Old Caravan Days | Page 8

in the runs which trickled under culverts. But Robert felt so
much interest in the process that he was glad to have the noon halt
made near such a small fishing-place. He took his lunch and sat on the
bank with the boys. They were very dirty, and one of them had his

shirtsleeve split to the shoulder, revealing a sun-blistered elbow joint
that still worked with a right good will at snaring. But no boys were
ever fuller of out-door wisdom. They had been swimming, and knew
the best diving-hole in the world, only a couple of miles away. They
had dined on berries, and expected to catch it when they got home, but
meant to attend a show in one of their barns that afternoon, the
admission price being ten pins. Bobaday learned how to make a
slip-knot with the horse-hair and hold it in silent suspense just where
the minnows moved: the moment a fish glided into the open snare a
dexterous jerk whipped him out of the water, held firmly about the
middle by the hair noose. It required skill and nice handling, and the
split-sleeved boy was the most accomplished snarer of all.
[Illustration: BOBADAY LUNCHES WITH STRANGE BOYS.]
Robert shared his lunch with these youths, and parted from them
reluctantly when the horses were put in. But aunt Corinne who stood by
in a critical attitude, said she couldn't see any use in catching such little
fish. You never fried minnies. You used 'em for bait in deep water,
though, the split-sleeved boy condescended to inform her, and you
could put 'em into a glass jar, and they'd grow like everything. Aunt
Corinne was just becoming fired with anxiety to own such a jarful
herself, when the carriage turned toward the road and her mother
obliged her to climb in.
About the middle of the afternoon Zene halted and waited for the
carriage to come up. He left his seat and came to the rear of Old
Hickory, the off carriage horse, slapping a fly flat on Old Hickory's
flank as he paused.
"What's the matter, Zene?" inquired Grandma Padgett. "Has anything
happened?"
"No, marm," replied Zene. He was a quiet, singular fellow, halting in
his walk on account of the unevenness of his legs; but faithful to the
family as either Boswell or Johnson. Grandma Padgett having brought
him up from a lone and forsaken child, relied upon all the good
qualities she discovered from time to time, and she saw nothing

ludicrous in Zene. But aunt Corinne and Bobaday never ceased to titter
at Zene's "marm."
"I've been inquirin' along, and we can turn off of the 'pike up here at the
first by-road, and then take the first cross-road west, and save 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 not
want to pay unnecessary bounty to the toll-gate keepers.
"Well, that's a good plan, Zene, if you're sure we won't lose the way, or
fall into any dif-fick-ulty."
"I've asked nigh a dozen men, and they all tell the same tale," said
Zene.
"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 the
dirt road."
So she clucked to the carriage horses and Zene went back to his charge.
The last toll-gate they would see for thirty miles drew its pole down
before them. Zene paid according to the usual arrangement, and the
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 on the 'pike
like that," said aunt Corinne to her nephew. "Folks could run against it
on dark nights. Does he stay there by himself? And if robbers or old
beggars came by they could nab him the minute he opened his door."
"But if he has any boys," suggested Robert looking back, "they can see
everybody pass, and it'd be just as good as going some place all the
time. And who's afraid of robbers!"
Zene beckoned to the carriage as he turned off the 'pike. For a distance
the wagon moved ahead of them, between tall stake fences which were

overrun with vines or had their corners crowded with bushes. Wheat
and cornfields and sweet-smelling buckwheat spread out on each side
until the woods met them, and not a bit of the afternoon heat touched
the carriage after that. Aunt Corinne clasped a leather-covered upright
which hurt her hand before, and leaned toward the trees on her side.
Every new piece of woodland is an unexplored country containing
moss-lined stumps, dimples of hollows full of mint, queer-shaped trees,
and hickory