Part 23 (1/2)
Grandett and her party stopped at a tavern on Illinois street Late in the night they were to separate, Mrs Tracy taking the first train for Baltiood-by to the child who had scarcely been a play in whose helplessness they had felt such interest
Rose, obeying her ma thehter than hitherto, and remembered a dollhouse and her birds atcourse of opiates left her little recognition of the boy and girl she had so died the with a very good grace, though he was so old Then it see, and but another breath until they were under way, the wagon creaking along the dewy 'pike ahead of theht, and no Fairy Carrie asleep, like some tiny enchanted princess, on the back seat
”The rest of the way,” observed Robert Day to his aunt, ”there won't be anything happening--you see if there will Zene says we're half across the State now And I knoe'll never see J D Matthews again And nobody will be lost and have to be found, and there's no tellin' where that great big crowd Jonathan and his folks moved with, are”
”I feel lonesome,” observed aunt Corinne so back word to the Quaker tavern er So for you to begin at your tiett, ”to set your faces backward and wish for what's behind That's a silly notion Folks that encourage themselves in doin' it don't show sound sense The One that made us knew better than to let us stand still in our experience, and I've always found theenerally keep the land of Beulah right around them Git up, Hickory!”
Thus ade over White River, or that branch of White River on which Indianapolis is situated The stream, seen between chinks in the floor, appeared deep, but not particularly limpid How the horses' feet thundered on the boards, and how long they trod before the little star at the other end grew to an opening quite large enough to let any vehicle out of the bridge!
CHAPTER XXIV THE TOLL-WOMAN
Still, as crossing the Sciota at Colu the White River at Indianapolis, see a land of coon Even aunt Corinne got permission to ride stretches of the road with Robert Day and Zene in the wagon It gave out a different creak and jolted her until she was grateful for springs and cushi+ons when obliged to go back to therew more beautiful But neither of the children cared for the little towns along the route: Bellville, Stilesville, Meridian, Manhattan, Pleasant Garden Hills appeared and ledges of rock cropped out in them Yet even hills may be observed with indifference by eyes weary of an endless panorama
They drove more rapidly now to e pockets for a doll a number of ti her Fairy Carrie Of the wonderful clothes her ht of her departure, in place of aunt Corinne's over-grown things, and the shooman's tawdry additions They wondered about her home and the colored people aited on her, and if she would be quite well and cured of her stupor by the tiett told them Baltimore was an old city down in Maryland, and the National 'Pike started in its , in the Pan Handle of Virginia, was a grand route There used to be a great deal of wagoning and stage-coaching, and driving droves of horses and cattle by that road Perhaps, suggested aunt Corinne, Fairy Carrie would watch the 'pike for the Padgett farew up a o to Baltimore but the railroad would be his choice of routes
Both Robert and his aunt were glad the day they stopped for dinner near a toll-house, and the woman came and invited thee of the 'pike, with its gate-pole ready to be lowered by a rope, looking like any other toll place But the woman was very brisk and Yankee-like, and different from the many slatternly persons who had before taken toll She said her people came froht the old lady would like a cup of strong tea, and her dinner was just ready, and it did get lonesoetts added their store to the square table set in a back roo tea into cups covered with flower sprigs Everything about her was neat and compact as a shi+p's cabin Her bed stood in one corner, curtained hite dimity There were two roo a kind of shop containing a counter, candy jars set in the s, shoestrings and boxes of thread on shelves, and a codfish or two sprawled upon nails and covered with netting Froarden, and at the end of the garden was a pig-sty, occupied by a white pig almost as tidy and precise as his owner In the toll-woed with tissue paper, a rocking-chair cushi+oned in red calico, curtains to -stove so s gold-leaf ornaht, flat wo much broader in a front or back view than when she stood sidewise toward you Her face was very good-natured
Altogether she seemed just the ready and capable wife for whom the man went to London after the rats and the h in her case it is probable the wheelbarroould not have broken, nor would any other mishap have marred the journey
”You don't live here by yourself, do you?” inquired Grandett as the tea and the meal in co froun
”Since father died I have,” replied the toll-wo else failed him, and he'd lost aone back to Ohio, but when you fit me into a place I never want to pull up out of it”
”And don't you ever get afraid, nights or any tiot used to being alone, I did And there's reason yet every little while But I only got one bad scare”
A wagon paused at the front door, so near the horses ht have put their heads in and sniffed up theabout her bad scare
”How do you uest
”That's bad about fair-ti The pole's been cut when I tied it down, and soenerally the travellers are peaceable enough I've got a box in the front door like a letter-box, with a slit outside for theh the -fraht as there used to be, and a body learns to be wakeful anyhow if they've ever had the care of sick old people”
”You didn't say how you got scared,” reht in one of the yellow chairs to ie of this heroine of the road
”Well, it was robbers,” confessed the toll-woman, ”breakin' into the house, that scared me”
Robbers! Aunt Corinne's nephewhills, andthe bushes If there is any word sweeter to the young er, it is robbers
”Are thereintent eyes on the toll-woman