Old Caravan Days

were not more anxious to move forward than was Grandma Padgett. So just before sunset they br

d Hickory and Old Henry were following, he jogged between dewy fence rows, and they came to the broad whit

ng was taken at such an early hour, that they remembered it only as a smell of ta

That was a town with people moving briskly about it, and long str

sten its identity on their minds. First they would pass a gang of laborers working on the road, or perhaps a man walking up and down telegraph poles with sharp-shod heels; then appeared humble houses with children playing thickly around them. Finer buildings crowded on the sight, and where the signs of business flaunted, were women and little children in pretty clothes, always goi

comical. Hickory and Henry evidently considered the change a disgrace to them. But they made the best of it and uttered no protest, except keeping as wide a space as possible between themselves and their new mates. But the gray and white, old yoke fellows at the plough, who knew nothing of the dignity of carriage drawing, and cared less, who had rubbed noses and shared feed-

rainy afternoon. Here they crossed the Miami River in a bridge through the cracks of which Robert Day and Corinne looked at the full

p," said aunt Corinne,

said her nephew, "with long stingers

ady pour hissed with settled monotony. Boswell and Johnson no longer foraged at the 'pike sides, or lagged behind or scampered ahead. They knew it was a rainy October night without lightning and thunder, slipped by mistake into the packet of June weather; and they trotted invisibly under the carriage, carrying their tails down, and their lolling tongues close to the puddles they were obliged to scamper through or skip. Boswell and Johnson remembered their experiences at the lonesome Susan house, where they lay in the deep weeds and were forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with apprehension lest the grinding of the wheels should cease, and some ghostly wall loom up at one side of their way, unlighted by a single glimmer and unperfumed by any whiff of supper. It was a fine thing to be movers' dogs

e and consult with him, but before his attention could be attracted, both carriage and wagon reached a broad bel

, or women spreading the evening meal. Kettles were hung above the fires, and skillets hissed on the coals. The horses, tied to their feed-boxes, were stamping and grinding their feed in content, and the gray lifted up his voice to neigh at the whole collection as Grandma Padgett stopped just behi

de through the rain and ki

most cheerfully.

craned his neck around to look at Grandma Padget

tucked in his boots. He pulled off his hat to shake the rain away, and showed bushy

med. "Plenty of room ov

there?" in

plied the man. "There's twenty or

ndma Padgett, "a camp-meeti

Goin' to cross the plains. Some up in the woods there goin' to Missoury. Don't care where they're goin' if they want to stop and camp with us.

ndma Padgett, warming, "though Ohi

l the gladder for that. I saw you stoppin' here uncertain; and there's the ford

necks!" said Grandma Padgett with appreciation. "But if you take

rginian. "There's enough

t, "I guess we'd better stop here

'?" inquired the

eplied the head of

Californy, why don't you! That's the country to get rich

said Grandma Padgett, passing over

" he declared. "Now's the time to start if

les, and Grandma Padgett followed, the Virginian showing them a good

rough 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 them, all in tempting order. They had baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt

BOBADAY'S CAN

used to roast eggs in the ashes when burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with th

and an offering of bird-pie. Grandma Padgett responded with a dish of preserves. A

re not mountaineers. She had six children. They were going to California because her husband had the mining fever. He wanted to go years before

grandfather of the other, had been acquainted, and served together in the War of '12. This established a bond. Grandma Padgett was gently excited, and t