Old Caravan Days Part 11

"'Cause Boswell'd been at his heels, and the whole camp'd been in a fight," replied Bobaday. "Old Johnson was under our wagon; I don't know where Bos was. I was careful not to wake him."

Through gaps in foliage and undergrowth they saw many an individual part of the general camp; the wagon-cover in some cases being as dun as the hide of an elephant. When a curtain was dropped over the front opening of the wagon, Bobaday and Corinne knew that women and children were sleeping within on their chattels. Here a tent was made of sheets and stretched down with the branch of an overhanging tree for a ridge-pole; and there horse-blankets were made into a canopy and supported by upright poles. Within such covers men were asleep, having sacks or comforters for bedding.

On a few wagon tongues, or stretched easily before fires, men lingered, talking in steady, monotonous voices as if telling stories, or in indifferent tones as if tempting each other to trades.

The rain had entirely ceased, though the spongy wet wood sod was not pleasant to walk upon. "I guess," said-aunt Corinne, "we'd better go back."

"Well, we've seen consider'ble," a.s.sented her nephew. "I guess we'd better."

So he faced about. But quite near them arose the piercing scream of a child in mortal fear.

CHAPTER XI. THE DARKENED WAGON.

Aunt Corinne and her nephew felt pierced by the cry. Her hands gripped his jacket with a shock. Robert Day turning took hold of his aunt's wrist to pinch her silent, but his efforts were too zealous and turned her fright to indignation.

"I don't want my hand pinched off, Bobaday Padgett!" whispered aunt Corinne, jerking away and thus breaking the circuit of comfort and protection which was supposed to flow from his jacket.

"But listen," hissed Robert.

"I don't want to listen," whispered aunt Corinne; "I want to go back to our camp-fire."

"n.o.body can hurt us," whispered her nephew, gathering boldness. "You stay here and let me creep through the bushes to that wagon. I want to see what it was."

"If you stay a minute I'll go and leave you," remonstrated aunt Corinne. "Ma Padgett don't want us off here by ourselves."

But Robert's hearing was concentrated upon the object toward which he moved. He used Indian-like caution. The b.a.l.l.s of his large eyes became so prominent that they shone with some of the l.u.s.tre of a cat's in the dark.

Corinne took hold of the bushes in his absence.

The wind was breathing sadly through the trees far off. What if some poor little child, lost in the woods, should come patting to her, with all the wildness of its experience hanging around it? Oh, the woods was a good play-house, on suns.h.i.+ny days, but not the best of homes, after all. That must be why people built houses. When the snow lay in a deep cake, showing only the two thumb-like marks at long intervals made by the rabbit in its leaping flight, and when the air was so tense and cold you could hear the bark of a dog far off, Bobaday used to say he would love to live in the woods all the time.

He would chop to keep himself warm. He loved to drag the air into his lungs when it seemed frozen to a solid. Corinne remembered how his cheeks burned and his eyes glittered during any winter exertion. And what could be prettier, he said, than the woods after it sleeted all night, and h.o.a.r frost finished the job! Every tree would stand glittering in white powder, as if dressed for the grandest occasion, the twigs tipped with lace-work, and the limbs done in tracery and all sorts of beautiful designs. Still this white dress was deadly cold to handle. Aunt Corinne had often pressed her fingers into the velvet crust upon the trunks. She did not like the winter woods, and hardly more did she like this rain-soaked place, and these broad, treacherous leaves that poured water down her neck in the humid dark.

Bobaday pounced upon her with such force when he appeared once more, that she was startled into trying to climb a bush no higher than herself.

He had not a word to say, but hitched his aunt to his jacket and drew her away with considerable haste. They floundered over logs and ran against stumps. Their own smouldering fire, and wagon with the hoops standing up like huge uncovered ribs, and the tents wherein their guardian slept after the fatigue of the day, all appeared wonderfully soon, considering the time it had taken them to reach their exploring limit.

Aunt Corinne huddled by the coals, and Bobaday sat down on the foot-chunk he had placed for his awning throne.

"You better go to bed quick as ever you can," he said.

"I guess I ain't goin'," said aunt Corinne with indignant surprise, "till you tell me somethin' about what was up in the bushes. I stayed still and let you look, and now you won't tell me!"

"You heard the sound," remonstrated Robert.

"But I didn't see anything," argued aunt Corinne.

"You wouldn't want to," said Bobaday.

They were talking in cautious tones, but no longer whispering. It had become too tiresome. Aunt Corinne would now have burst out with an exclamation, but checked herself and tilted her nose, talking to the coals which twinkled back to her between her slim fingers.

"Boys think they are so smart! They want to have all the good times and see all the great shows, and go slidin' in winter time, when girls have to stay in the house and knit, and then talk like they's grown up, and we's little babies!"

Robert Day fixed his eyes on his aunt with superior compa.s.sion.

"Grandma Padgett wouldn't want me to scare you," he observed.

Corinne edged several inches closer to him. She felt that she must know what her nephew had seen if she had to thread all the dark mazes again and look at it by herself.

"Ma Padgett never 'lows me to act scared," she reminded him. "I always have to go up to what I'm 'fraid of."

"You won't go up to this."

"Maybe I will. Tisn't so far back to that wagon."

"I wouldn't stir it up for considerable," said Robert.

"Was it a lion or a bear? Was it goin' to eat anything? Is that what made the little child cry?"

"The little child hollered 'cause 'twas afraid of it. I was glad you didn't look in at the end of the wagon with me."

Aunt Corinne edged some inches nearer her protector.

"How could you see what was in a dark wagon?"

"There was a candle lighted inside. Aunt Krin, there was a little pretty girl in that wagon that I do believe the folks stole!"

This was like a story. The luxury of a real stolen child had never before come in aunt Corinne's way.

"Why, Bobaday?" she inquired affectionately.

"Because the little girl seemed like she was dead till all at once she opened her eyes, and then her mouth as if she was going to scream again, and they stopped her mouth up, and covered her in clothes."

"What did the wagon look like?"

"Like a little room. And they slept on the floor. They had tin things hangin' around the sides, and a stove in one corner with the pipe stickin' up through the cover. And the cover was so thick you couldn't see a light through it. You could only see through the pucker-hole where it comes together over the feed-box."

"And how many folks were there?"

"I don't know. I saw them fussing with the little girl, and I saw it, and then I didn't stay any longer."

"What was it, Bobaday?"

"I don't know," he solemnly replied.