Old Caravan Days

Old Caravan Days

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Caravan Days, by Mary Hartwell
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Title: Old Caravan Days
Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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CARAVAN DAYS ***

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OLD CARAVAN DAYS
BY
MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD

CONTENTS.
I. THE START
II. THE LITTLE OLD MAN WITH A BAG ON HIS BACK
III. THE TAVERN
IV. THE SUSAN HOUSE
V. THE SUSAN HOUSE CELLAR
VI. MR. MATTHEWS
VII. ZENE'S MAN AND WOMAN
VIII. LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK
IX. THE GREAT CAMP MEETING
X. THE CRY OF A CHILD IN THE NIGHT
XI. THE DARKENED WAGON
XII. JONATHAN AND THRUSTY ELLEN
XIII. FAIRY CARRIE AND THE PIG-HEADED MAN
XIV. SEARCHING
XV. THE SPROUTING
XVI. THE MINSTREL
XVII. THE HOUSE WITH LOG STEPS
XVIII. "COME TO MAMMA!"
XIX. FAIRY CARRIE DEPARTS
XX. SUNDAY ON THE ROAD
XXI. HER MOTHER ARRIVES

XXII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY-SCHOOL
XXIII. FORWARD
XXIV. THE TOLL-WOMAN
XXV. THE ROBBERS
XXVI. THE FAIR AND THE FIERCE BANDIT
XXVII. A NIGHT PICTURE OF HOME

OLD CARAVAN DAYS.

CHAPTER I.
THE START.
In the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, on the fifth day of June,
the Padgett carriage-horses faced the west, and their mistress gathered
the lines into her mitted hands.
The moving-wagon was ready in front of the carriage. It was to be
driven by Zene, the lame hired man. Zene was taking a last drink from
that well at the edge of the garden, which lay so deep that your face
looked like a star in it. Robert Day Padgett, Mrs. Padgett's grandson,
who sat on the back seat of the carriage, decided that he must have one
more drink, and his aunt Corinne who sat beside him, was made thirsty
by his decision. So the two children let down the carriage steps and ran
to the well.
It was like Sunday all over the farm, only the cattle were not straying
over the fields. The house was shut up, its new inhabitants not having
arrived. Some neighbor women had come to bid the family good-bye
again, though it was so early that the garden lay in heavy dew. These
good friends stood around the carriage; one of them held the front-door
key in trust for the new purchaser. They all called the straight old lady
who held the lines grandma Padgett. She was grandma Padgett to the
entire neighborhood, and they shook their heads sorrowfully in
remembering that her blue spectacles, her ancient Leghorn bonnet, her
Quaker shoulder cape and decided face might be vanishing from them
forever.

"You'll come back to Ohio," said one neighbor. "The wild Western
prairie country won't suit you at all."
"I'm not denying," returned grandma Padgett, "that I could end my days
in peace on the farm here; but son Tip can do very little here, and he
can do well out there. I've lost my entire family except son Tip and the
baby of all, you know. And it's not my wish to be separated from son
Tip in my declining years."
The neighbors murmured that they knew, and one of them inquired as
she had often inquired before, at what precise point grandma Padgett's
son was to meet the party; and she replied as if giving new information,
that it was at the Illinois State line.
"You'll have pretty weather," said another woman, squinting-in the
early sun.
"Grandma Padgett won't care for weather," observed the neighbor with
the key. "She moved out from Virginia in the dead o' winter."
"Yes; I was but