CHAPTER XI. THE DARKENED WAGON.
Aunt Corinne and her nephew felt pierced by the cry. Her handsgripped his jacket with a shock. Robert Day turning took hold of hisaunt's wrist to pinch her silent, but his efforts were too zealousand turned her fright to indignation.
"I don't want my hand pinched off, Bobaday Padgett!" whispered auntCorinne, jerking away and thus breaking the circuit of comfort andprotection which was supposed to flow from his jacket.
"But listen," hissed Robert.
"I don't want to listen," whispered aunt Corinne; "I want to go backto our camp-fire."
"Nobody can hurt us," whispered her nephew, gathering boldness. "Youstay here and let me creep through the bushes to that wagon. I wantto see what it was."
"If you stay a minute I'll go and leave you," remonstrated auntCorinne. "Ma Padgett don't want us off here by ourselves."
But Robert's hearing was concentrated upon the object toward whichhe moved. He used Indian-like caution. The balls of his large eyesbecame so prominent that they shone with some of the lustre of acat's in the dark.
Corinne took hold of the bushes in his absence.
The wind was breathing sadly through the trees far off. What if somepoor little child, lost in the woods, should come patting to her,with all the wildness of its experience hanging around it? Oh, thewoods was a good play-house, on sunshiny days, but not the best ofhomes, after all. That must be why people built houses. When the snowlay in a deep cake, showing only the two thumb-like marks at longintervals made by the rabbit in its leaping flight, and when the airwas so tense and cold you could hear the bark of a dog far off,Bobaday used to say he would love to live in the woods all the time.He would chop to keep himself warm. He loved to drag the air into hislungs when it seemed frozen to a solid. Corinne remembered how hischeeks burned and his eyes glittered during any winter exertion. Andwhat could be prettier, he said, than the woods after it sleeted allnight, and hoar frost finished the job! Every tree would standglittering in white powder, as if dressed for the grandest occasion,the twigs tipped with lace-work, and the limbs done in tracery andall sorts of beautiful designs. Still this white dress was deadlycold to handle. Aunt Corinne had often pressed her fingers into thevelvet crust upon the trunks. She did not like the winter woods, andhardly more did she like this rain-soaked place, and these broad,treacherous leaves that poured water down her neck in the humid dark.
Bobaday pounced upon her with such force when he appeared once more,that she was startled into trying to climb a bush no higher thanherself.
He had not a word to say, but hitched his aunt to his jacket anddrew her away with considerable haste. They floundered over logs andran against stumps. Their own smouldering fire, and wagon with thehoops standing up like huge uncovered ribs, and the tents whereintheir guardian slept after the fatigue of the day, all appearedwonderfully soon, considering the time it had taken them to reachtheir exploring limit.
Aunt Corinne huddled by the coals, and Bobaday sat down on the foot-chunkhe had placed for his awning throne.
"You better go to bed quick as ever you can," he said.
"I guess I ain't goin'," said aunt Corinne with indignant surprise,"till you tell me somethin' about what was up in the bushes. I stayedstill and let you look, and now you won't tell me!"
"You heard the sound," remonstrated Robert.
"But I didn't see anything," argued aunt Corinne.
"You wouldn't want to," said Bobaday.
They were talking in cautious tones, but no longer whispering. Ithad become too tiresome. Aunt Corinne would now have burst out withan exclamation, but checked herself and tilted her nose, talking tothe coals which twinkled back to her between her slim fingers.
"Boys think they are so smart! They want to have all the good timesand see all the great shows, and go slidin' in winter time, whengirls have to stay in the house and knit, and then talk like they'sgrown up, and we's little babies!"
Robert Day fixed his eyes on his aunt with superior compassion.
"Grandma Padgett wouldn't want me to scare you," he observed.
Corinne edged several inches closer to him. She felt that she mustknow what her nephew had seen if she had to thread all the dark mazesagain and look at it by herself.
"Ma Padgett never 'lows me to act scared," she reminded him. "Ialways have to go up to what I'm 'fraid of."
"You won't go up to this."
"Maybe I will. Tisn't so far back to that wagon."
"I wouldn't stir it up for considerable," said Robert.
"Was it a lion or a bear? Was it goin' to eat anything? Is that whatmade the little child cry?"
"The little child hollered 'cause 'twas afraid of it. I was glad youdidn't look in at the end of the wagon with me."
Aunt Corinne edged some inches nearer her protector.
"How could you see what was in a dark wagon?"
"There was a candle lighted inside. Aunt Krin, there was a littlepretty girl in that wagon that I do believe the folks stole!"
This was like a story. The luxury of a real stolen child had neverbefore come in aunt Corinne's way.
"Why, Bobaday?" she inquired affectionately.
"Because the little girl seemed like she was dead till all at onceshe opened her eyes, and then her mouth as if she was going to screamagain, and they stopped her mouth up, and covered her in clothes."
"What did the wagon look like?"
"Like a little room. And they slept on the floor. They had tinthings hangin' around the sides, and a stove in one corner with thepipe stickin' up through the cover. And the cover was so thick youcouldn't see a light through it. You could only see through thepucker-hole where it comes together over the feed-box."
"And how many folks were there?"
"I don't know. I saw them fussing with the little girl, and I sawit, and then I didn't stay any longer."
"What was it, Bobaday?"
"I don't know," he solemnly replied.
"Yes, but what did it look like?"
Her nephew stared doubtingly upon her.
"Will you holler if I tell you?"
Aunt Corinne went through an impressive pantomime of deeding anddouble-deeding herself not to holler.
"Will you be afraid all the rest of the night?"
No; aunt Corinne intimated that her courage would be revived andstrengthened by knowing the worst about that wagon.
He pierced her with his dilating eyes, and beckoned her to put upher ear for the information.
"You ain't goin' to play any trick," remonstrated his relative, "likeyou did when you got me to say grandmother, grandmother,thith--thith--thith, and then hit my chin and made me bite my tongue?"
Robert was forced to chuckle at the recollection, but he assuredaunt Corinne that grandmother, grandmother, thith--thith--thith wasfar from his thoughts. He hesitated, with aunt Corinne's ear joggingagainst his chin. Then in a loud whisper he communicated:
"_It_ was a man with a pig's _head on_ him!"
Old Caravan Days Page 11