Part 1 (1/2)
Old Caravan Days
by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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 athered the lines into her on was ready in front of the carriage It was to be driven by Zene, the la a last drink froarden, 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 far over the fields The house was shut up, its new inhabitants not having arrived Soain, 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 grandhborhood, and they shook their heads sorrowfully in rehorn bonnet, her Quaker shoulder cape and decided facefrom thehbor ”The wild Western prairie country won't suit you at all”
”I'ett, ”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 notyears”
The neighbors murmured that they knew, and one of them inquired as she had often inquired before, at what precise point grandett's son was tonew information, that it was at the Illinois State line
”You'll have pretty weather,” said another woett won't care for weather,” observed the neighbor with the key ”She inia in the dead o' winter”
”Yes; I was but a child,” said grandett, ”and this country one unbroken wilderness We came down the Ohio River by flatboat, and moved into this section when the snoas so deep you could ride across stake-and-rider fences on the drifts”
”Folks can get around easier now, though,” said the squinting neighbor, ”since they got to going on these railroads”
”I shi+pped part of ett with--a laugh ”But I don't know; I ain't used to the things, and I don't knohether I'd reskdistance or not Son Tip went out on the cars”
”The railroads charge so high,” murmured a woman near the back wheels ”But they do say you can ride as far West as you're a goin'
on the cars”
”How long will you be gettin' through?” inquired another
”Not ett resolutely ”It's a little better than three hundred and fifty hed the neighbor at the wheels
But aunt Corinne and her nephew, untroubled by the length of pilgriarden
”I wish the kerns were ripe,” said aunt Corinne ”Look out, Bobaday!
You're drabblin' the bottoood if the kerns were ripe,” said Bobaday, turning his pepper-and-salt trousers up until the linings showed
”This farm ain't ours now, and we couldn't pull them”
Aunt Corinne paused at the fennel bed: then she iathered it full