CHAPTER XXVII. A NIGHT PICTURE OF HOME.
Here at last was the robber. After you have given over expecting arobber, and even feel that you can do without him, to find himstealing up in the night when you are camped in a lonely place andnot near enough either tent or wagon to wake the other sleepers forreinforcements, is trying to the nerves.
Bobaday sat up in the carriage, bracing his courage for theemergency. He could take a cushion, jump out and attack the man withthat. It was not a deadly weapon, and would require considerableforce back of it to do damage. The whip might be better. He reachedfor the whip and turned the handle uppermost. There was no cave athand to trap this robber in, but a toll-woman should not show morespirit than Robert Day Padgett in the moment of peril.
Though the robber advanced cautiously, he struck his foot against aroot or two, and stumbled, making the horse take irregular stepsalso, for he was leading his horse with the bridle over his arm.
And he came directly up to the carriage. Robert grasped the whiparound the middle with both hands, but some familiar attitude in thestranger's dim outline made him lower it.
"Bobby," said the robber, speaking guardedly, "are you in here?"
"Pa Padgett," exclaimed Robert Day, "is that you?"
"Hush! Yes. It's me, of course. Don't wake your grandma. Old folksare always light sleepers."
Pa Padgett reached into the carriage, shook hands with his boy, andkissed him. How good the bushy beard felt against Bobaday's face.
He said nothing about robbers, while his father unsaddled his horseand tied the animal snugly to a limb.
Then Pa Padgett put his foot on the hub and sprang into the carriage.
"Is there room for me to stretch myself in here tonight too?"
"Of course there is. But don't you want to see grandma and auntKrin?"
"Wait till morning. We'll all take an early start. Have they keptwell?"
"Everybody's well," replied Bobaday. "But how did you know we werehere?"
"I'd have passed by," said Pa Padgett, "if I hadn't seen all thatwhite strung along. Been washing clothes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I made out the carriage, and something like a wagon back inthe bushes. So I came up to examine."
"We thought you'd be at the State line," said Robert.
"Oh, I intended to ride out till I met you," replied his father."But I'd have missed you on the plain road; and gone by to the nexttown to stop for you, if it hadn't been for the washing. You bettergo to sleep again now. Have you had a nice trip?"
"Oh, awful nice! There was a little girl lost, and we got her to hermother again, and Zene and the wagon were separated from us once"--
"Zene has taken good care of you, has he?"
"He didn't have to take care of us!" remonstrated Robert. "And lastnight when there was a fair, I thought he stuck around more than hewas needed: There was the meanest boy that stuck up his hose atmovers' children."
Aunt Corinne's brother Tip laughed under his breath.
"You'll not be movers' children much longer. The home is overyonder, only half a day's ride or so."
"Is it a nice place?"
"I think it's a nice place. There's prairie, but there's timber too.And there's money to be made. You go to sleep now. You'll wake yourgrandma, and I expect she's tired."
"Yes, sir, I'm going. Is there a garden?"
"There's a good bit of ground for a garden; and there's a plantingof young catalpas. Far as the eye can see in one direction, it'sprairie. On the other side is woods. The house is better than the oldone. I had to build, and I built pretty substantial. Your grandma'sgrowing old. She'll need comforts in her old age, and we must putthem around her, my man."
Bobaday thought about this home to which he and his family were togrow as trees grasp the soil. Already it seemed better to him thanthe one he had left. There would be new playmates, new landscapes,new meadows to run in, new neighbors, new prospects. The home, sodistant during the journey that he had scarcely thought about it atall, now seemed to inclose him with its pleasant walls, which thesmell of new timbers made pleasant twice over.
Boswell and Johnson, under the carriage, waked by the cautious talkfrom that sound sleep a hard day's hunts after woods things induces,and perhaps sniffing the presence of their master and the familiarair of home, rose up to shake themselves, and one of them yawneduntil his jaws creaked.
"It's the dogs," whispered Bobaday.
"We mustn't set them to barking," cautioned Pa Padgett.
"Well, good-night," said the boy, turning on his cushion.
"Good-night. This caravan must move on early in the morning."
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