gun----?"
Just then the janitor came down, and Tish gave him a dollar for the useof the cellar and did not mention the furnace pipe. Aggie and I glancedat each other. Tish's demoralization had begun. From that minute, to thelong and entirely false story she told the red-bearded man in ThunderCloud Glen several days later, she trod, as Aggie truthfully said, thedownward path of mendacity, bringing up in the county jail andhysterics.
We went upstairs, Tish ahead and Aggie and I two flights behind,believing that Tish with an unloaded gun was a thousand times moredangerous than any outlaw with an entire arsenal loaded to the muzzle.
We had a cup of tea in Tish's parlor, but she kept us out of thebedroom, where we could hear Miss Swift running the sewing machine.Finally Aggie said out of a clear sky:
"Have you had any answers to your advertisement?"
Tish, who had been about to put a slice of lemon in her tea, put it inher mouth instead and stared at us both.
"What advertisement?"
"We know all about it, Tish," I said. "And if you think it proper for awoman of your age to go adventuring with only a donkey for company----"
"I've had worse!" Tish snapped. "And I'm not feeble yet, as far as myage goes. If I want to take a walking tour it's my affair, isn't it?"
"You can't walk with your bad knee," I objected. Tish sniffed.
"You're envious, that's what," she sneered. "While you are sitting athome, overeating and oversleeping and getting fat in mind and body, Ishall be on the broad highway, walking between hedgerows offlowering--flowering--well, between hedgerows. While you sleep instuffy, upholstered rooms I shall lie in woodland glades in mysleeping-bag and see overhead the constellation of--of what's its name.I shall talk to the birds and the birds will talk to me."
Sleeping-bag! That was what Aggie had meant that Miss Swift was making.
"What are you going to do when it rains?"
"It doesn't rain much in May. Anyhow, a friendly farmhouse and a glassof milk--even a barn----"
Aggie got up with the light of desperation in her eyes. Aggie hateswoods and gnats, has no eye for Nature, and for almost half a centuryhas pampered her body in a featherbed poultice, with the windows closed,until the first of June each year. Yet Aggie rose to the crisis.
"You shan't go alone, Tish," she said stoutly. "You'll forget to changeyour stockings when your feet are wet and you can't make a cup of coffeefit to drink. I'm going too."
Tish made a gesture of despair, but Aggie was determined. Tish glancedat me.
"Well?" she snapped. "We might as well make it a family excursion.Aren't you coming along, too, to look after Aggie?"
"Not at all," I observed calmly. "I'll have enough to do looking aftermyself. But I like the idea, and since you've invited me I'll come, ofcourse."
At first I am afraid Tish was not particularly pleased. She said she hadit all planned to make four miles an hour, or about forty miles a day;and that any one falling back would have to be left by the wayside. Andthat if we were not prepared to sleep on the ground, or were going totalk rheumatism every time she found a place to camp, she would thank usto remember that we had really asked ourselves.
But she grew more cheerful finally and seemed to be glad to talk overthe details of the trip with somebody. She said it was a pity we had nothad some practice with firearms, for we would each have to take aweapon, the mountains being full of outlaws, more than likely. NeitherAggie nor I could use a gun at all, but, as Tish observed, we could potat trees and fenceposts along the road by way of practice.
When I suggested that the sight of three women of our age--we are allwell on toward fifty; Aggie insists that she is younger than I am, butwe were in the same infant class in Sunday-school--three women of ourage "potting" at fences was hardly dignified, Tish merely shrugged hershoulders.
She asked us not to let Charlie Sands learn of the trip. He would besure to be fussy and want to send a man along, and that would spoil itall.
What with the secrecy, and the guns and everything, I dare say we werelike a lot of small boys getting ready to run away out West and killIndians. In fact, Tish said it reminded her of the time, years ago, whenCharlie Sands and some other boys had run away, with all the carvingknives and razors they could gather together, and were found a weeklater in a cave in the mountains twenty miles or so from town.
Tish showed us her sleeping-bag, which was felt outside and her oldwhite fur rug within. Aggie planned hers immediately on the same lines,with her fur coat as a lining; but I had mine made of oilcloth outside,my rheumatism having warned me that we were going to have rain. I wasright about the rain.
I had an old army revolver that had belonged to my father, and of courseTish had her coal-cellar rifle, but Aggie had nothing more dangerousthan a bayonet from the Mexican War. This being too heavy to carry, anddull--being only possible as a weapon by bringing the handle down onone's opponent's head--Aggie was forced to buy a revolver.
The man in the shop tried to sell her a small pearl-handled one, but shewould not look at it. She bought one of the sort that goes on shootingas long as one holds a finger on the trigger--a snub-nosed thing thatlooked as deadly as it was. She was in terror of it from the moment shegot it home, and during most of the trip it was packed in excelsior,with the barrel stuffed with cotton, on Modestine's back.
Which brings me to Modestine.
Tish received three answers to her advertisement: One was a mule, one apiebald pony with a wicked eye, and the third was a donkey. It seemedthat Stevenson had said that the pack animal of such a trip should be"cheap, small and hardy," and that a donkey best of all answered theserequirements.
The donkey in question was, however, not a female. Tish was firm aboutthis; but on no more donkeys being offered, she bought this one andcalled him Modestine anyhow. He was very dirty, and we paid a dollarextra to have him washed with soap powder, as our food was to becarried on his back. Also the day before we started I spent an hour orso on him with a fine comb, with gratifying results.
I must confess I entered on the adventure with a light heart. Tish hadapparently given up all thought of the aeroplane; her automobile wasbeing used by Charlie Sands; the weather was warm and sunny, and theorchards were in bloom. I had no premonition of danger. The adventure,reduced to its elements of canned food, alcohol lamp, sleeping-bags andtoothbrushes, seemed no adventure at all, but a peaceful and pastoralexcursion by three middle-aged women into green fields and pastures new.
We reckoned, however, without Aggie's missionary dime.
Aggie's church had sent each of its members a ten-cent piece, withinstructions to invest it in some way and to return it multiplied asmuch as possible in three months. This was on Aggie's mind, but we didnot know it until later. Really, Aggie's missionary dime is the story.If she had done as she had planned at first and invested it in an egg,had hatched the egg in cotton wool on the shelf over her kitchen rangeand raised the chicken, eventually selling the chicken to herself fordinner at seventy-five cents, this story would never have been written.
What the dime really bought was a glass of jelly wrapped in atwo-day-old newspaper. But to go back:
We were to start from Tish's at dawn on Tuesday morning. Modestine'sformer owner had agreed to bring him at that hour to the alley behindTish's apartment. On Monday Aggie and I sent over what we felt we couldnot get along without, and about five we both arrived.
Tish was sitting on the floor, with luggage scattered all round her andheaped on the chairs and bed.
She looked up witheringly when we entered.
"You forgot your opera cloak, Lizzie," she said, "and Aggie has onlysent five pairs of shoes!"
"I've got to have shoes," Aggie protested.
"If you've got to have five pairs of shoes, six white petticoats, summerunderwear, intermediates and flannels, a bathrobe, six bath towels and asunshade, not to mention other things, you want an elephant, not adonkey."
"Why do we have a donkey?" I asked. "Why don't we have a horse andbuggy, and go
like Christians?"
"Because you and Aggie wouldn't walk if we did," snapped Tish. "I knowyou both. You'd have rheumatism or a corn and you'd take your walkingtrip sitting. Besides, we may not always keep to the roads. I'd like togo up into the mountains."
Well, Tish was disagreeable, but right. As it turned out the donkey,being small, could only carry the sleeping-bags, our portable stove andthe provisions. We each were obliged to pack a suitcase and carry that.
We started at dawn the next day. Hannah came down to the alley anddidn't think much of Modestine. By the time he was loaded a small crowdhad gathered, and when we finally started off, Tish ahead withModestine's bridle over her arm and Aggie and I behind with