Towards evening of the next day the broken wagon wheel was replaced. By that time the children were not more anxious to move forward than was Grandma Padgett. So just before sunset they broke up camp and moved along the country road until the constellations were swinging overhead. Zene took the first good crossway that led to the 'pike, and after waiting to be sure that the noses of Old Hickory and Old Henry were following, he jogged between dewy fence rows, and they came to the broad white ribbon of high road, and in time to the village of Somerford, having progressed only ten miles that day.
Bobaday and Corinne were so sleepy, and their departure from Somerford next morning was taken at such an early hour, that they remembered it only as a smell of tallow candles in the night, accompanied by a landlady's head in a ruffled nightcap.
Very different was Springfield, the county seat of Clark County. That was a town with people moving briskly about it, and long streets could be seen, where pleasant houses were shaded with trees.
Zene inquired the names of all small places as soon as they entered the main street, and then, obligingly halting the wagon at one side, he waited until Grandma Padgett came up, and told her. He learned and announced the cities long before any of them came into view. It was a pleasure to Bobaday and aunt Corinne to ride into a town repeating its name to themselves and trying to fasten its identity on their minds. First they would pass a gang of laborers working on the road, or perhaps a man walking up and down telegraph poles with sharp-shod heels; then appeared humble houses with children playing thickly around them. Finer buildings crowded on the sight, and where the signs of business flaunted, were women and little children in pretty clothes, always going somewhere to buy something nice. Once they met a long procession of carriages, and in the first carriage aunt Corinne beheld and showed to her nephew a child's coffin made of metal. It glittered in the sun. Grandma Padgett said it was zinc. But aunt Corinne secretly suspected it was made of gold, to enclose some dear little baby whose mother would not put it into anything else.
At New Carlisle, a sleepy little village where the dogfennel was wonderfully advanced for June, Zene took the gray from the wagon and hitched him to the carriage, substituting Old Hickory. The gray's shoulder was rubbed by his collar, and Zene reasoned that the lighter weight of the carriage would give him a better chance of healing his bruise. Thus paired the horses looked comical. Hickory and Henry evidently considered the change a disgrace to them. But they made the best of it and uttered no protest, except keeping as wide a space as possible between themselves and their new mates. But the gray and white, old yoke fellows at the plough, who knew nothing of the dignity of carriage drawing, and cared less, who had rubbed noses and shared feed-boxes ever since they were colts, both lifted up their voices in mournful whinneys and refused comfort and correction. The white turned his head back over his shoulder and would have halted anywhere until his mate came up; while the gray strained forward, shaking his head, and neighing as if his throat were full of tears every time a tree or a turn in the road hid the wagon.
The caravan moving to this irregular and doleful music, passed through another little town which Zene said was named Boston, late on a rainy afternoon. Here they crossed the Miami River in a bridge through the cracks of which Robert Day and Corinne looked at the full but not very wide stream. It flowed beneath them in comparative silence. The rain pricked the water's surface into innumerable puckers.
“Little boys dancing up,” said aunt Corinne, in time-honored phrase.
“No; it's bees stingin' the water,” said her nephew, “with long stingers that reach clear out of the clouds.”
These sky-bees stung the dusty road until it lay first in dark dimples and last in swollen mud rows and shallow pools. The 'pike kept its dignity under the heaviest rains. Its very mud was light and plaster-like, scarcely clinging to the wheels or soiling the horses' legs. Its flint ribs rung more sharply under the horses' shoes. Through the damp dusk aunt Corinne took pleasure in watching the fire struck by old Henry and the gray, against the trickling stones. They pulled the carriage curtains down, and Grandma Padgett had the oilcloth apron drawn up to her chin, while she continued to drive the horses through a slit. The rear of the wagon made a blur ahead of them. Now the 'pike sides faded from fresh green to a general dulness, and trees whispering to the rain lost their vistas and indentations of shade, and became a solid wall down which a steady pour hissed with settled monotony. Boswell and Johnson no longer foraged at the 'pike sides, or lagged behind or scampered ahead. They knew it was a rainy October night without lightning and thunder, slipped by mistake into the packet of June weather; and they trotted invisibly under the carriage, carrying their tails down, and their lolling tongues close to the puddles they were obliged to scamper through or skip. Boswell and Johnson remembered their experiences at the lonesome Susan house, where they lay in the deep weeds and were forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with apprehension lest the grinding of the wheels should cease, and some ghostly wall loom up at one side of their way, unlighted by a single glimmer and unperfumed by any whiff of supper. It was a fine thing to be movers' dogs when the movers went into camp or put up in state at a tavern. Around a camp were all sorts of woodsy creatures to be scratched out of holes or chased up trees, or to be nosed and chewed at. There were stray and half-wild pigs that had tails to be bitten, and what could be more exhilarating than making a drove of grunting pigs canter like a hailstorm away into deep woods! And in the towns and villages all resident dogs came to call on Boswell and Johnson. At every tavern Boswell picked a fight and Johnson fought it out; sometimes retiring with his tail to the earth and a sad expression of being outnumbered, but oftener a victor to have his wounds dressed and bandaged by Boswell's tongue. There was plenty to eat at taverns and camps, and good hunting in the woods; but who could tell what hungry milestone might stand at the end of this day's journey?
Grandma Padgett herself was beginning to feel anxious on this subject. She drove faster in order to overtake Zene and consult with him, but before his attention could be attracted, both carriage and wagon reached a broad belt of shine stretching across the 'pike, and making trees in the meadow opposite stand out as distinct individuals.
This illumination came from many camp-fires extending so far into the woods that the last one showed like a spark. A great collection of moving wagons were ranged in line along the extent of these fires, and tents pitched under the dripping foliage revealed children playing within their snug cover, or women spreading the evening meal. Kettles were hung above the fires, and skillets hissed on the coals. The horses, tied to their feed-boxes, were stamping and grinding their feed in content, and the gray lifted up his voice to neigh at the whole collection as Grandma Padgett stopped just behind Zene. All the camp dogs leaped up the 'pike together, and Boswell and Johnson met them in a neutral way while showing the teeth of defence. To Boswell and Johnson as well as to their betters, this big and well-protected encampment had an inviting look, provided the campers were not to be shunned.
A man came up the 'pike side through the rain and kicked some of the dogs aside.
“Hullo,” said he most cheerfully. “Want to put up?”
“What is it?” inquired Zene cautiously. He then craned his neck around to look at Grandma Padgett, whose spectacles glared seriously at the man.
This hospitable traveller wore a red shirt and a slouched hat, and had his trousers tucked in his boots. He pulled off his hat to shake the rain away, and showed bushy hair and a smiling bearded face. No weather could hurt him. He was ready for anything.
“Light down,” he exclaimed. “Plenty of room over there if you want it.”
“Who's over there?” inquired Zene.
“Oh, it's a big camp-meeting,” replied the man. “There's twenty or thirty families, and lots of fun.”
“Do you mean,” inquired Grandma Padgett, “a camp-meeting for religious purposes?”
“You can have that if you want it,” responded the man, “and have your exhorters along. It's a family camp. Most of us going out to Californy. Goin' to cross the plains. Some up in the woods there goin' to Missoury. Don't care where they're goin' if they want to stop and camp with us. We're from the Pan Handle of Virginia. There's a dozen families or more of us goin' out to Californy together. The rest just happened along.”
“I'm a Virginian myself,” said Grandma Padgett, warming, “though Ohio's been my State for many years.”
“Well, now,” exclaimed the mover, “if you want to light right down, we'll be all the gladder for that. I saw you stoppin' here uncertain; and there's the ford over Little Miami ahead of you. I thought you'd not like to try it in the dark.”
“You're not like a landlord back on the road that let us risk our necks!” said Grandma Padgett with appreciation. “But if you take everybody into camp ain't you afraid of getting the wrong sort?”
“Oh, no,” replied the Virginian. “There's enough of us to overpower them.”
“Well, Zene,” said Grandma Padgett, “I guess we'd better stop here. We've provisions in our wagon.”
“How far you goin'?” inquired the hospitable mover.
“Into Illinois,” replied the head of the small caravan.
“Your trip'll soon be done, then. Come on, now, and go to Californy, why don't you! That's the country to get rich in! You'll see sights the other side of the Mississippi!”
“I'm too old for such undertakings,” said Grandma Padgett, passing over the mover's exuberance with a smile.
“Why, we have a granny over ninety with us!” he declared. “Now's the time to start if you want to see the great western country.”
Zene drove off the 'pike on the temporary track made by so many vehicles, and Grandma Padgett followed, the Virginian showing them a good spot near the liveliest part of the camp, upon which they might pitch.
The family sat in the-carriage while Zene took out the horses, sheltered the wagon under thick foliage where rain scarcely penetrated, and stretched the canvas for a tent. Then Grandma Padgett put on her rubber overshoes, pinned a shawl about her and descended; and their fire was soon burning, their kettle was soon boiling, in defiance of water streams which frequently trickled from the leaves and fell on the coals with a hiss. The firelight shone through slices of clear pink ham put down to broil. Aunt Corinne laid the cloth on a box which Zene took out of the wagon for her, and set the cups and saucers, the sugar and preserves, and little seed cakes which grew tenderer the longer you kept them, all in tempting order. They had baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in wet wads of paper, and roasted them in the ashes. A potato so roasted may be served up with a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while the butter melts through it you wonder that people do not fire whole fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for winter.
{Illustration: BOBADAY'S CANOPIED THRONE.}
Zene had frequently assured Robert Day that an egg served this way was better still. He said he used to roast eggs in the ashes when burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with them, to make them fit for a king. But Robert Day scorned the egg and remained true to the potato.
While they were at supper the Virginian's wife came to see them, carrying in her hand an offering of bird-pie. Grandma Padgett responded with a dish of preserves. And they then talked about the old State, trying to discover mutual interests there.
The Virginian's wife was a strong, handsome, cordial woman. Her family came from the Pan Handle, but from the neighborhood of Wheeling, They were not mountaineers. She had six children. They were going to California because her husband had the mining fever. He wanted to go years before, but she held out against it until she saw he would do no good unless he went. So they sold their land, and started with a colony of neighbors.
The names of all her relatives were sifted, and Grandma Padgett made a like search among her own kindred, and they discovered that an uncle of one, and a grandfather of the other, had been acquainted, and served together in the War of '12. This established a bond. Grandma Padgett was gently excited, and told Bobaday and Corinne after the Virginia woman's departure to her own wagons, that she should feel safe on account of being an old neighbor in the camp.
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