Old Caravan Days Part 19

"You couldn't prove any right to her," observed the lawyer.

"No, I couldn't," replied Grandma Padgett, expressing some injury in her tone. "But on that account ought I to let her go to them that would mistreat her?"

"She may be their child," said the lawyer. "People have been known to maltreat their children before. You only infer that they stole her."

Aunt Corinne told her nephew in a slightly guarded whisper, that she never had seen such a mean man as that one was.

"They ought to prove it before they get her, then," said Grandma Padgett.

"Yes," he a.s.sented. "They ought to prove it."

"And they must be right here in the place," she continued. "I'm afraid I'll have trouble with them."

"We could go on to-night," exclaimed Robert Day. "We could go on to Indianapolis, and that's where the governor lives, Zene says; and when we told the governor, he'd put the pig-headed folks in jail."

Small notice being taken of this suggestion by the elders, Robert and Corinne bobbed their heads in unison and discussed it in whispers together.

The woman of the house locked up that part which let out upon the log steps, before she conducted her guests to supper. She was a partisan of Grandma Padgett's.

At table the brown-eyed child whom Grandma Padgett still held upon her lap, refused food and continued to demand her mother. She leaned against the old lady's shoulder seeing every crack in the walls, every dish upon the cloth, the lawyer who sat opposite, and the concerned faces of Bobaday and Corinne. Supper was too good to be slighted, in spite of Carrie's dangerous position. The man of the house was a Quaker, and while his wife stood up to wait on the table, he repeatedly asked her in a thee-and-thou language highly edifying to aunt Corinne, for certain pickles and jams and stuffed mangoes; and as she brought them one after the other, he helped the children plentifully, twinkling his eyes at them. He was a delicious old fellow; as good in his way as the jams.

"And won't thee have some-in a sa.s.ser?" he inquired tenderly of Carrie, "and set up and feed thyself? Thee ought to give thy grandame a chance to eat her bite--don't thee be a selfish little dear."

"I want my mamma," responded Carrie, at once taking this twinkle-eyed childless father into her confidence. "I'm waiting for my mamma. When she comes she'll give me my supper and put me to bed."

"Thee's a big enough girl to wait ort thyself," said the Quaker, not understanding the signs his wife made to him.

"She doesn't live at your house," pursued the child. "She lives at papa's house."

"Where is papa's house?" inquired the lawyer helping himself to bread as if that were the chief object of his thoughts.

"It's away off. Away over the woods."

"And what's papa's name?"

Carrie appeared to consider the questioner rather than the question, and for some unexpressed reason, remained silent.

"Mother," said the Quaker from the abundant goodness of his heart, "doesn't thee mind that damson p'serve thee never let's me have unless I take the ag'y and shake for it? Some of that would limber a little girl's tongue, doesn't thee think?"

"It's in the far pantry on a high shelf," said the woman of the house, demurring slightly.

"I can reach it down."

"No, I'll bring it myself. The jars are too crowded on that shelf for a man's hands to be turned loose among 'em."

The Quaker smiled, sparkling considerably under his gray eyebrows while his wife took another light and went after the damson preserve. She had been gone but a moment when knocking began at the front door, and the Quaker rose at once from his place to answer it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "COME TO MAMMA."]

Robert Day and Corinne looked at each other in apprehension. They pictured a fearful procession coming in. Even their guardian gave an anxious start. She parted her lips to beg the Quaker not to admit any one, but the request was absurd.

Their innocent host piloted straight to the dining-room a woman whom Robert and Corinne knew directly. They had seen her in the show, and recalled her appearance many a time afterwards when speculating about Carrie's parents.

"Here you are!" she exclaimed to the child in a high key. "My poor little pet! Come to mamma!"

CHAPTER XIX. FAIRY CARRIE DEPARTS.

Neither William Sebastian, the Quaker landlord, nor his wife, returning with the damson preserves in her hand--not even Grandma Padgett and her family, looked at Fairy Carrie more anxiously than the lawyer.

"Is this your mother, Sissy?" inquired Grandma Padgett.

"No," replied the child; A blank, stupid expression replacing her excitement. "Yes. Mamma?"

The woman sat down and took Carrie upon her lap, twisting her curls and caressing her.

"Where have you been, frightening us all to death!" she exclaimed.

"The child is sick; she must have some drugs to quiet her."

"She's just come out of a spasm," said Grandma Padgett distantly.

"Seems as if a young man scared her."

"Yes; that was Jarvey," said the woman. "'E found her here. Carrie was always afraid of Jarvey after he-tried to teach her wire-walking, and let her fall. Jarvey would've fetched her right away with him, But 'e knows I don't like to 'ave 'im meddle with her now."

"She says her name's Rose," observed the wife of William Sebastian, taking no care to veil her suspicion.

"'Tis Rose," replied the woman indifferently, pa.s.sing her hand in repeated strokes down the child's face as it was pressed to her shoulder. "The h'other's professional--Fairy Carrie. We started 'igher. I never expected to come down with my child to such a miserable little combination. But we've 'ad misfortunes. Her father died coming over. We're English. We 'ad good engagements in the Provinces, and sometimes played in London. The manager as fetched us over, failed to keep his promises, and I had no friends 'ere. I had to do what I could."

An actual resemblance to Carrie appeared in the woman's face. She wiped tears from, the dark rings under her eyes.

William Sebastian's wife rested her knuckles on the table, still regarding Carrie's mother with perplexed distrust.

While returning none of the caresses she received, the child lay quite docile and submissive.

"Well," said Grandma Padgett, still distantly "folks bring up their children different. There's gypsies always live in tents, and I suppose show-people always expect to travel with shows. I don't know anything about it. But I do know when that child came to me she'd been dosed nearly to death with laudanum, or some sleepin' drug, and didn't really come to her senses till after her spasm."

The woman cast a piteous expression at her judge.

"She's so nervous, poor pet! Perhaps I'm in the 'abit of giving her too much. But she lives in terror of the company we 'ave to a.s.sociate with, and I can't see her nerves be racked."

"Thee ought to stop such wrong doings," p.r.o.nounced William Sebastian, laying his palm decidedly on the table. "Set theeself to some honest work and put the child to school. Her face is a rebuke to us that likes to feel at peace."

The woman glanced resentfully at him.

"The child is gifted," she maintained. "I'm going to make a hartist of her."

She smoothed Carrie's wan hands, and, as if noticing her borrowed clothing for the first time, looked about the room for the tinsel and gauze.