CHAPTER VII. ZENE'S MAN AND WOMAN.
A covered wagon appeared on the first crossroad, moving steadilybetween rows of elder bushes. The carriage waited its approach. Afigure like Zene's sat resting his feet on the tongue behind the oldgray and the old white.
"It's our wagon," said Robert Day. Presently Zene's countenance, andeven the cast in his eyes, became a certainty instead of a waveringindistinctness, and he smiled with satisfaction while halting hisvehicle at right angles with the carriage.
"Where have you been?" inquired Grandma Padgett.
"Over on t'other road," replied Zene, indicating the direction withhis whip, "huntin' you folks. I knowed you hadn't made the right turnsomehow."
Grandma Padgett mentioned her experience with the Dutch landlord andthe ford, both of which Zene had avoided by taking another cross-roadthat he had neglected to indicate to them. He said he thought theywould see the wagon-track and foller, not bein' fur behind. When hediscovered they were not in his train, he was in a narrow road andcould not turn; so he tied the horses and walked back a piece. He goton a corn-field fence and shouted to them; but by that time there wasno carriage anywhere in the landscape.
"Such things won't do," said Grandma Padgett with some severity.
"No, marm," responded Zene humbly.
"We must keep together," said the head of the caravan.
"Yes, marm," responded Zene earnestly.
"Well, now, you may drive ahead and keep the carriage in sight tillit's dinner-time and we come to a good place to halt."
Bobaday said he believed he would get in with Zene and try the wagonawhile. Springs and cushions had become tiresome. He half-stood onthe tongue, to bring his legs down on a level with Zene's, andenjoyed the jolting in every piece of his backbone. He had had asurfeit of woman-society. Even the horsey smell of Zene's clothes wasfound agreeable. And above all, he wanted to talk about J. D.Matthews, and tell the terrors of a bottomless ford and a house witha strange-sounding cellar.
"But the man was the funniest thing," said Bobaday. "He just talkedpoetry all the time, and Grandma said he was daft. I'd like to talkthat way myself, but I can't make it jee."
Zene observed mysteriously, that there were some queer folks in thissection.
Yes, Bobaday admitted; the landlord was as Dutch as sour-krout.
Zene observed that all the queer folks wasn't Dutch. He shook hishead and looked so steadily at a black stump that Robert knew hiseyes were fixedly cast on the horizon. The boy speculated on thepossibility of people with crooked eyes seeing anything clearly. ButZene's hints were a stimulant to curiosity.
"Where did _you_ stay last night?" inquired Robert, bracinghimself for pleasant revelations.
"Oh, I thought at first I'd put up in the wagon." replied Zene.
"But you didn't?"
"No: not _intirely_."
"What _did_ you do?" pressed Robert Day.
"Well, I thought I'd better git nigh some house, on account ofgivin' me a chance to see if you folks come by. I thought you'dinquire at all the houses."
"Did you stop at one?"
ZENE EXCITES BOBADAY'S CURIOSITY.]
"I took the team out _by_ a house. It was plum dark then."
"I'd gone in to see what kind of folks they were first," remarkedBobaday.
"Yes, sir; that's what I'd orto done. But I leads them round totheir feed-box after I watered 'em to a spring o' runnin' water. ThenI doesn't know but the woman o' the house will give me a supper if Ipays for it. So I slips to the side door and knocks. And a man opensthe door."
Robert Day drew in his breath quickly.
"How did the man look?" he inquired.
"I can't tell you that," replied Zene, "bekaze I was so struck withthe looks of the woman that I looked right past him."
Robert considered the cast in Zene's eyes, and felt in doubt whetherhe looked at the man and saw the woman, or looked at the woman andsaw the man.
"Was she pretty?"
"Pretty!" replied Zene. "Is that flea-bit-gray, grazin' in themedder there, pretty?"
"Well," replied Bobaday, shifting his feet, "that's about as good-lookingas one of our old grays."
"You don't know a horse," said Zene indulgently. "Ourn's an irongray. There's a sight of difference in grays."
"Was the woman ugly?"
"Is a spotted snake ugly?"
"Yes," replied Robert decidedly; "or it 'pears so to me."
"That's how the woman 'peared to me. She was tousled, and lookedwild out of her eyes. The man says, says he, 'What do you want?' Is'ze, 'Can I git a bite here?'"
Robert had frequently explained to Zene the utter nonsense of thisabbreviation, "I s'ze," but Zene invariably returned to it, perhapsdimly reasoning that he had a right to the dignity of third personwhen repeating what he had said. If he said of another man, "sayshe," why could he not remark of himself, "I says he?" He consideredit not only correct, but ornamental.
"The man says, says he, 'We don't keep foot-pads.' And I s'ze--for Iwas mad--'I ain't no more a foot-pad than you are,' I s'ze. 'I've gota team and a wagon out here,' I s'ze, 'and pervisions too, but I'vegot the means to pay for a warm bite,' I s'ze, 'and if you can'taccommodate me, I s'pose there's other neighbors that can.'"
"You shouldn't told him you had money and things!" exclaimed Robert,bulging his eyes.
"I see that, soon's I done it," returned Zene, shaking a line overthe near horse. "The woman spoke up, and she says, says she, 'Thereain't any neighbor nigher than five miles.' Thinks I, this settlementlooked thicker than that. But I doesn't say yea or no to it. And theyhad me come in and eat. I paid twenty-five cents for such a meal asyour gran'marm wouldn't have set down on her table."
"What did they have?"
"Don't ask me," urged Zene; "I'd like to forget it. There wasvittles, but they tasted so funny. And they kept inquirin' where I'sgoin' and who was with me. They was the uneasiest people you eversee. And nothing would do but I must sleep in the house. There wastwo rooms. I didn't see till I was in bed, that the only door I couldget out of let into the room where the man and woman stayed."
Robert Day began to consider the part of Ohio through which hiscaravan was passing, a weird and unwholesome region, full ofshivering delights. While the landscape lay warm, glowing and naturalaround him, it was luxury to turn cold at Zene's night-peril.
"I couldn't go to sleep," continued Zene, "and I kind of kept my eyeon the only window there was."
Robert drew a sigh of relief as he reflected that an enemy watchingat the window would be sure Zene was looking just in the oppositedirection.
"And the man and woman they whispered."
"What did they whisper about?"
"How do I know?" said Zene mysteriously. "Whisper--whisper--whisper--z-z!That's the way they kept on. Sometimes I thought he's threatenin' her,and sometimes I thought she's threatenin' him. But along in the middleof the night they hushed up whisperin'. And then I heard somebody openthe outside door and go out. I s'ze to myself, 'Nows the time to be upand ready.' So I was puttin' on the clothes I'd took off, and rightthere on the bed, like it had been there all the time, was two greatbig eyes turnin' from green to red, and flame comin' out of them likeit does out of coals when the wind blows."
"Was it a cat?" whispered Robert Day, hoping since Zene was safe,that it was not.
Zene passed the insinuation with a derisive puff. He would not stoopto parley about cats in a peril so extreme.
"'How do _I_ know what it was?" he replied. "I left one of mysocks and took the boot in my hand. It was all the gun or anything o'that kind I had. I left my neckhan'ketcher, too."
"But you didn't get out of the window," objected Bobaday eagerly."They always have a hole dug, you know, right under the window, tocatch folks in."
"Yes, I did," responded Zene, leaping a possible hole in hisaccount. "I guess I cleared forty rod, and I come down on all-foursbehind a straw-pile right in the stable-lot."
"Did the thing follow you?"
"Before I could turn around and look, I see that man and that womanleadin' our horses away from the grove where I'd tied 'em to thefeed-box."
"What for?" inquired Robert Day.
Zene cast a compassionate glance at his small companion.
"What do folks ever lead critters away in the night for?" he hinted.
"Sometimes to water and feed them."
"I s'ze to myself," continued Zene, ignoring this absurdsupposition, "'now, if they puts the horses in their stable, theymeans to keep the wagon too, and make way with me so no one will everknow it. But,' I s'ze, 'if they tries to lead the horses offsomewhere for to hide 'em, then _that's_ all they want, andthey'll pretend in the morning to have lost stock themselves.'"
"And which did they do?" urged Robert after a thrilling pause.
"They marched straight for their stable."
The encounter was now to take place. Robert Day braced himself bymeans of the wagon-tongue.
"Then what did _you_ do?"
"I rises up," Zene recounted in a cautious whisper, "draws back theboot, and throws with all my might."
"Not at the woman?" urged Bobaday.
"I wanted to break her first," apologized Zene. "She was worse thanthe man. But I missed her and hit him."
Robert was glad Zene aimed as he did.
"Then the man jumps and yells, and the woman jumps and yells, andthe old gray he rears up and breaks loose. He run right past thestraw pile, and before you could say Jack Robinson, I had him by thehitch-strap--it was draggin'--and hoppin' against the straw, I jumpedon him."
"Jack Robinson," Zene's hearer tried half-audibly. "Then what? Didthe man and woman run?"
"I makes old Gray jump the straw pile, and I comes at them just likeI rose out of the ground! Yes," acknowledged Zene forbearingly, "theyrun. Maybe they run toward the house, and maybe they run the otherway. I got a-holt of old White's hitch-strap and my boot; then Icantered out and hitched up, and went along the road real lively. Itwasn't till towards mornin' that I turned off into the woods and tiedup for a nap. Yes, I slept _part_ of the night in the wagon."
Robert sifted all these harrowing circumstances.
"_Maybe_ they weren't stealing the horses," he hazarded. "Don'tfolks ever unhitch other folks' horses to put 'em in their stable?"
Zene drew down the corners of his mouth to express impatience.
"But I'd hated to been there," Robert hastened to add.
"I guess you would," Zene observed in a lofty, but mollified way,"if you'd seen the pile of bones I passed down the road a piece fromthat house."
"Bones?"
"Piled all in a heap at the edge of the woods."
"What kind of bones, Zene?"
"Well, I didn't get out to handle 'em. But I see one skull about thesize of yours, with a cap on about the size of yours."
This was all that any boy could ask. Robert uttered a derisive "Ho!"but he sat and meditated with pleasure on the pile of bones. It casta lime-white glitter on the man and woman who but for that might havebeen harmless.
"I didn't git much rest," concluded Zene. "I could drop off soundnow if I'd let myself."
"I'll drive," proposed Bobaday.
Zene reluctantly considered this offer. The road ahead looked smoothenough. "I guess there's no danger unless you run into a fencecorner," he remarked.
"I can drive as well as Grandma Padgett can," said Robert indignantly.
Zene wagged his head as if unconvinced. He never intended to letRobert Day be a big boy while he stayed with the family.
"Your gran'marm knows how to handle a horse. Now if I's to crawlback and take a nap, and you's to run the team into any accident, I'dhave to bear all the blame."
Robert protested: and when Zene had shifted his responsibility tohis satisfaction, he crept back and leaned against the goods, fallinginto a sound sleep.
The boy drove slowly forward. It seemed that old gray and old whitealso felt last night's vigils. They drowsed along with their headsdown through a landscape that shimmered sleepily.
Robert thought of gathering apples in the home orchard: of the bigred ones that used to fall and split asunder with their own weight,waking him sometimes from a dream, with their thump against the sod.What boy hereafter would gather the sheep-noses, and watch the earlyJune's every day until their green turned suddenly into gold, and onebite was enough to make you sit down under the tree and ask fornothing better in life! He used to keep the chest in his room flooredwith apples. They lay under his best clothes and perfumed them. Hisnose knew the breath of a russet, and in a dark cellar he could smellout the bell-flower bin. The real poor people of the earth must bethose who had no orchards; who could not clap a particular comrade ofa tree on the bark and look up to see it smiling back red and yellowsmiles; who could not walk down the slope and see apples lying inridges, or pairs, or dotting the grass everywhere. Robert was half-asleep,dreaming of apples. He felt thirsty, and heard a humming like thebuzz of bees around the cider-press. He and aunt Corinne used to sitdown by the first tub of sweet cider, each with two straws apiece,and watch their faces in the rosy juice while they drank Cider fromthe barrels when snow was on the ground, poured out of a pitcher intoa glass, had not the ecstatic tang of cider through a straw. The Beescame to the very edge of the tub, as if to dispute such hiving ofdiluted honey; and more of them came, from hanging with bent bodies,around the dripping press.
Their buzz increased to a roar. Robert Day woke keenly up to findthe old white and the old gray just creeping across a railroad track,and a locomotive with its train whizzing at full speed towards them.