CHAPTER XIV. SEARCHING.
But Grandma Padgett did not enjoy the tavern bed or the tavernbreakfast. She passed the evening until midnight searching thestreets of Richmond, accompanied by Zene and his limp. Some of thetavern people had seen her children in front of the house, but thelongest search failed to bring to light any trace of them in or aboutthat building. The tavern-keeper interested himself; the chambermaids were sympathetic. Two hostlers and a bartender went differentways through the town making inquiries. The landlady thought thechildren might have wandered off to the movers' encampment, wherethere were other children to play with. Grandma Padgett bade Zene puthimself on one of the carriage horses and post to camp. When he cameback he reported that Thrusty Ellen and Jonathan were asleep in thetents, and nobody had seen Robert and Corinne.
While searching the streets earlier in the evening, Grandma Padgettobserved the pig-headed man's pavilion, and this she also exploredwith Zene. A crowd was making the canvas stifling, and the pig-headedman's performances were being varied by an untidy woman who screamedand played on a portable bellows which had ivory keys, afterexplaining that Fairy Carrie, the Wonderful Musical Child, had beentaken suddenly ill and could appear no more that night.
Grandma Padgett remained only long enough to scan twice over everyface in the tent. She went out, telling Zene she was at her wits' end.
"Oh, they ain't gone far, marm," reassured Zene. "You'll find outthey'll come back to the tavern all right; mebby before we get there."
But every such hopeful return to base disheartened the searchersmore. At last the grandmother was obliged to lie down.
Early in the morning the Virginian came, full of concern. His partywas breaking camp, but he would stay behind and help search for thechildren.
"That I won't allow," said Grandma Padgett. "You're on a long road,and you don't want to risk separating from the colony. Besides no onecan do more than we can--unless it was Son Tip. As I laid awake, Iwished in my heart Son Tip was here."
"Can't you send him a lightnin' message?" said the Virginian. "Bythe telegraphic wire," he explained, quoting a line of a popular song.
"I wish I could," said Grandma Padgett, "but there's no telegraphoffice in miles of where he's located. I thought of it last night.There's no way to reach him that I can see, but by letter, andsometimes _they_ lay over on the road. And I don't allow to stopat this place. I'm goin' to set out and hunt in all directions till Ifind the children."
The Virginian agreed that her plan was best. He also madearrangements to ride back and tell her if the caravan overtook themon the 'pike during that day's journey. Then he and Grandma Padgettshook hands with each other and reluctantly separated.
She made inquiries about all the other roads leading out ofRichmond. Zene drove the carriage out of the barnyard, and GrandmaPadgett, having closed her account with the tavern, took the lines,an object of interest and solicitude to all who saw her depart, andturned Old Hickory and Old Henry on a southward track. Zene followedwith the wagon; he was on no account to loiter out of speakingdistance. The usual order of the march being thus reversed, bothvehicles moved along lonesomely. Even Boswell and Johnson scentedmisfortune in the air. Johnson ran in an undeviating line under thecarriage, as if he wished his mistress to know he was right therewhere she could depend on him. His countenance expressed not onlygravity, but real concern. Boswell, on the other hand, was in a stateof nerves. If he saw a bank at the roadside he ran ahead and mountedit, looking back into the carriage, demanding to know, with a yelpinghowl, where Bobaday and Corinne were. When his feelings became toostrong for him he jumped at the step, and Grandma Padgett shook herhead at him.
"Use your nose, you silly little fice, and track them, why don't you?"
As soon as Boswell understood this reproach he jumped a fence andsmelt every stump or tuft of grass, every bush and hummock, until thecarriage dwindled in the distance. Then he made the dust smoke underhis feet as a sudden June shower will do for a few seconds, andusually overtook the carriage with all of his tongue unfurled and hislungs working like a furnace. Johnson reproved him with a glance, andhe at once dropped his tail and trotted beside Johnson, as ifthrowing himself on that superior dog for support in the hour ofaffliction.
At noon no trace of Robert and Corinne had been seen. GrandmaPadgett halted, and when Zene came up she said:
"We'll eat a cold bite right here by the road, and then go on untilsunset. If we don't find them, we'll turn back to town and takeanother direction."
They ate a cold bite, brought ready packed from the Richmond tavern.The horses were given scant time for feeding, and drank wherever theycould find water along the road.
Cloudless as the day was, Grandma Padgett's spectacles had nevermade any landscape look as blue as this one which she followed untilsunset. Sometimes it was blurred by a mist, but she wiped it off theglasses.
At sunset they had not seen a track which might be taken for Robertor Corinne's. The grasshoppers were lonesome. There was a great voidin the air, and the most tuneful birds complained from the fence-rails.Grandma Padgett constantly polished her glasses on the backward road.
Nothing was said about making a halt for supper or any kind of coldbite. The carriage was silently turned as one half the sun stoodabove the tree-tops, I and it passed the wagon without other sign.The wagon turned as silently. The shrill meadow insects became moreand more audible. Some young calves in a field, remembering that itwas milking time, began to call their mothers, and to remonstrate atthe bars in voices full of sad cadences. The very farmhouse dogs,full-fed, and almost too lazy to come out of the gates to interviewBoswell and Johnson, barked as if there was sickness in theirrespective families and it was all they could do to keep up theirspirits and refrain from howling.
The carriage and wagon jogged along until the horizon rim was all ofthat indescribable tint that evening mixes with saffron, purple andpink. Grandma Padgett became anxious to reach Richmond again. TheVirginian might have returned over the road with news of herchildren. Or the children themselves might be at the tavern waitingfor her. Zene drove close behind her, and when they were about torecross a shallow creek, scooped between two easy swells and floatinga good deal of wild grapevine and darkly reflecting many sycamores,he came forward and loosened the check-reins of Hickory and Henry tolet them drink. Grandma Padgett felt impatient at any delay.
"I don't think they want water, Zene," said she.
"They'd better cool their mouths, marm." he said. But still hefingered the check reins, uncertain how to state what had sent himforward.
"Seems like I heard somebody laugh, marm," said Zene.
"Well, suppose you did," said Grandma Padgett. "The whole worldwon't mourn just because we're in trouble."
"But it sounded like Corinne," said Zene uncertainly.
Grandma Padgett's glasses glared upon him.
"You'd' be more apt to hear her crying," she exclaimed. "When didyou hear it?"
"Just now. I jumped right off the load."
Hickory and Henry, anxious to taste the creek, would have movedforward, but were checked by both pairs of hands.
"What direction?"
"I don't feel certain, marm," said Zene, "but it come like it wasfrom that way through the woods."
Grandma Padgett stretched her neck out of the carriage toward theright.
"Is that a sled track?" she inquired. "It's gittin' so dim I can'tsee.".
Zene said there was a sled track, pointing out what looked like adouble footpath with a growth of grass and shrubs along the centre.
"We'll drive in that way," she at once decided, "and if we getwedged among the trees, we'll have to get out the best way we can."
Zene turned the gray and white, and led on this new march. Hickoryand Henry, backed from the creek without being allowed to dip theirmouths, reluctantly thumped the sled track with their shoes, andpretended to distrust every tall stump and every glaring sycamorelimb which rose before their sight. Scrubby bushes scraped the bottomof the
carriage bed. Now one front wheel rose high over a chunk, andthe vehicle rolled and creaked. Zene's wagon cover, like a big whiteblur, moved steadily in front, and presently Hickory and Henry rantheir noses against it, and seemed to relish the knock which thecarriage-pole gave the feed-box. Zene had halted to listen.
It was dark in the woods. A rustle could be heard now and then as ofsome tiny four-footed creature moving the stiff grass; or a twig cracked.The frogs in the creek were tuning their bass-viols. A tree-toad rattledon some unseen trunk, and the whole woods heaved its great lungs in thesteady breathing which it never leaves off, but which becomes a roarand a wheeze in stormy or winter weather.
"There isn't anything"--began Grandma Padgett, but between thing and"here" came the distinct laugh of a child.
"WHERE'S BOBADAY?"]
Zene cracked his whip over the gray and the white, and the wagonrumbled ahead rapidly, jarring against roots, and ends of decayedlogs, turning short in one direction, and dipping through a longsheltered mud-hole to the very wheel-hubs, brushing against trees andunder low branches until guttural remonstrances were scraped out ofthe cover, and finally descending into an abrupt hollow, with thecarriage rattling at its hind wheels.
Grandma Padgett had been through many experiences, but she felt shecould truly say to her descendants that she never gave up so entirelyfor pure joy in her life as when she saw Robert and Corinne sittingin front of a fire built against a great stump, and talking with afat, silly-looking man who leaned against a cart-wheel.
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