CHAPTER XXIII. FORWARD.
Some of the boys climbed upon seats to look, and there wasconfusion. A baby or two in the mothers' class began to cry, but themothers themselves soon understood what was taking place, and forgotthe decorum of Sunday-school, to crowd up to Mrs. Tracy.
"The child is hers," one said to another. "It must have been lost.Who brought it in here?"
The fortunate messenger who had been successful in his undertaking,talked in undertones to the superintendent, telling the whole storywith an air of playing the most important part in it. In return, thesuperintendent mentioned the notice he had taken of those twostrangers, his attempt to induce the woman to go to the mothers'class, her restlessness and the child's lassitude.
The smart young man stood close by, receiving the correct version ofthe affair, and holding his tuning-fork and book behind him; and allthe children, following their elders, flocked to seats around Mrs.Tracy, gazing over one another's shoulders, until she looked upabashed at the chaos her excitement had made.
"It's really your child?" said Grandma Padgett, sitting down besidethe mother with a satisfied and benevolent expression.
"Oh, indeed, yes! Don't you know mamma, darling?"
For reply, the little girl was clinging mutely to her mother's neck.Her curls were damp and her eyes very dark-ringed. But there wasrecognition in her face very different from the puzzled and crouchingobedience she had yielded to the one who claimed her before.
"They've been dosing her again," pronounced Grandma Padgett severely.
"And she's all beat out tramping, poor little thing!" said one ofthe neighborhood mothers. "Look at them dusty feet!"
Mrs. Tracy gathered the dusty feet into her lap and wiped them withher lace handkerchief.
Word went forth to the edge of the crowd that the little girl neededwater to revive her, and half a dozen boys raced to the nearest housefor a tin pailful.
With love-feast tenderness the neighborhood mothers administered thedripping cup to little Rose Tracy when the boys returned. Her faceand head were bathed, and hands and feet cooled. The old women allprescribed for her, and her mother listened to everybody withdistended eyes, but fell into such frequent paroxysms of kissing herlittle girl that some of the boys ducked their heads to chuckle. Thisextravagant affection was more than they could endure.
"But where's that woman?" inquired Robert Day. He stood up on theseat behind his grandmother and Mrs. Tracy, and could see all overthe house, but his eyes roamed unsuccessfully after the Englishplayer. The people having their interest diverted by that question,turned their heads and began to ask each other where she was. Nobodyhad noticed her leave the church, but it was a common thing to bepassing in and out during Sunday school. She had made her escape.Half the assembly would have pursued her on the instant; she couldnot be far away. But Mrs. Tracy begged them to let her go; she didnot want the woman, could not endure the sight of her, and neverwished to hear of her again. Whatever harm was done to her child, wasdone. Her child was what she had come in search of, and she had it.
So the group eager to track a kidnapper across fields and alongfence-corners, calmed their zeal and contented themselves with goingoutdoors and betting on what direction the fugitive from punishmenthad taken.
Perhaps she had grown to love little Rose, and was punished inhaving to give her up. In any case, the Pig-headed man and thevarious people attached to his show, no more appeared on the trackfollowed by Grandma Padgett's caravan. Mrs. Tracy would not have himsought out and arrested, and he only remained in the minds of Robertand aunt Corinne as a type of monster.
When they left the meeting-house, the weather had changed. Peopledismissed from Sunday-school with scanter ceremony than usual, gotinto their conveyances to hurry home, for thunder sounded in thewest, and the hot air was already cooled by a rush of wet fragrancefrom the advancing rain.
THEY BADE FAIRY CARRIE GOOD-BY.]
It proved to be a quick shower, white and violent while it lasted,making the fields smoke, and walling out distant views. Spouts ofwater ran off the carriage top down the oil cloth apron whichprotected Robert and his grandmother. Mrs. Tracy held her little girlin her lap, and leaned back with an expression of perfect happiness.The rain came just as her comfort had come, after so much parchingsuspense. Aunt Corinne wondered in silence if anything could be nicerthan riding under a snug cover on which the sky-streams pelted,through a wonderland of fragrance. Every grateful shrub and bit ofsod, the pawpaw leaves and spicewood stems, the half-formed hazel-nutsin fluted sheaths, and even new hay-stacks in the meadows, breathedout their best to the rain. The world never seems so fresh and lovableas after a June shower.
Presently the sun was shining, and the ground-incense steaming withstronger sweetness, and they came to the wet 'pike stretching like arusset-colored ribbon east and west, and turned west towardIndianapolis.
On the 'pike they met another of the men sent out by Mrs. Tracy andthe lawyer. His horse's coat was smoking. Mrs. Tracy took up a goldpencil attached to her watch, and wrote a note to the lawyer. She wasgoing on to the city, and would return directly home with her child.The note she sent by the men, after thanking them, and paying them inwhat Robert and his aunt considered a prodigal and wealthy manner.
So large a slice out of the afternoon had their trip to the meeting-housetaken, that it was quite dark when the party drove briskly intoIndianapolis.
It was a little city at that date. Still, Bobaday felt exalted byclanging car-bells and railroad crossings. It being Sunday evening,the freights were making up. The main street, called Washington, wasbut an extension of the 'pike, stretching broad and straight throughthe city. He noticed houses with balconies, set back on slopinglawns. Here a light disclosed a broad hall with dim stairs at theback. And in another place children were playing under trees; hecould hear their calls, and by straining his eyes, barely discernthat they wore sumptuous white city raiment. The tide of home-makersand beautifiers had not then rolled so far north of East Washingtonstreet as to leave it a mere boundary line.
Grandma Padgett and her party stopped at a tavern on Illinoisstreet. Late in the night they were to separate, Mrs. Tracy takingthe first train for Baltimore. So aunt Corinne and Robert, beforegoing to bed, bade good-by to the child who had scarcely been aplaymate to them, but more like a delicate plaything in whosehelplessness they had felt such interest.
Rose, obeying her mamma, put her arms around their necks and kissedthem, telling them to come and see her at home. She looked brighterthan hitherto, and remembered a dollhouse and her birds at mamma'shouse; yet, her long course of opiates left her little recognition ofthe boy and girl she had so dimly seen.
Her mamma hugged them warmly, and Bobaday endured his share of thehugging with a very good grace, though he was so old. Then it seemedbut a breath until morning, and but another breath until they wereunder way, the wagon creaking along the dewy 'pike ahead of them, anopal clearness growing through the morning twilight, and no FairyCarrie asleep, like some tiny enchanted princess, on the back seat.
"The rest of the way," observed Robert Day to his aunt, "there won'tbe anything happening--you see if there will. Zene says we're halfacross the State now. And I know we'll never see J. D. Matthewsagain. And nobody will be lost and have to be found, and there's notellin' where that great big crowd Jonathan and his folks moved with,are."
"I feel lonesome," observed aunt Corinne somewhat pensively. "WhenMrs. Tracy was sending back word to the Quaker tavern man, I wishedwe's going back to stay awhile longer. Some places are so nice!"
"Now it's a pretty thing for you to begin at your time of life,"said Grandma Padgett, "to set your faces backward and wish for what'sbehind. That's a silly notion. Folks that encourage themselves indoin' it don't show sound sense. The One that made us knew betterthan to let us stand still in our experience, and I've always foundthem that go forward cheerfully will pretty generally keep the landof Beulah right around them. Git up, Hickory!"
Thus admonished, the chi
ldren entered the lone bridge over WhiteRiver, or that branch of White River on which Indianapolis issituated. The stream, seen between chinks in the floor, appeareddeep, but not particularly limpid. How the horses' feet thundered onthe boards, and how long they trod before the little star at theother end grew to an opening quite large enough to let any vehicleout of the bridge!