“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.
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