A breath's delay must have been fatal. Robert had no whip, but doubling the lines and shouting at the top of his voice, he braced himself and lashed the gray. The respectable beast leaped with astonishment, dragging its fellow along. The fore wheels cleared the track, and Bobaday's head was filled with the prolonged cry of the locomotive. Zene sprang up, and the hind part of the wagon received a crash which threw the boy out at the side, and Zene quite across the gray's back.
The train came to a stop after running a few yards further. But finding that no lives were lost, it put on steam and disappeared on its course, and Zene and his trembling assistant were trying to prop up one corner of the wagon when Grandma Padgett brought her spectacles to bear upon the scene.
One hind wheel had been splintered by the train, the leap of the gray turning the wagon from the road. Grandma Padgett preserved her composure and asked few questions. Her lips moved at frequent intervals for a long time after this accident. But aunt Corinne flew out of the carriage, and felt her nephew's arms and wailed over the bump his cheek received, and was sure his legs were broken, and that Zene limped more than ever, and that the train had run straight across their prostrate forms.
Zene busied himself with shamefaced eagerness in getting the wagon off the road and preparing to hunt a shop. He made piteous grimaces over every strap he unfastened.
“We cannot leave the goods standing here in the wagon with nobody to watch 'em,” said the head of the caravan. “It's nigh dinner-time, and we'll camp in sight, and wait till we can all go on together. A merciful Providence has brought us along safe so far. We mustn't git separated and run ourselves into any more dangers than we can help.”
Zene lingered only to pitch the camp and find water at a spring running down into a small creek. Then he bestrode one of the wagon horses, and, carrying the broken wheel-hubs, trotted away.
Grandma Padgett tucked up her dress, took provisions from the wagon, and got dinner. Aunt Corinne and her nephew made use of this occasion to lay in a supply of nuts for winter. The nuts were old ones, lying under last autumn's leaves, and before a large heap had been gathered, aunt Corinne bethought her to examine if they were fit to eat. They were not; for besides an ancient flavor, the first kernel betrayed the fact that these were pig-nuts instead of hickory.
{Illustration: BOBADAY'S NARROW ESCAPE.}
“You would have 'em,” said Bobaday, kicking the pile. “I didn't think they's good, anyhow.”
“They looked just like our little hickories,” said aunt Corinne, twisting her mouth at the acrid kernel, “that used to lay under that tree in the pasture. And their shells are as sound.”
But there was compensation in two saplings which submitted to be rode as teeters part of the idle afternoon.
Grandma Padgett had put away the tea things before Zene returned. He brought with him a wagon-maker from one of the villages on the 'pike. The wagon-maker, after examining the disabled vehicle, and getting the dimensions of the other hind wheel which Zene had forgotten to take to him, assured the party he would set them up all right in a day or two.
Grandma Padgett was sitting on a log knitting.
“We'd better have kept to the 'pike,” she remarked.
“Yes, marm,” responded Zene.
“The toll-gates would be a small expense compared to this.”
“Yes, indeed, marm,” responded Zene, grimacing piteously.
“Still,” said Grandma Padgett, “we have much to be thankful for, in that our lives and health have been spared.”
“Oh, yes, marm! yes, marm!” responded Zene.
The wagon-maker hung by one careless leg to his horse before cantering off, and inquired with neighborly interest:
“How far West you folks goin'?”
“We're goin' to Illinois,” replied Grandma Padgett.
“Oh, pshaw, now!” said the wagon-maker. “Goin' to the Eeleenoy! that's a good ways. Ain't you 'fraid you'll never git back?”
“We ain't expectin' to come back,” said Grandma Padgett. “My son's settled there.”
“He has!” said the wagon-maker with an accent of surprise. “Well, well! they say that's an awful country.”
“My son writes back it's as fine land as he ever saw,” said Grandma Padgett with dignity and proper local pride.
“But the chills is so bad,” urged the wagon-maker, who looked as if he had experienced them at their worst. “And the milk-sick, they say the milk-sick is all over the Eeleenoy.”
“We're not borrowing any trouble about such things,” said Grandma Padgett.
“Some of our townsfolks went out there,” continued the wagon-maker, “but what was left of 'em come back. They had to buy their drinkin' water, and the winters on them perrares froze the children in their beds! Oh, I wouldn't go to the Eeleenoy,” said the wagon-maker coaxingly. “You're better off here, if you only knew it.”
As Grandma Padgett heard this remonstrance with silent dignity, the wagon-maker took himself off with a few additional remarks.
Then they began to make themselves snug for the night. The wagon-cover was taken off and made into a tent for Grandma Padgett and aunt Corinne. Robert Day was to sleep in the carriage, and Zene insisted on sleeping with blankets on the wagon where he could watch the goods. He would be within calling distance of the camp.
“We're full as comfortable as we were last night, anyhow,” observed the head of the caravan.
Zene said it made no difference about his supper. He took thankfully what was kept for him, and Robert Day felt certain Zene was trying to bestow on him some conscience-stricken glances.
It was an occasion on which Zene could be made to tell a story. He was not lavish with such curious ones as he knew. Robert sometimes suspected him to be a mine of richness, but it took such hard mining to get a nugget out that the results hardly compensated for the effort.
But when the boy climbed upon the wagon in starlight, and made a few leading remarks, Zene really plunged into a story. He thereby relieved his own feelings and turned the talk from late occurrences.
“I told you about Little Ant Red and Big Ant Black?”
“No, you never!” exclaimed Bobaday.
“Well, once there was Little Ant Red and Big Ant Black lived neighbors.”
“Whose aunts were they—each other's?” inquired the boy.
“They wasn't your father's or mother's sisters; they was antymires,” explained Zene.
“Oh,” said Robert Day.
“Ant Red, she was a little bit of a thing; you could just see her. But Ant Black, she was a great big critter that went like a train of cars when she was a mind to.”
“I don't like either kind,” said Robert. “The little ones got into our sugar once, and Grandma had to fight 'em out with camphor, and a big black got into my mouth and I bit him in two. He pinched my tongue awful, and he tasted sour.”
“Big Ant Black,” continued Zene, “she lived in a hill by a stump, but Little Ant Red she lived on a leaf up a tree.”
“I thought they always crept into houses,” urged Bobaday.
“This one didn't. She lived on a leaf up a tree. And these two ants run against each other in everything. When they met in the grass they'd stand up on their hind feet and shake hands as friendly as you please, but as soon as their backs was turned they'd talk! Big Ant Black said Little Ant Red was always a meddling, and everybody knowed her son was drowned in under the orchard cider-press where his mother sent him to snuff round. And Little Ant Red she used to tell how Ant Black was so graspin' she tried to carry that cider-press off and hide it in her hole.
“They had all the neighbors takin' sides. There was a yellow-back spider. He took up for Ant Red; he hoped to get a taste of her, and Ant Black he knowed was big enough to bite him unless he was mighty soople in wrappin' the web around her. Every mornin' when the dew stood in beads on his net he told Ant Red they was tears he shed about her troubles, and she run up and down and all around, talkin' like a sawmill, but keepin' just off the web. And there was Old Grasshopper, he sided with Ant Red, and so did Miss Green Katydid. But all the beetles, and them bugs that lived under the bark of the old stump, they took up for Ant Black, 'cause she was handy. And the snake-feeder was on her side.
“Well, it run along, feelin's gittin' harder and harder, till Ant Black she jumped up and kitched Ant Red fussin' round her cow pasture one night, and then the cows began to give bloody milk, and then Ant Black she give out that Ant Red was a witch.
“Now, these kind of critters, they're as smart as human bein's if you only knowed it. And that was enough. The katydid, she said she felt pins and needles in her back whenever Ant Red looked at her; and the snake-feeders said she shot arries at 'em when they was flyin' over a craw-fish hole. All the beetles and wood-bugs complained of bein' hit with witch-bells, and the more Ant Red acted careful the more they had ag'in her.
“Well, the spider he told her to come into his den and live, and she'd be safe from hangin', but she wasn't sure in her mind about that. Even the grasshopper jumped out of her way, and bunged his eyes out at her; as if she could harm such a great big gray lubber as him! She was gittin' pretty lonesome when she concluded to try a projic.”
“What's a projic?” inquired Robert Day.
“Why, it's a—p'epperation, or—a plan of some kind,” explained Zene.
“So she invites Big Ant Black and all her family, and the spider and all his family, and the beetles and bugs and all their families, and the snake-feeders and Miss Katydid for young folks, and don't leave out a neighbor, to an apple-bee right inside the orchard fence.
“So it was pleasant weather, and they all come and brung the babies, the old grasshopper skippin' along as nimble and steppin' on the shawl that was wrapped round his young one. And the snake-feeders they helped Miss Katydid over the lowest fence-rail, and here come Big Ant Black with such a string behind her it looked like a funeral instead of a family percession and she twisted her neck from side to side as soon as she see the great big apple, kind of wonderin' if they couldn't carry it off.
“Little Ant Red had all her children's heads combed and the best cheers set out, and she had on her good dress and white apron, and she says right and left, 'Hoddy-do, sir? hoddy-do, marm? Come right in and take cheers. And they all shook hands with her as if they'd never dreamt of callin' her a witch, and fell right on to the apple and begun to eat. And they all e't and e't, till they'd made holes in the rind and hollered it out. And Big Ant Black she gits her family started, and they carries off chunk after chunk of that apple till the road was black and white speckled between her house and the apple-tree.
“Little Ant Red she walks around urgin' them all to help theirselves, and that made them all feel pleasant to her. But Big Ant Black she got so graspin' and eager, that what does she do but try to help her young ones carry off the whole apple-shell. It did look jub'ous to see such a big thing movin' off with such little critters tuggin' it. And then Ant Red got on to a clover-head and showed the rest of the company what Ant Black was a-doin'. Says Ant Red: 'You ain't e't more'n a mouthful, Mr. Grasshopper.'
“'No, marm,' says he.
“'I s'ze to myself,' says Ant Red, 'here is this polite company, and the snake-feeders don't touch nothin,' and everybedy knows Miss Katydid lives on nothin' but rose-leaf butter, and the bugs and beetles will hardly take enough, to keep 'em alive.' 'And I s'ze to myself,' says Ant Red, 'here's this big apple walkin' off with nobody but Ant Black to move it. This great big sound apple. And it looks to me like witchcraft. That's what it looks like,' says Ant Red.
“They all declared it looked just like witchcraft. Ant Black tried to show them how holler the apple was, and they declared if she'd hollered it that way so quick, it was witchcraft certain.
“So what does they do but pen her and her young ones in the apple-shell and stop it up with mud. Even the mud-wasps and tumble-bugs that hadn't been bid come and took part when they see the dirt a-flyin'. Ant Red set on the clover-head and teetered.
“Now, down to this present minute,” concluded Zene, “you never pick up an apple and find a red ant walkin' out of it. If ants is there, it's one of them poor black fellers that was shut up at the apple-bee, and they walk out brisk; as if they's glad to find daylight once more.”
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