CHAPTER XVIII. "COME TO MAMMA!"
Though the dissipated looking young man only stood at the door amoment, and then walked out on the log steps at a sauntering pace, heleft dismay behind him. Aunt Corinne flew to her mother, imploringthat Carrie be hid. Robert Day stood up before the child, frowningand shaking his head.
"All the pig-headed folks will be after her," exclaimed auntCorinne. "They'll come right into this room so soon as that fellowtells them. Le's run out the back way, Ma Padgett!"
Grandma Padgett, who had been giving the full strength of herspectacles to the failing light and her knitting, beheld thisexcitement with disapproval.
"You'll have my needles out," she objected. "What pig-headed folksare after what? Robert, have you hurt Sissy?"
"Why, Grandma Padgett, didn't you see the doorkeeper looking intothe room?"
"Some person just looked in--person they appear to object to," saidthe strange man, giving keen attention to what was going forward."Are these your own children, ma'am?"
Grandma Padgett rolled up her knitting, and tipped her head slightlyback to bring the stranger well under her view.
"This girl and the boy belong to my family," she replied.
"But whose is the little girl on the lounge?"
"I don't know," replied Grandma Padgett, somewhat despondently. "Iwish I did. She's a child that seems to be lost from her friends."
"But you can't take her away and give her to the show people again,"exclaimed aunt Corinne, turning on this stranger with nervousdefiance. "She's more ours than she is yours, and that ugly manscared her so she couldn't do anything but cry or go to sleep. Ifbrother Tip was here he wouldn't let them have her."
"That man that just went out, is a showman," explained Robert Day,relying somewhat on the stranger for aid and re-inforcement. "She wasin the show that he tended door for. They were awful people. AuntKrin and I slipped her off with us."
"That's kidnapping. Stealing, you know," commented the stranger.
"_They'd_ stolen her," declared Bobaday.
"How do you know?"
"Look how 'fraid she was! I peeped into their wagon in the woods,and as soon as she opened her eyes and saw the man with the pig'shead, she began to scream, and they smothered her up."
Grandma Padgett was now sitting on the lounge with Carrie liftedinto her lap. Her voice was steady, but rather sharp. "This child'sin a fit! Robert Day, run to the woman of the house and tell her tobring hot water as soon as she can."
During the confusion which followed, and while Carrie was partiallyundressed, rubbed, dipped, and dosed between her set teeth, thestranger himself went out to the log steps and stood looking from oneend of the street to the other. The dissipated young man appearednowhere in the twilight.
Returning, the lawyer found Grandma Padgett holding her patientwrapped in shawls. The landlady stood by, much concerned, and talkingabout a great many remedies beside such as she held in her hands.Aunt Corinne and Robert Day maintained the attitude of guards, one oneach side of the door.
Carrie was not only conscious again, but wide awake and tinglingthrough all her little body. Her eyes had a different expression.They saw everything, from the candle the landlady held over her, tothe stranger entering: they searched the walls piteously, and passedthe faces of Bobaday and aunt Corinne as if they by no meansrecognized these larger children.
"I want my mamma!" she wailed. Tears ran down her face and GrandmaPadgett wiped them away. But Carrie resisted her hand.
"Go away!" she exclaimed. "You aren't my mamma!"
"Poor little love!" sighed the landlady, who had picked up someinformation about the child.
"And you aren't my mamma!" resented Carrie. "I want my mamma to cometo her little Rose."
"Says her name's Rose," said Grandma Padgett, exchanging a flare ofher glasses for a startled look from the landlady.
"She says her name's Rose," repeated the landlady, turning to thelawyer as a general public who ought to be informed. Robert andCorinne began to hover between the door and the lounge, vigilant atboth extremes of their beat.
"Rose," repeated the lawyer, bending forward to inspect the child."Rose what? Have you any other name, my little girl?"
"I not your little girl," wept their excited patient. "I'm mymamma's little girl. Go away! you're an ugly papa."
Bobaday and Corinne chuckled at this accusation. Aunt Corinne couldnot bring herself to regard the lawyer as an ally. If he wished toplay a proper part he should have gone out and driven the doorkeeperand all the rest of those show-people from Greenfield. Instead ofthat, he stood about, listening.
"I haven't even seen such people," murmured the landlady in reply toa whispered question from Grandma Padgett. "There was a young mancame in to ask if we had more room, but I didn't like his looks andtold him no, we had no more. Court-times we can fill our house if wewant to. But I'm always particular. We don't take shows at all. Theshows that come through here are often rough. There was a magic-lanternman we let put up with us. But circuses and such things can go tothe regular tavern, says I. And if the regular tavern can't accommodatethem, it's only twenty mile to Injunop'lis."
"I was afraid they might have got into the house," said GrandmaPadgett. "And I wouldn't know what to do. I couldn't give her up tothem again, when the bare sight throws her into spasms, unless I wasmade to do it."
"You couldn't prove any right to her," observed the lawyer.
"No, I couldn't," replied Grandma Padgett, expressing some injury inher tone. "But on that account ought I to let her go to them thatwould mistreat her?"
"She may be their child," said the lawyer. "People have been knownto maltreat their children before. You only infer that they stole her."
Aunt Corinne told her nephew in a slightly guarded whisper, that shenever had seen such a mean man as that one was.
"They ought to prove it before they get her, then," said GrandmaPadgett.
"Yes," he assented. "They ought to prove it."
"And they must be right here in the place," she continued. "I'mafraid I'll have trouble with them."
"We could go on to-night," exclaimed Robert Day. "We could go on toIndianapolis, and that's where the governor lives, Zene says; andwhen we told the governor, he'd put the pig-headed folks in jail."Small notice being taken of this suggestion by the elders, Robert andCorinne bobbed their heads in unison and discussed it in whisperstogether.
The woman of the house locked up that part which let out upon thelog steps, before she conducted her guests to supper. She was apartisan of Grandma Padgett's.
At table the brown-eyed child whom Grandma Padgett still held uponher lap, refused food and continued to demand her mother. She leanedagainst the old lady's shoulder seeing every crack in the walls,every dish upon the cloth, the lawyer who sat opposite, and theconcerned faces of Bobaday and Corinne. Supper was too good to beslighted, in spite of Carrie's dangerous position. The man of thehouse was a Quaker, and while his wife stood up to wait on the table,he repeatedly asked her in a thee-and-thou language highly edifyingto aunt Corinne, for certain pickles and jams and stuffed mangoes;and as she brought them one after the other, he helped the childrenplentifully, twinkling his eyes at them. He was a delicious oldfellow; as good in his way as the jams.
"And won't thee have some-in a sasser?" he inquired tenderly ofCarrie, "and set up and feed thyself? Thee ought to give thy grandamea chance to eat her bite--don't thee be a selfish little dear."
"I want my mamma," responded Carrie, at once taking this twinkle-eyedchildless father into her confidence. "I'm waiting for my mamma. Whenshe comes she'll give me my supper and put me to bed."
"Thee's a big enough girl to wait ort thyself," said the Quaker, notunderstanding the signs his wife made to him.
"She doesn't live at your house," pursued the child. "She lives atpapa's house."
"Where is papa's house?" inquired the lawyer helping himself tobread as if that were the chief object of his thoughts.
"It's away off. Away
over the woods."
"And what's papa's name?"
Carrie appeared to consider the questioner rather than the question,and for some unexpressed reason, remained silent.
"Mother," said the Quaker from the abundant goodness of his heart,"doesn't thee mind that damson p'serve thee never let's me haveunless I take the ag'y and shake for it? Some of that would limber alittle girl's tongue, doesn't thee think?"
"It's in the far pantry on a high shelf," said the woman of thehouse, demurring slightly.
"I can reach it down."
"No, I'll bring it myself. The jars are too crowded on that shelffor a man's hands to be turned loose among 'em."
The Quaker smiled, sparkling considerably under his gray eyebrowswhile his wife took another light and went after the damsonpreserve. She had been gone but a moment when knocking began at thefront door, and the Quaker rose at once from his place to answer it.
"COME TO MAMMA."]
Robert Day and Corinne looked at each other in apprehension. Theypictured a fearful procession coming in. Even their guardian gave ananxious start. She parted her lips to beg the Quaker not to admit anyone, but the request was absurd.
Their innocent host piloted straight to the dining-room a woman whomRobert and Corinne knew directly. They had seen her in the show, andrecalled her appearance many a time afterwards when speculating aboutCarrie's parents.
"Here you are!" she exclaimed to the child in a high key. "My poorlittle pet! Come to mamma!"
Old Caravan Days Page 18
