Part 10 (1/2)
”I'ett, passing over the ranny over ninety with us!” he declared ”Now's the tireat western country”
Zene drove off the 'pike on the teett followed, the Virginian showing theood spot near the liveliest part of the caht pitch
The fae while Zene took out the horses, sheltered the wagon under thick foliage where rain scarcely penetrated, and stretched the canvas for a tent Then Grandett put on her rubber overshoes, pinned a shawl about her and descended; and their fire was soon burning, their kettle was soon boiling, in defiance of water streams which frequently trickled froht shone through slices of clear pink ham put down to broil Aunt Corinne laid the cloth on a box which Zene took out of the wagon for her, and set the cups and saucers, the sugar and preserves, and little seed cakes which grew tenderer the longer you kept theercakes in the carriage Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grande pockets Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in ads of paper, and roasted them in the ashes A potato so roasted may be served up with a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the odors of the woods It tastes better than any other potato, and while the butter h it you wonder that people do not fire whole fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for winter
[Illustration: BOBADAY'S CANOPIED THRONE]
Zene had frequently assured Robert Day that an egg served this as better still He said he used to roast eggs in the ashes when burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with the and remained true to the potato
While they were at supper the Virginian's wife ca of bird-pie Grandett responded with a dish of preserves And they then talked about the old State, trying to discover inian's as a strong, handsome, cordial wohborhood of Wheeling, They were notto California because her husband had the o years before, but she held out against it until she saould do no good unless he went So they sold their land, and started with a colony of neighbors
The naetther own kindred, and they discovered that an uncle of one, and a grandfather of the other, had been acquainted, and served together in the War of '12 This established a bond
Grandently excited, and told Bobaday and Corinne after the Virginia woons, that she should feel safe on account of being an old neighbor in the camp
CHAPTER X THE CRY OF A CHILD IN THE NIGHT
But the ca to let the children fall asleep early
Fires were kept briskly burning, and sos or hu accompaniment to the rain The rain fell with a continuous murmur, and evidently in slender threads, for it scarcely pattered on the tent It was no beating, boisterous, drenching te out the smell of barks, of pennyroyal and May-apple and wild silliams froe, having with hi sticks were not hard to find, or to sharpen with his pocket knife, and a few knocks drove the near the fire He then stretched the oil-cloth over the sticks, tying the corners, and had a canopied throne in the midst of this lively ca, hearing the rain slide down, and feeling exceedingly snug His delight came from that wild instinct hich we all turn to arbors and caves, and to unexpected grapevine bowers deep in the woods; the instinct which ht inside of hollow syca the hazel or elderberry bushes is the entrance hall of a noble castle
Bobaday was very still, lest his grandon, should insist on his retiring to his uneasy bed again He got enough of the carriage in dayti counted all its buttons up and down and crosswise The s cloth was mixed with every odor of the journey One can have too ht revealed hi hair and expanding large eyes of a gray and velvet texture Soht eyes have a thin and sleepy surface like inferior qualities of lining silk; and you cannot tell whether the expression or the humors of the eye are at fault But Nature, or his own meditations on what he read and saw in this delicious world, had given to Bobaday's irises a softness like the pile of gray velvet, varied sometimes by cinnamon-colored shades
His eyes reflected the branches, the other caain reading for the first tirandfather's Peter Parley books about the Indians, or Mr
Irving's story of Dolph Heyleger, where Dolph approaches Antony Vander Heyden's caed at and a little night-capped head stuck out
”Bobaday!” whispered aunt Corinne, creeping on tiptoe toward hi when he saw her
”What did you get up for?” he whispered back
”What did _you_ get up for?” retaliated aunt Corinne
Robert Dayunder the canopy, and she leaned down and laced her shoes after being seated ”Ma Padgett's just as tight asleep! What'd she say if she kneasn't in bed!”
It was so exciting and so nearly wicked to be out of bed and prowling when their elders were asleep, they could not possibly enjoy the sin in silence