Old Caravan Days Part 14

"I know the pig-headed man stole that little girl."

Aunt Corinne looked at him with solemn a.s.sent. Then there were signs of the pig-headed man's returning to the gaze of the public. Aunt Corinne at once grasped her nephew's elbow and pushed him from the sight. They went outside where the ill-looking youth was still shouting, and were crowded back against the wagon by a group now beginning to struggle in.

Robert proposed that they walk all around the outside, and try to catch another glimpse of Fairy Carrie.

They walked behind the wagon. A surly dog chained under it snapped out at them. Aunt Corinne said she should like to see Fairy Carrie again, but Ma Padgett would be looking for them.

At this instant the little creature appeared back of the tent.

Whether she had crept under the canvas or knew some outlet to the air, she stood there fanning herself with her hands, and looking up and about with an expression which was sad through all the dusk.

Corinne and Robert Day approached on tiptoe. Fairy Carrie continued to fan herself with her fingers, and looked at them with a dull gaze.

"Say!" whispered aunt Corinne, indicating the interior of the tent, "is he your pa?"

Fairy Carrie shook her head.

"Is your ma in there?"

Fairy Carrie again shook her head, and her face creased as if she were now determined in this open air and childish company to cry and be relieved.

"Can't you talk?" whispered aunt Corinne.

"No," said the child.

"Yes, you can, too! Did the show folks steal you?"

Fairy Carrie's eyes widened. Tears gathered and dropped slowly down her cheeks.

Aunt Corinne seized her hand. "Why, Bobaday, Padgett! You just feel how cold her fingers are!"

Robert did so, and shook his head to indicate that he found even her fingers in a pitiable condition.

"You come with us to Ma Padgett," exhorted aunt Corinne in an excited whisper. "I wouldn't stay where that pig-man is for the world."

The dog under the wagon was growling.

"If the pig-man stole you, Ma Padgett will have him put in jail."

"Le's go back this way, so they won't catch her," cautioned Bobaday.

The dog began to bark.

Robert and Corinne moved away with the docile little child between them. At the barking of the dog one or two other figures appeared behind the tent. Fairy Carrie in her spangled dress was running between Robert and Corinne into the dark.

CHAPTER XIV. SEARCHING.

But Grandma Padgett did not enjoy the tavern bed or the tavern breakfast. She pa.s.sed the evening until midnight searching the streets of Richmond, accompanied by Zene and his limp. Some of the tavern people had seen her children in front of the house, but the longest search failed to bring to light any trace of them in or about that building. The tavern-keeper interested himself; the chamber maids were sympathetic. Two hostlers and a bartender went different ways through the town making inquiries. The landlady thought the children might have wandered off to the movers' encampment, where there were other children to play with. Grandma Padgett bade Zene put himself on one of the carriage horses and post to camp. When he came back he reported that Thrusty Ellen and Jonathan were asleep in the tents, and n.o.body had seen Robert and Corinne.

While searching the streets earlier in the evening, Grandma Padgett observed the pig-headed man's pavilion, and this she also explored with Zene. A crowd was making the canvas stifling, and the pig-headed man's performances were being varied by an untidy woman who screamed and played on a portable bellows which had ivory keys, after explaining that Fairy Carrie, the Wonderful Musical Child, had been taken suddenly ill and could appear no more that night.

Grandma Padgett remained only long enough to scan twice over every face in the tent. She went out, telling Zene she was at her wits' end.

"Oh, they ain't gone far, marm," rea.s.sured Zene. "You'll find out they'll come back to the tavern all right; mebby before we get there."

But every such hopeful return to base disheartened the searchers more. At last the grandmother was obliged to lie down.

Early in the morning the Virginian came, full of concern. His party was breaking camp, but he would stay behind and help search for the children.

"That I won't allow," said Grandma Padgett. "You're on a long road, and you don't want to risk separating from the colony. Besides no one can do more than we can--unless it was Son Tip. As I laid awake, I wished in my heart Son Tip was here."

"Can't you send him a lightnin' message?" said the Virginian. "By the telegraphic wire," he explained, quoting a line of a popular song.

"I wish I could," said Grandma Padgett, "but there's no telegraph office in miles of where he's located. I thought of it last night.

There's no way to reach him that I can see, but by letter, and sometimes _they_ lay over on the road. And I don't allow to stop at this place. I'm goin' to set out and hunt in all directions till I find the children."

The Virginian agreed that her plan was best. He also made arrangements to ride back and tell her if the caravan overtook them on the 'pike during that day's journey. Then he and Grandma Padgett shook hands with each other and reluctantly separated.

She made inquiries about all the other roads leading out of Richmond. Zene drove the carriage out of the barnyard, and Grandma Padgett, having closed her account with the tavern, took the lines, an object of interest and solicitude to all who saw her depart, and turned Old Hickory and Old Henry on a southward track. Zene followed with the wagon; he was on no account to loiter out of speaking distance. The usual order of the march being thus reversed, both vehicles moved along lonesomely. Even Boswell and Johnson scented misfortune in the air. Johnson ran in an undeviating line under the carriage, as if he wished his mistress to know he was right there where she could depend on him. His countenance expressed not only gravity, but real concern. Boswell, on the other hand, was in a state of nerves. If he saw a bank at the roadside he ran ahead and mounted it, looking back into the carriage, demanding to know, with a yelping howl, where Bobaday and Corinne were. When his feelings became too strong for him he jumped at the step, and Grandma Padgett shook her head at him.

"Use your nose, you silly little fice, and track them, why don't you?"

As soon as Boswell understood this reproach he jumped a fence and smelt every stump or tuft of gra.s.s, every bush and hummock, until the carriage dwindled in the distance. Then he made the dust smoke under his feet as a sudden June shower will do for a few seconds, and usually overtook the carriage with all of his tongue unfurled and his lungs working like a furnace. Johnson reproved him with a glance, and he at once dropped his tail and trotted beside Johnson, as if throwing himself on that superior dog for support in the hour of affliction.

At noon no trace of Robert and Corinne had been seen. Grandma Padgett halted, and when Zene came up she said:

"We'll eat a cold bite right here by the road, and then go on until sunset. If we don't find them, we'll turn back to town and take another direction."

They ate a cold bite, brought ready packed from the Richmond tavern.

The horses were given scant time for feeding, and drank wherever they could find water along the road.

Cloudless as the day was, Grandma Padgett's spectacles had never made any landscape look as blue as this one which she followed until sunset. Sometimes it was blurred by a mist, but she wiped it off the gla.s.ses.

At sunset they had not seen a track which might be taken for Robert or Corinne's. The gra.s.shoppers were lonesome. There was a great void in the air, and the most tuneful birds complained from the fence-rails.

Grandma Padgett constantly polished her gla.s.ses on the backward road.

Nothing was said about making a halt for supper or any kind of cold bite. The carriage was silently turned as one half the sun stood above the tree-tops, I and it pa.s.sed the wagon without other sign.

The wagon turned as silently. The shrill meadow insects became more and more audible. Some young calves in a field, remembering that it was milking time, began to call their mothers, and to remonstrate at the bars in voices full of sad cadences. The very farmhouse dogs, full-fed, and almost too lazy to come out of the gates to interview Boswell and Johnson, barked as if there was sickness in their respective families and it was all they could do to keep up their spirits and refrain from howling.

The carriage and wagon jogged along until the horizon rim was all of that indescribable tint that evening mixes with saffron, purple and pink. Grandma Padgett became anxious to reach Richmond again. The Virginian might have returned over the road with news of her children. Or the children themselves might be at the tavern waiting for her. Zene drove close behind her, and when they were about to recross a shallow creek, scooped between two easy swells and floating a good deal of wild grapevine and darkly reflecting many sycamores, he came forward and loosened the check-reins of Hickory and Henry to let them drink. Grandma Padgett felt impatient at any delay.

"I don't think they want water, Zene," said she.

"They'd better cool their mouths, marm." he said. But still he fingered the check reins, uncertain how to state what had sent him forward.