ney-bit,
for children, the waiter said. Zene concluded he would black his
boots and look into the fair awhile also, and as he could keep a
protecting eye on her young family, and had authority to send them
up-stairs in one hour and a half by the bar-room time, Grandma Padgett
went to bed. She was glad the journey was so nearly over, for every
night found her quite tired out.
Zene, magnifying his own importance and authority, ushered aunt
Corinne and Robert into the fair, and limped after them whenever he
thought they needed admonition or advice. The landlord's pert young
son noticed this and made his intimates laugh at it. Besides, he was
gorgeously attired in blue velvet jacket and ruffles and white
trousers, and among the crowds of grown people coming and going,
other children shone in resplendent attire. Aunt Corinne felt the
commonness of her calico dress. She had a “white” herself, if Ma
Padgett had only let her put it on, but this could not be explained
to all the people at the fair. And there were so many things to look
at, she soon forgot the white. Dolls of pink and pearly wax, with
actual hair, candy or wooden dogs, cats, and all domestic animals,
tables of cakes, and lines of made-up clothing which represented the
sewing society's labors. There was too much crowding for comfort, and
too much pastry trodden into the floor; and aunt Corinne and her
nephew felt keen anxiety to spend their five-cent pieces to the best
advantage. She was near investing in candy kisses, when yellow and
scarlet-backed books containing the history of “Mother Hubbard,” or
the “Babes in the Woods,” or “Little Red Riding Hood,” attracted her
eye, and she realized what life-long regret she must have suffered
for spending five cents on candy kisses, when one such volume might
be hers for the same money.
Just as aunt Corinne laid her silver on the book counter, however,
and gave her trembling preference to the “History of Old Dame Trot
and her Cat,” Bobaday seized her wrist and excitedly told her there
was a magic-lantern show connected with the fair, which could be seen
at five cents per pair of eyes. Dame Trot remained unpurchased, and
the coin returned to aunt Corinne's warm palm. But she inquired with
caution,
“What's a magic-lantern show?”
“Why, the man, you know,” explained Robert, “has pitctures in a
lantern, and throws light through 'em, and they spread out on a wet
sheet on the wall. The room's all dark except the place on the wall.
A Chinese man eatin' mice in his sleep: he works his jaws! And about
Saul in the Bible, when he was goin' to kill the good people, and it
says, 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' And when they let him
down in a basket. And there's a big star like grandma's star quilt,
only it keeps turning all kinds of colors and working in and out on
itself. And a good many more. Zene went in. He said he wanted to see
if we ought to look at it. And he'll stand by the door and pay our
money to the man if we want to go. There's such a crowd to get in.”
Robert Day's aunt caught the fire of his enthusiasm and went
straight with him to the door wherein the magic lantern performed. A
crowd of children were pushing up, but Zene, more energetic than
courteous pushed his charges ahead so that they gained chairs before
the landlord's son could make his choice.
[Illustration: AT THE SEWING SOCIETY FAIR.]
He sat down directly behind Robert and aunt Corinne, and at once
began to annoy them with impertinent remarks.
“Movers' young ones are spry,” said the landlord's son, who had been
petted on account of his pretty face until he was the nuisance of the
house. “I wouldn't be a movers' young one.”
Robert felt a stinging throb in his blood, but sat still, looking at
the wall. Aunt Corinne, however, turned her head and looked
witheringly at the blue-jacketed boy.
“Movers' young ones have to wear calico,” he continued, “and their
lame pap goes lippity-clink around after them.”
“He thinks Zene's our father!” exclaimed aunt Corinne, blazing at
the affront she received.
“Don't mind him,” said Robert, slowly. “He's the hostler's boy, and
used to staying in the stable. He doesn't know how to behave when
they let him into the house.”
This bitter skirmishing might have become an open engagement at the
next exchange of fires, for the landlord's son stood up in rage while
his chums giggled, and Robert felt terribly equal to the occasion. He
told Zene next day he had his fist already doubled, and he didn't
care if the landlord put them all in jail. But just then the magic
light was turned upon the wall, the landlord's son was told by twenty
voices to sit down out of the way, the lantern man himself sternly
commanding it. So he sunk into his seat feeling much less important,
and the wonders proceeded though Aunt Corinne felt she should always
regret turning her back on the Dame Trot book and coming in there to
have Zene called her lame pap, while Robert wondered gloomily if any
stigma did attach to movers' children. He had supposed them a class
to be envied.
This grievance put the robbers out of his mind when they trotted
ahead next day. The Wabash River could scarcely soothe his ruffled
complacence. And never an inch of the Wabash River have I seen that
was not beautiful and restful to the eye. It flows limpidly between
varying banks, and has a trick of throwing up bars and islands,
wooded to the very edges--captivating places for any tiny Crusoe to
be wrecked upon. Skiffs lay along the shore, and small steamers felt
their way in the channel. It was a river full of all sorts of
promises; so shallow here that the pebbles shone in broad sheets like
a floor of opals wherever you might wade in delight, so deep and
shady with sycamore canopies there, that a good swimmer would want to
lie in ambush like a trout, at the bottom of the swimming hole, half
a June day.
Perhaps it was the sight of the Wabash River which suggested washing
clothes to Grandma Padgett. She said they were now near the Illinois
State line, and she would not like to reach the place with everything
dirty. There was always plenty to do when a body first got home,
without hurrying up wash-day.
So when they passed a small place called Macksville, and came to
Sugar Creek, she called a halt, and they spent the day in the woods.
Sugar Creek, though not sweet, was clear. Zene carried pails full of
it to fill the great copper kettle, and slung this over a fire. The
horses munched at their feed-box or cropped grass, wandering with
their heads tied to their forefeet to prevent their cantering off.
Grandma Padgett at the creek's brink, set up her tubs and buried
herself to the elbows in suds, and aunt Corinne with a matronly
countenance, assisted. All that day Robert went barelegged, and
splashed water, wading out far to dip up a gourdful; and he thought
it was fun to help stretch the clothes-line among saplings, and lift
the scalded linen on a paddle into the tub, losing himself in the
stream. Ordinary washdays as he remembered them, were rather disagreeable.
Everybody had to wake early, and a great deal of fine-split wood was
needed. The kitchen smelt of suds, and the school-lunch was scraps
left from Sunday instead of new cake, turnovers and gingerbread.
[Illustration: GRANDMA PADGETT'S WASHING-DAY IN THE WOODS.]
But this woods wash-day was an experience to delight in, like
sailing on a log in the water, and pretending you are a bold
navigator, or lashing the rocking-chair to a sled for a sleighride.
It was something out of the common. It was turning labor into
fantastic tricks.
They had an excellent supper, too, and after dusk the clothes stood
in glintly array on the line, the camp-fire shone ruddy in a place
where its smoke could not offend them, and they were really like
white stones encircling an unusual day.
But when Robert awoke in the night they gave him a pang of fright,
and he was sorry his grandma had decided to let them bleach in the
dew of the June woods. From his bed in the carriage he could see both
the road and the lines of clothes. A horseman came along the road and
halted. He was not attracted by the camp-fire, because that had died
to ashes. He probably would not have heard the horses stamp in their
sleep, for his own horse's feet made a noise. And the wagon cover was
hid by foliage. But woods and sight were not dark enough to keep the
glint of the washing out of his eyes. Robert saw this rider dismount
and heard him walking cautiously into their camp.