Old Caravan Days

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  OLD CARAVAN DAYS

  By Mary Hartwell Catherwood

  CONTENTS.

  I. THE START

  II. THE LITTLE OLD MAN WITH A BAG ON HIS BACK

  III. THE TAVERN

  IV. THE SUSAN HOUSE

  V. THE SUSAN HOUSE CELLAR

  VI. MR. MATTHEWS

  VII. ZENE'S MAN AND WOMAN

  VIII. LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK

  IX. THE GREAT CAMP MEETING

  X. THE CRY OF A CHILD IN THE NIGHT

  XI. THE DARKENED WAGON

  XII. JONATHAN AND THRUSTY ELLEN

  XIII. FAIRY CARRIE AND THE PIG-HEADED MAN

  XIV. SEARCHING

  XV. THE SPROUTING

  XVI. THE MINSTREL

  XVII. THE HOUSE WITH LOG STEPS

  XVIII. "COME TO MAMMA!"

  XIX. FAIRY CARRIE DEPARTS

  XX. SUNDAY ON THE ROAD

  XXI. HER MOTHER ARRIVES

  XXII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY-SCHOOL

  XXIII. FORWARD

  XXIV. THE TOLL-WOMAN

  XXV. THE ROBBERS

  XXVI. THE FAIR AND THE FIERCE BANDIT

  XXVII. A NIGHT PICTURE OF HOME

  OLD CARAVAN DAYS.

  CHAPTER I. THE START.

  In the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, on the fifth day ofJune, the Padgett carriage-horses faced the west, and their mistressgathered the lines into her mitted hands.

  The moving-wagon was ready in front of the carriage. It was to bedriven by Zene, the lame hired man. Zene was taking a last drink fromthat well at the edge of the garden, which lay so deep that your facelooked like a star in it. Robert Day Padgett, Mrs. Padgett'sgrandson, who sat on the back seat of the carriage, decided that hemust have one more drink, and his aunt Corinne who sat beside him,was made thirsty by his decision. So the two children let down thecarriage steps and ran to the well.

  It was like Sunday all over the farm, only the cattle were notstraying over the fields. The house was shut up, its new inhabitantsnot having arrived. Some neighbor women had come to bid the familygood-bye again, though it was so early that the garden lay in heavydew. These good friends stood around the carriage; one of them heldthe front-door key in trust for the new purchaser. They all calledthe straight old lady who held the lines grandma Padgett. She wasgrandma Padgett to the entire neighborhood, and they shook theirheads sorrowfully in remembering that her blue spectacles, herancient Leghorn bonnet, her Quaker shoulder cape and decided facemight be vanishing from them forever.

  "You'll come back to Ohio," said one neighbor. "The wild Westernprairie country won't suit you at all."

  "I'm not denying," returned grandma Padgett, "that I could end mydays in peace on the farm here; but son Tip can do very little here,and he can do well out there. I've lost my entire family except sonTip and the baby of all, you know. And it's not my wish to beseparated from son Tip in my declining years."

  The neighbors murmured that they knew, and one of them inquired asshe had often inquired before, at what precise point grandmaPadgett's son was to meet the party; and she replied as if giving newinformation, that it was at the Illinois State line.

  "You'll have pretty weather," said another woman, squinting-in theearly sun.

  "Grandma Padgett won't care for weather," observed the neighbor withthe key. "She moved out from Virginia in the dead o' winter."

  "Yes; I was but a child," said grandma Padgett, "and this countryone unbroken wilderness. We came down the Ohio River by flatboat, andmoved into this section when the snow was so deep you could rideacross stake-and-rider fences on the drifts."

  "Folks can get around easier now, though," said the squintingneighbor, "since they got to going on these railroads."

  "I shipped part of my goods on the railroad," remarked grandmaPadgett with--a laugh. "But I don't know; I ain't used to the things,and I don't know whether I'd resk my bones for a long distance ornot. Son Tip went out on the cars."

  "The railroads charge so high," murmured a woman near the backwheels. "But they do say you can ride as far West as you're a goin'on the cars."

  "How long will you be gettin' through?" inquired another.

  "Not more than two or three weeks," replied grandma Padgettresolutely. "It's a little better than three hundred and fifty miles,I believe."

  "That's a long distance," sighed the neighbor at the wheels.

  But aunt Corinne and her nephew, untroubled by the length ofpilgrimage before them, ran from the well into the garden.

  "I wish the kerns were ripe," said aunt Corinne. "Look out, Bobaday!You're drabblin' the bottoms of your good pants."

  "'Twouldn't do any good if the kerns were ripe," said Bobaday,turning his pepper-and-salt trousers up until the linings showed."This farm ain't ours now, and we couldn't pull them."

  Aunt Corinne paused at the fennel bed: then she impulsivelystretched forth her hand and gathered it full.

  "I set out these things," said aunt Corinne, "and I ain't countin'them sold till the wagon starts." So she gathered sweetbrier, and aleaf of sage and two or three pinks.

  "O Bobaday," said aunt Corinne--this name being a childishcorruption of Robert Day: for aunt Corinne two years younger than hernephew, and had talked baby talk when he prided himself on distinctEnglish--"you s'pose brother Tip's got a garden like this at the newplace? Oh, the pretty little primroses! Who'll watch them pop opento-night? How you and me have sat on the primrose bed and watched thet-e-e-nty buds swell and swell till finally--pop! they smack their lipsand burst wide open!"

  "We'll have a primrose bed out West," said Bobaday. "We'll plantsweet anise too, and have caraway seeds to put in the cakes. AuntKrin, did you know grandma's goin' to have green kern pie when westop for dinner to-day?"

  "I knew there was kern pie made," said aunt Krin. "I guess we betterget into the carriage."

  She held her short dress away from the bushes, and scampered withBobaday into the yard. Here they could not help stopping on thewarped floor of the porch to look into the empty house. It lookedlonesome already. A mouse had ventured out of the closet by the tallsitting-room mantel; and a faint outline of the clock's shaperemained on the wall.

  The house with its trees was soon fading into the past. Theneighbors were going home by the road or across fields. Zene's wagon,drawn by the old white and gray, moved ahead at a good pace. It wascovered with white canvas drawn tight over hoops which were held byiron clamps to the wagon-sides. At the front opening sat Zene,resting his feet on the tongue. The rear opening was puckered to around O by a drawing string. Swinging to and fro from the hind axle,hung the tar-bucket. A feed box was fitted across the hind end of thewagon. Such stores as might be piled to the very canvas roof, wereconcealed from sight by a black oilcloth apron hanging behind Zene.This sheet of oilcloth was designed for an additional roof to keepthe goods dry when it rained.

  Under the wagon, keeping well away from the tar-bucket, trottedBoswell and Johnson. Bobaday named them; he had read something ofEnglish literature in his grandfather's old books. Johnson was a fatblack and white dog, who was obliged to keep his tongue out of hismouth to pant during the greater part of his days. He had fits ofmeditation, when Boswell galloped all over him without provoking asnap. Johnson was, indeed, a most amiable fellow, and had gained areputation as a good watch dog, because on light nights he barked theshining hours away.

  Boswell was a little short-legged dog, built like a clumsy weasel;for his body was so long it seemed to plead for six legs instead offour, to supp
ort it, and no one could blame his back for swaying alittle in the middle. Boswell was a brindled dog. He had yellow spotslike pumpkin seeds over his eyes. His affection for Johnson wasextreme. He looked up to Johnson. If he startled a bird at theroadside, or scratched at the roots of a tree after his imagination,he came back to Johnson for approval, wagging his tail until it madehis whole body undulate. Johnson sometimes condescended to rub a noseagainst his silly head, and this threw him into such fire of delightthat he was obliged to get out of the wagon-track, and bark aroundhimself in a circle until the carriage left him behind. Then he cameup to Johnson again, and panted along beside him, with a smile asopen and constant as sunshine.

  No such caravan as the Padgett family has been seen moving Westsince those days when all the States were in a ferment: when New Yorkand the New England States poured into Ohio, and Pennsylvania andOhio, Kentucky and Tennessee into Indiana, Illinois, and even--as adesperate venture, Missouri. The Old National Turnpike was then alively thoroughfare. Sometimes a dozen white-covered wagons stretchedalong in company. All classes of society were represented among themovers. There were squalid lots to--be avoided as thieves: and therewere carriages full of families who would raise Senators, Presidents,and large financiers in their new home. The forefathers of many a manand woman, now abroad studying older civilization in Europe, cameWest as movers by the wagon route.

  Aunt Corinne and her nephew were glad when Zene drove upon the'pike, and the carriage followed. The 'pike had a solid rumbling baseto offer wheels. You were comparatively in town while driving there,for every little while you met somebody, and that body alwaysappeared to feel more important for driving on the 'pike. It was aglittering white highway the ruts worn by wheels were literally wornin stone. Yet never were roadsides as green as the sloping 'pikesides. No trees encroached very close upon it, and it stretched inendless glare. But how smoothly you bowled along! People living asidein fields, could hear your progress; the bass roar of the 'pike wasas distinct, though of course not as loud, as the rumble of a train.

  Going through Reynoldsburg however, was the great triumphal act ofleave-taking. The Padgetts went to church in Reynoldsburg. To-day itis a decayed village, with many of its houses leaning wearily to oneside, or forward as if sinking to a nap. But then it was a livelycoach town, the first station out from the capital of the State.

  THE STAGE SWEPT BY LIKE A FLASH.]

  The Reynoldsburgers looked forth indifferently. They saw moversevery hour of the day. But with recognition growing in their faces,many of them hastened to this particular carriage for parting wordswith grandma Padgett and the children. Robert Day set up against thehigh back, accepting his tribute of envious glances from the boys heknew. He was going off to meet adventures. They--had to stay at homeand saw wood, and some of them would even be obliged to split it whenthey had a tin box full of bait and their fish-poles all ready forthe afternoon's useful employment. There had been a time when Robertthought he would not like to be called "movers." Some movers fellentirely below his ideas. But now he saw how much finer it was to betravelling in a carriage than on the swift-shooting cars. He feltsorry for the Reynoldsburg boys. One of them hinted that he might beexpected out West himself some day, and told Robert to watch down theroad for him. He appeared to think the West was a large prairie fullof benches, where folks sat down and told their adventures in coming.

  Bobaday considered his position in the carriage the only drawback tothe Reynoldsburg parade. He ought to be driving. In the course of thejourney he hoped grandma Padgett would give up the lines--which shehad never yet done.

  They drove out of Reynoldsburg. The tin-covered steeple on thechurch dazzled their eyes for perhaps the last time.

  Then coming around a curve in the 'pike appeared that soul-stirringsight, the morning stage from Columbus. Zene and grandma Padgett drewoff to the side of the road and gave it a wide passage, for the stagehad the same right of way that any regular train now has on its owntrack. It was drawn by six of the proudest horses in the world, andthe grand-looking driver who guided them, gripped the complication oflines in his left hand while he held a horn to his mouth with theright, and through this he blew a mellow peal to let theReynoldsburgers know the stage was coming. The stage, billowing onsprings, was paneled with glittering pictures, gilded on every part,and evidently lined with velvet. Travellers inside looked through theopen windows with what aunt Corinne considered an air of opulentpride. She had always longed to explore the interior of a stage, andenvied any child who had been shut in by the mysterious click andturn of the door-handle. The top was crowded with gentlemen lookingonly less important than the luxurious passengers inside: and behindon a vast rack was such a mountain of-baggage swaying with the stage,but corded firmly to place, and topped with bandboxes, that auntCorinne believed their moving wagon would not have contained it all.Yet the stage swept past like a flash. All its details had to begathered by a quick eye. The leaders flew over the smooththoroughfare, holding up their heads like horse princes; and Bobadayknew what a bustle Reynoldsburg would be in during the few minutesthat the stage halted.

  After viewing this sumptuous pageant the little caravan movedbriskly on toward Columbus. Zene kept some distance ahead, yet alwaysin sight. And in due time the city began to grow around them. The'pike never lost its individuality among the streets of the capital.They saw the great penitentiary surrounded by stone walls as thick asthe length of a short boy. They saw trains of cars trailing in andout; manufactories, and vistas of fine streets full of stores. Theyeven saw the capitol building standing high up on its shaded grounds,many steps and massive pillars giving entrance to the structure whichgrandma Padgett said was one of the finest in the United States. Itwas not very long before they reached the western side of the cityand were crossing the Scioto River in a long bridge and entering whatwas then a shabby suburb called Frankfort. At this point aunt Corinneand her nephew entered unbroken ground.