CHAPTER IV. THE SUSAN HOUSE.
The contents of that pocket she piled upon her seat; she raked theinterior with her nails, then she looked at Robert Day with dilatingeyes.
"_My_ gold dollar's gone!" said aunt Corinne. "That little oldman with a bag on his back--I just know he got into the barn and tookit last night."
"You put it in and took it out so many times yesterday," saidBobaday, "maybe it fell on the carriage floor." So they unavailinglysearched the carriage floor.
The little old man with a bag on his back was now fixed in Corinne'simagination as the evil genius of the journey. If he spirited out hergold dollar, what harm could he not do them! He might throw stones atthem from sheltered places, and even shoot them with guns. He couldjump out of any culvert and scare them almost to death! Thisdestroyed half her pleasure as the day advanced, in watching boysfish with horse-hair snares in the runs which trickled underculverts. But Robert felt so much interest in the process that he wasglad to have the noon halt made near such a small fishing-place. Hetook his lunch and sat on the bank with the boys. They were verydirty, and one of them had his shirtsleeve split to the shoulder,revealing a sun-blistered elbow joint that still worked with a rightgood will at snaring. But no boys were ever fuller of out-doorwisdom. They had been swimming, and knew the best diving-hole in theworld, only a couple of miles away. They had dined on berries, andexpected to catch it when they got home, but meant to attend a showin one of their barns that afternoon, the admission price being tenpins. Bobaday learned how to make a slip-knot with the horse-hair andhold it in silent suspense just where the minnows moved: the moment afish glided into the open snare a dexterous jerk whipped him out ofthe water, held firmly about the middle by the hair noose. Itrequired skill and nice handling, and the split-sleeved boy was themost accomplished snarer of all.
BOBADAY LUNCHES WITH STRANGE BOYS.]
Robert shared his lunch with these youths, and parted from themreluctantly when the horses were put in. But aunt Corinne who stoodby in a critical attitude, said she couldn't see any use in catchingsuch little fish. You never fried minnies. You used 'em for bait indeep water, though, the split-sleeved boy condescended to inform her,and you _could_ put 'em into a glass jar, and they'd grow likeeverything. Aunt Corinne was just becoming fired with anxiety to ownsuch a jarful herself, when the carriage turned toward the road andher mother obliged her to climb in.
About the middle of the afternoon Zene halted and waited for thecarriage to come up. He left his seat and came to the rear of OldHickory, the off carriage horse, slapping a fly flat on Old Hickory'sflank as he paused.
"What's the matter, Zene?" inquired Grandma Padgett. "Has anythinghappened?"
"No, marm," replied Zene. He was a quiet, singular fellow, haltingin his walk on account of the unevenness of his legs; but faithful tothe family as either Boswell or Johnson. Grandma Padgett havingbrought him up from a lone and forsaken child, relied upon all thegood qualities she discovered from time to time, and she saw nothingludicrous in Zene. But aunt Corinne and Bobaday never ceased totitter at Zene's "marm."
"I've been inquirin' along, and we can turn off of the 'pike up hereat the first by-road, and then take the first cross-road west, andsave thirty mile o' toll gates. The road goes the same direction.It's a good dirt road."
Grandma Padgett puckered the brows above her glasses. She did notwant to pay unnecessary bounty to the toll-gate keepers.
"Well, that's a good plan, Zene, if you're sure we won't lose theway, or fall into any dif-fick-ulty."
"I've asked nigh a dozen men, and they all tell the same tale," saidZene.
"People ought to know the lay of the land in their own neighborhood,"admitted Grandma Padgett. "Well, we'll try what virtue there is in thedirt road."
So she clucked to the carriage horses and Zene went back to hischarge.
The last toll-gate they would see for thirty miles drew its poledown before them. Zene paid according to the usual arrangement, andthe toll-man only stood in the door to see the carriage pass.
"I wouldn't like to live in a little bit of a house sticking out onthe 'pike like that," said aunt Corinne to her nephew. "Folks couldrun against it on dark nights. Does he stay there by himself? And ifrobbers or old beggars came by they could nab him the minute heopened his door."
"But if he has any boys," suggested Robert looking back, "they cansee everybody pass, and it'd be just as good as going some place allthe time. And who's afraid of robbers!"
Zene beckoned to the carriage as he turned off the 'pike. For adistance the wagon moved ahead of them, between tall stake fenceswhich were overrun with vines or had their corners crowded with bushes.Wheat and cornfields and sweet-smelling buckwheat spread out on eachside until the woods met them, and not a bit of the afternoon heattouched the carriage after that. Aunt Corinne clasped a leather-coveredupright which hurt her hand before, and leaned toward the trees onher side. Every new piece of woodland is an unexplored country containingmoss-lined stumps, dimples of hollows full of mint, queer-shaped trees,and hickory saplings just the right saddle-curve for bending down as"teeters," such as are never reproduced in any other piece of woodland.Nature does not make two trees alike, and her cool breathing-halls underthe woods' canopies are as diverse as the faces of children wanderingthere. Moss or lichens grow thicker in one spot; another particularenclosure you call the lily or the bloodroot woods, and yet anotherthe wild-grape woods. This is distinguished for blackberries away upin the clearings, and that is a fishing woods, where the limbs stretchdown to clear holes, and you sit in a root seat and hear springstrickling down the banks while you fish. Though Corinne could possessthese reaches of trees only with a brief survey, she enjoyed them as anovelty.
"I would like to get lost in the woods," she observed, "and haveeverybody out hunting me while I had to eat berries and roots. Idon't believe I'd like roots, though: they look so big and tough. AndI wouldn't touch a persimmon! Nor Injun turnip. You's a bad boy thattime you give me Injun turnip to eat, Bobaday Padgett!"
She turned upon her nephew, fierce with the recollection, and helaughed, saying he wished he'd some to fool somebody with now.
"It bit my mouth so a whole crock of milk wouldn't help it, and ifbrother Tip'd been home, Ma Padgett wouldn't let you off so easy."
"You wanted to taste it," said Robert. "And you'd eat the greenpersimmons if they'd puckered your mouth clear shut."
"I wanted to see what the things that the little pig that lived inthe stone house filled his churn with, tasted like," admitted auntCorinne lucidly; so she subsided.
"Do you see the wagon, children?" inquired Grandma Padgett, who feltthe necessity of following Zene's lead closely. She stopped OldHickory and Old Henry at cross-roads.
"No; but he said turn west on the first road we came to," counseledBobaday.
"And this is the first, I counted," said aunt Corinne.
"I wish we could see the cover ahead of us. We don't want to reskgettin' separated," said Grandma Padgett.
Yet she turned the horses westward with a degree of confidence, anddrove up into a hilly country which soon hid the sun. The long shadescrept past and behind them. There was a country church, with agraveyard full of white stones nearly smothered in grass and briers.And there was a school-house in an open space, with a playgroundbeaten bare and white in the midst of a yellow mustard jungle. Theysaw some loiterers creeping home, carrying dinner-pail and basket,and taking a languid last tag of each other. The little girls lookedup at the passing carriage from their sunbonnet depths, but the boyshad taken off their hats to slap each other with: they looked at thestrangers, round-eyed and ready to smile, and Robert and Corinnenodded. Grandma Padgett bethought herself to ask if any of them hadseen a moving wagon pass that way. The girls stared bashfully at eachother and said "No, ma'am," but the boys affirmed strongly that theyhad seen two moving wagons go by, one just as school was out, and theboldest boy of all made an effort to remember the white and grayhorses.
The top of
a hill soon stood between these children, and thetravellers, but in all the vista beyond there was no glimpse of Zene.
Grandma Padgett felt anxious, and her anxiety increased as the duskthickened.
"There don't seem to be any taverns along this road," she said; "andI hate to ask at any farmer's for accommodations over night. We don'tknow the neighborhood, and a body hates to be a bother."
"Let's camp out," volunteered Bobaday.
"We'd need the cover off of the wagon to do that, and kittles," saidGrandma Padgett, "and dried meat and butter and cake and things_out_ of the wagon."
"Maybe Zene's back in the woods campin' somewhere," exclaimed auntCorinne. "And he has his gun, and can shoot birds too."
"No, he's goin' along the right road and expectin' us to follow. Andas like as not has found a place to put up,--while we're off on thewrong road."
"How'll we ever get to brother Tip's, then?" propounded auntCorinne. "Maybe we're in Missouri, or Iowa, and won't never get tothe Illinois line!"
"Humph!" remarked Robert her nephew; "do you s'pose folks could goto Iowa or Missouri as quick as this! Cars'd have to put on steam todo it."
"And I forgot about the State lines," murmured his aunt. "The'hasn't been any ropes stretched along't _I_ saw."
"They don't bound States with ropes," said Robert Day.
"Well, it's lines," insisted aunt Corinne.
"Do you make out a house off there?" questioned Grandma Padgett,shortening the discussion.
"Yes, ma'am, and it's a tavern," assured her grandson, kneeling uponthe cushion beside her to stretch his neck forward.
It was a tavern in a sandy valley. It was lighting a cautious candleor two as they approached. A farmer was watering his team at thetrough under the pump spout. All the premises had a look of Holland,which Grandma Padgett did not recognize: she only thought them veryclean. There was a side door cut across the centre like the doors ofmills, so that the upper part swung open while the lower partremained shut. A fat white woman leaned her elbows upon this,scarcely observing the travellers.
Grandma Padgett paused at the front of the house and waited forsomebody to come out. The last primrose color died slowly out of thesky. If the tavern had any proprietor, he combined farming withtavern keeping. His hay and wheat fields came close to the garden,and his corn stood rank on rank up the hills.
"They must be all asleep in there," fretted Grandma Padgett. Thewoman with her arms over the half door had not stirred.
"Shall I run in?" said Bobaday.
"Yes, and ask if Zene stopped here. I don't see a sign of the wagon."
Her grandson opened the carriage door and ran down the steps. Thewhite-scrubbed hall detained him several minutes before he returnedwith a large man who smoked a crooked-stemmed pipe during theconference. The man held the bowl of the pipe in his hand which wasfat and red. So was his face. He had a mighty tuft of hair on hisupper lip. His shirt sleeves shone like new snow through the dark.
"Goot efenins," he said very kindly.
"I want to stop here over night," said Grandma Padgett. "We'removing, and our wagon is somewhere on this road. Have you seenanything of a wagon--and a white and a gray horse?"
"Oh, yes," said the tavern keeper, nodding his head. "Dere is lotsof wakkons on de road aheadt."
"Well, we can't go further ourselves. Can you take the lines?"
"Oh, nein," said the tavern-keeper mildly. "I don't keep moofers mitmy house. Dey goes a little furter."
"You don't keep movers!" said Grandma Padgett indignantly. "What'syour tavern for?"
"Oh, yah," replied the host with undisturbed benevolence. "Dey goesa little furter."
"Why have you put out a sign to mislead folks?"
The tavern keeper took the pipe out of his mouth to look up at hissign. It swayed back and forth in the valley breeze, as if itselfexpostulating with him.
"Dot's a goot sign," he pronounced. "Auf you go up te hill, tere istte house I put up mit te moofers. First house. All convenient. Yousthay tere. I coom along in te mornin'. Tere ist more as feeftyfamblies sthop mit tat house. Oh, nien, I don't keep moofers mit tetafern."
"This is a queer way to do," said Grandma Padgett, fixing the fullseverity of her glasses on him. "Turn a woman and two children awayto harbor as well as they can in some old barn! I'll not stop in yourhouse on the hill. Who'd 'tend to the horses?"
"Tare ist grass and water," said the landlord as she turned from hisdoor. "And more as feefty famblies hast put up tere. I don't keepmoofers mit te tafern."
Robert and Corinne felt very homeless as she drove at a rattlingpace down the valley. They were hungry, and upon an unknown road; andthat inhospitable tavern had turned them away like vagrants.
"We'll drive all night before we'll stop in his movers' pen," saidGrandma Padgett with her well-known decision. "I suppose he callsevery vagabond that comes along a mover, and his own house is tooclean for such gentry. I've heard about the Swopes and the Dutchbeing stupid, but a body has to travel before they know."
But well did the Dutch landlord know the persuasion of his house onthe hill after luckless travellers had passed through a stream whichdrained the valley. This was narrow enough, but the very banks had acaving, treacherous look. Grandma Padgett drove in, and the carriagecame down with a plunge on the flanks of Old Hickory and Old Henry,and they disappeared to their nostrils and the harness strips alongthe centre of their backs.
"HASN'T THE CREEK ANY BOTTOM?" CRIED GRANDMA PADGETT.]
"Hasn't the creek any bottom?" cried Grandma Padgett, while Corinneand Robert clung to the settling carriage. The water poured acrosstheir feet and rose up to their knees. Hickory and Henry were urgedwith whip and cry.
"Hold fast, children! Don't get swept out!" Grandma Padgettexhorted. "There's no danger if the horses can climb the bank."
They were turned out of their course by the current, and Hickory andHenry got their fore feet out, crumbling a steep place. Below thebank grew steeper. If they did not get out here, all must go whirlingand sinking down stream. The landing was made, both horses leaping upas if from an abyss. The carriage cracked, and when its wheels oncemore ground the dry sand, Grandma Padgett trembled awhile, and movedher lips before replying to the children's exclamations.
"We've been delivered from a great danger," she said. "And thatmiserable man let us drive into it without warning!"
"If I's big enough," said Robert Day, "I'd go back and thrash him."
"It ill becomes us," rebuked Grandma Padgett, "to give place towrath after escaping from peril. But if this is the trap he sets forhis house on the hill, I hope he has been caught in it himselfsometime!"
"Where'll we go now?" Corinne wailed, having considered it was timeto begin crying. "I'm drownded, and my teeth knock together, I'mgettin' so cold!"
They paused at the top of the hill, Corinne still lamenting.
"I don't want to stop here," said Grandma Padgett, adding, "but Isuppose we must."
The house was large and weather-beaten; its gable-end turned towardthe road. The "feefty famblies" had left no trace of domestic life.Grass and weeds grew to the lower windows. The entrance was at oneside through a sea of rank growths.
"It looks like they's ghosts lived here," pronounced Robert dismally.
"Don't let me hear such idle speeches!" said Grandma Padgett,shaking her head. "Spooks and ghosts only live in people'simaginations."
"If they got tired of that," said Robert, "they'd come to live here."
"The old house looks like its name was Susan," wept Corinne. "Are wegoin' to stay all night in this Susan house, ma?"
Her parent stepped resolutely from the carriage, and Bobadayhastened to let down some bars. He helped his grandmother lead thehorses into a weedy enclosure, and there unhitch them from thecarriage. There was a shed covered with straw which served for astable. The horses were watered--Robert wading to his neck amongcherry sprouts to a curb well, and unhooking the heavy bucket fromits chain, after a search for something else availab
le. Then leavingthe poor creatures to browse as best they could, the party preparedto move upon the house. Aunt Corinne came out of the wet carriage.
Grandma Padgett picked up some sticks and chips. They attempted tounlock the door; but the lock was broken. "Anybody can go in!"remarked the head of the party. "But I don't know that we can evenbuild a fire, and as to provisions, I s'pose we'll have to starvethis night."
But stumbling into a dark front room, and feeling hopelessly alongthe mantel, they actually found matches. The tenth one struck flame.
There were ashes and black brands in the fireplace, left there possibly,by the landlord's last moofer. Grandma Padgett built a fire to which thechildren huddled, casting fearful glances up the damp-stained walls.The flame was something like a welcome.
"Perhaps," said Grandma with energy, "there are even provisions inthe house. I wouldn't grudge payin' that man a good price and cookin'them myself, if I could give you something to eat."
"We can look," suggested Bobaday. "They'd be in the cellar, wouldn'tthey?"
"It's lots lonesomer than our house was the morning we came away,"chattered aunt Corinne, warming her long hands at the blaze.
And now beneath the floor began a noise which made even GrandmaPadgett stand erect, glaring through her glasses.
"_Something's_ in the cellar!" whispered Bobaday.