CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOLL-WOMAN.
Still, as crossing the Sciota at Columbus, had been entering a landof adventure, crossing the White River at Indianapolis, seemed atfirst entering a land of commonplace.
The children were very tired of the wagon. Even aunt Corinne gotpermission to ride stretches of the road with Robert Day and Zene inthe wagon. It gave out a different creak and jolted her until she wasgrateful for springs and cushions when obliged to go back to them.The landscape was still hazy, the woods grew more beautiful. Butneither of the children cared for the little towns along the route:Bellville, Stilesville, Meridian, Manhattan, Pleasant Garden. Hillsappeared and ledges of rock cropped out in them. Yet even hills maybe observed with indifference by eyes weary of an endless panorama.
They drove more rapidly now to make up for lost time. Both childrendived into the carriage pockets for amusement, and aunt Corinnedressed her rag doll a number of times each day. They talked of RoseTracy, still calling her Fairy Carrie. Of the wonderful clothes hermother laid out to put upon her the night of her departure, in placeof aunt Corinne's over-grown things, and the show woman's tawdryadditions. They wondered about her home and the colored people whowaited on her, and if she would be quite well and cured of her stuporby the time she reached Baltimore. Grandma Padgett told themBaltimore was an old city down in Maryland, and the National 'Pikestarted in its main street. From Baltimore over the mountains toWheeling, in the Pan Handle of Virginia, was a grand route. Thereused to be a great deal of wagoning and stage-coaching, and drivingdroves of horses and cattle by that road. Perhaps, suggested auntCorinne, Fairy Carrie would watch the 'pike for the Padgett family,but Bobaday ridiculed the idea. When he grew up a man he meant to goto Baltimore but the railroad would be his choice of routes.
Both Robert and his aunt were glad the day they stopped for dinnernear a toll-house, and the woman came and invited them to dine withher.
The house stood on the edge of the 'pike, with its gate-pole readyto be lowered by a rope, looking like any other toll place. But thewoman was very brisk and Yankee-like, and different from the manyslatternly persons who had before taken toll. She said her peoplecame from "down East," but she herself was born in Ohio. She thoughtthe old lady would like a cup of strong tea, and her dinner was justready, and it did get lonesome eating by a body's self day after day.
The Padgetts added their store to the square table set in a backroom, and the toll-woman poured her steaming tea into cups coveredwith flower sprigs. Everything about her was neat and compact as aship's cabin. Her bed stood in one corner, curtained with whitedimity. There were two rooms to the toll-house, the front one being akind of shop containing a counter, candy jars set in the windows,shoestrings and boxes of thread on shelves, and a codfish or twosprawled upon nails and covered with netting. From the back door youcould descend into a garden, and at the end of the garden was a pig-sty,occupied by a white pig almost as tidy and precise as his owner. Inthe toll-woman's living room there was a cupboard fringed with tissuepaper, a rocking-chair cushioned in red calico, curtains to match, acooking-stove so small it seemed made for a play-thing, and yellowchairs having gold-leaf ornaments on their backs. She herself was astraight, flat woman, looking much broader in a front or back viewthan when she stood sidewise toward you. Her face was very good-natured.Altogether she seemed just the ready and capable wife for whom theman went to London after the rats and the mice led him such a life.Though in her case it is probable the wheelbarrow would not havebroken, nor would any other mishap have marred the journey.
"You don't live here by yourself, do you?" inquired Grandma Padgettas the tea and the meal in common warmed an acquaintance which thefact of their being from one State had readily begun.
"Since father died I have," replied the toll-woman. "Father moved inhere when about everything else failed him, and he'd lost ambition,and laws! now I am used to it. I might gone back to Ohio, but whenyou fit me into a place I never want to pull up out of it."
"And don't you ever get afraid, nights or any time, without menfolks about?"
"Before I got used to being alone, I did. And there's reason yetevery little while. But I only got one bad scare."
A wagon paused at the front door, so near the horses might have puttheir heads in and sniffed up the merchandise, and the woman went totake toll, before telling about her bad scare.
"How do you manage in the nights?" inquired her guest.
"That's bad about fair-times, when the wild young men get to racin'late along. The pole's been cut when I tied it down, and sometimesthey've tried to jump it. But generally the travellers are peaceableenough. I've got a box in the front door like a letter-box, with aslit outside for them to drop change into, and the pole rope pullsdown through the window-frame. There ain't so much travel by night asthere used to be, and a body learns to be wakeful anyhow if they'veever had the care of sick old people."
"You didn't say how you got scared," remarked aunt Corinne, sittingstraight in one of the yellow chairs to impress upon her mind theimage of this heroine of the road.
"Well, it was robbers," confessed the toll-woman, "breakin' into thehouse, that scared me."
Robbers! Aunt Corinne's nephew mentally saw a cavern in one of theneighboring hills, and men in scarlet cloaks and feathers lurkingamong the bushes. If there is any word sweeter to the young male earthan Indian or Tagger, it is robbers.
"Are there many robbers around here?" he inquired, fixing intenteyes on the toll-woman.
"There used to be plenty of horse-thieves, and is, yet," she replied."They've come huntin' them from away over in Illinois. I remember thatyear the milk-sick was so bad there was more horse-thieves than we'veever heard of since."
"But they ain't true robbers, are they?" said aunt Corinne's nephewin some disgust, his scarlet bandits paling.
"Not the kind that come tryin' the house when I got scared,"admitted the toll-woman.
"And did they get in?" exclaimed Robert Day's aunt.
"I don't like to think about it yet," remarked the toll-woman,cooling her tea and intent on enjoying her own story. "'Twasn't sovery long ago, either. First comes word from this direction that atoll-gate keeper and his wife was tied and robbed at the dead o'night. And then comes word from the other direction of an old manbein' knocked on the head when he opened his door. It wouldn't seemto you there'd be enough money at a toll-gate to make it an object,"said the woman, looking at Zene's cross eyes with unconcealeddisfavor. "But folks of that kind don't want much of an object."
"They love to rob," suggested Bobaday, enjoying himself.
"They're a desp'rate, evil set," said the toll-woman sternly. "Why,I could tell things that would make your hair all stand on end, aboutrobberies I've known."
Aunt Corinne felt a warning stir in her scalp-lock. But her nephew beganto desire permanent encampment in the neighborhood of this toll-gate.Robber-stories which his grandmother not only allowed recited, butdrank in with her tea, were luxuries of the road not to be left behind.
"Tell some of them," he urged.
"I'll tell you about their comin' _here_," said the toll-woman."'Twas soon after father's death. They must known there was a lonewoman here, and calculated on findin' it an easy job. He'd kept meawake a good deal, for father suffered constant in his last sickness,and though I was done out, I still had the habit of wakin' regular athis medicine-hours. The time was along in the fall, and there was ahigh wind that night. Fair time, too, so there was more travel on the'pike of people comin' and goin' to the Fair and from it, in one day,than in a whole week ordinary times."
THE TOLL-WOMAN.]
"I opened my eyes just as the clock struck two and seemed like Iheard something at the front door. I listened and listened. It wasn'tthe wind singin' along the telegraph wires as it does when there's astrong draught east and west. And it wasn't anybody tryin' to wake meup. Some of our farmers that buys stock and has to be out early andlate in a droviete way, often tells me beforehand what time o' nightthey'll be likely to
come by, and I set the pole so it'll be easy forthem that knows how to tip up. Then they put their money in the box,and tip the pole back after they drive through, to save wakin' me,for the neighbors are real accommodating and they knew father took aheap of care. But the noise I heard wasn't anybody droppin' coppersin the box, nor raisin' or lowerin' the pole. The rope rasps againstthe hole when the gate goes up or down. It was just like a lock wasbein' picked, or a rattly old window bein' slid up by inches.
"I mistrusted right away. It wouldn't do any good for me to holler.The nearest neighbor was two miles off. I hadn't any gun, and nevershot off a gun in my life. I would hate to hurt a human bein' thatway. Still, I was excited and afraid of gettin' killed myself; so ifI'd _had_ a gun I _might_ have shot it off, for by the timeI got my dress and stockin's on, that window was up, and somethin'was in that front room. I could hear him step, still as a cat.
"I thought about the toll-money. Everybody knew the box's inside thedoor, so I was far from leavin' it there till the collector came. Ialways took the money out and tied it in a canvas sack and hid it. Abody would never think of lookin' where I hid that money."
"Where did you hide it?" inquired aunt Corinne.
The toll-woman rose up and went to collect from a carriage at thedoor. The merry face of a girl in the carriage peeped through thehouse, and some pleasant jokes were exchanged.
"That's the daughter of the biggest stock man around here," said thetoll-woman, returning, and passing over aunt Corinne's question. "Shegoes to college, but it don't make a simpleton of _her_. She alwayshas a smile and a pleasant word. Her folks are real good friends ofmine. They knew our folks in Ohio."
"And did he come right in and grab you?" urged Bobaday, keeping tothe main narrative.
"I was that scared for a minute," resumed the toll-woman, "that Ihadn't any strength. The middle door never is locked. I leave it onthe latch like, so I can hear wheels better. What to do I didn'tknow, but a body thinks fast at such times. First thing I knew I wason the back doorstep, hookin' the door on the outside. Then a gust ofwind like, came around the corner of the house, and voices came withit, and I felt sure there were more men waitin' there to ketch me, ifI tried to run."