Old Caravan Days Part 21

Both children regarded the strange lady with breathless interest when the lawyer seated her in the room. They silently cla.s.sed her among the rich, handsome and powerful people of the earth. She had what in later years they learned to call refinement, but at that date they could give it no name except niceness. When Grandma Padgett and the landlord's wife were summoned to the room, she grew even younger and more elegant in appearance, though her face was anxious and her eyes were darkened by crying.

"This is Mrs. Tracy from Baltimore," said the lawyer. "She was in Chicago yesterday, and I telegraphed for her a half-hour or so before the child was taken out of the house. She came as far as Indianapolis, and found no Pan Handle train, this morning, so she was obliged to get a carriage and drive over. Mrs. Sebastian, will you be kind enough to set out something for her to eat as soon as you can?

She has not thought of eating since she started. And Mrs.--what did I understand your name to be?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THIS IS LORD'S DAY," SAID WILLIAM SEBASTIAN.]

"Padgett," replied the children's guardian.

"Yes; Mrs. Padgett. Mrs. Padgett, my client is hunting a lost child, and hearing this little girl was with you some days, she would like to make some inquiries."

"But the child's taken clear away!" exclaimed Grandma Padgett.

"If you drove out from Injunop'lis," said the Quaker's wife, "you must have met the show-wagon on the 'pike."

"The show-wagon took to a by-road," observed the lawyer. "We have men tracking it now."

"I knew it wasn't right for them to carry off that child," said the Quaker's wife, "and if I'd tended the door they wouldn't carried her off."

"It was best not to arouse their suspicions before she could be identified," said the lawyer. "It's easy enough to take her when we know she is the child we want."

"Maybe so," said the Quaker's wife.

"Easy enough. The vagabonds can't put themselves beyond arrest before we can reach them, and on the other hand, they could make a case against us if we meddle with them unnecessarily. Since Mrs.

Tracy came West a couple of weeks ago, and since she engaged me in her cause, we have had a dozen wrong parties drawn up for examination; children of all ages and sizes."

"Did she," inquired Mrs. Tracy, bringing her chair close to Grandma Padgett and resting appealing eyes on the blue gla.s.ses, "have hair that curled? Rather long hair for a child of her years."

"Yes'm," replied Grandma Padgett with dignified tenderness. "Long for a child about five or six, as I took her to be. But she was babyish for all that."

"Yes--oh, yes!" said Mrs. Tracy.

"And curly. How long since you lost her?"

The lady from Baltimore sobbed on her handkerchief, but recovered with a resolute effort, and replied:

"It was nearly three months ago. She was on the street with her nurse, and was taken away almost miraculously. We could not find a trace. Her papa is dead, but I have always kept his memory alive to her. My friends have helped me search, but it has seemed day after day as if I could not bear the strain any longer."

Grandma Padgett took off her gla.s.ses and polished them.

"I know how you feel," she observed, glancing at Robert Day and Corinne. "I had a scare at Richmond, in this State."

"Are these your children?"

"My youngest and my grandson. It was their notion of running away with the little girl, and their gettin' lost, that put me to such a worry:"

Mrs. Tracy extended her hands to Bobaday and aunt Corinne, drawing one to each side of her, and made the most minute inquiries about Fairy Carrie. She knew that the child had called herself Rose, and that she had been in a partially stupified state during her stay with the little caravan. But when Robert mentioned the dark circles in the child's face, and her crying behind the tent, the lady turned white and leaned back, closing her eyes and groping for a small yellow bottle in her pocket. Having smelled of this, she recovered herself.

But aunt Corinne, in spite of her pa.s.sionate sympathy, could barely keep from t.i.ttering at the latter action. Though the smelling bottle was yellow, instead of a dull blue, like the one Ma Padgett kept in the top bureau drawer at home, aunt Corinne recognized her enemy and remembered the time she hunted out that treasure and took a long, strong, tremendous snuff at it, expecting to revel in odors of delight. Her head tingled again while she thought about it; she felt a thousand needles running through her nose, and saw herself sitting on the floor shedding tears. How anybody could sniff at a hartshorn bottle and find it a consolation or restorative under any circ.u.mstances, she could not understand.

Mrs. Sebastian, in her First Day clothes, and unwilling to lose a word of what was going on in the sitting-room, had left the early dinner to her a.s.sistant. But she brought in a cup of strong tea, and some cream toast, begging the bereaved mother to stay her stomach with that until the meal's victuals was ready. Mrs. Tracy appeared to have forgotten that her stomach needed staying, but she thanked the landlady and drank the tea as if thirsty, between her further inquiries about the child.

"Are you not sure," she asked the lawyer, "that we are on the right track this time?"

He said he was not sure, but indications were better than they had been before.

"I don't wish to reproach you," said Mrs. Tracy, "but it is a fearful thought to me, that they may be poisoning my child with opiates again and injuring her perhaps for life. You might have detained her."

"That's what I've said right along," exclaimed Mrs. Sebastian.

"But there was that woman who pretended to be her rightful mother,"

observed Grandma Padget, who, though not obliged to set up any defence, wanted the case seen in all its bearings. "There _she_ set, easy and deliberate, telling _her_ story, how the little thing's father died comin' over the water, and how hard, it was for her to do the right thing by the child. She maintained she only dosed the child to keep her from sufferin'. I didn't believe her, but we had nothing to set up against her."

Mrs. Tracy became as erect and fierce in aspect as such a delicate creature could become. The long veil of c.r.a.pe which hung from her bonnet and swept the floor, emphasizing the blackness of all her other garments, trembled as she rose.

"Why am I sitting here and waiting for anything, when that woman is claiming my child for her own? The idea of anybody's daring to own my child! It is more cruel than abuse. I never thought of their being able to teach her to forget me--that they could confuse her mamma with another person in her mind!"

"You're tired out," said the lawyer, "and matters are moving just as rapidly as if you were chasing over all the roads in Hanc.o.c.k County.

You must quiet yourself, ma'am, or you'll break down."

Mrs. Tracy made apparent effort to quiet herself. She took hold of Grandma Padgett's arm when they were called out to dinner. Robert walked on the other side of her, having her hand on his shoulder and aunt Corinne went behind, carrying the end of the c.r.a.pe veil as if Fairy Carrie's real mother could thus receive support and consolation through the back of the head.

n.o.body was more concerned about her trouble than William Sebastian.

And he remembered more tempting pickles and jellies than had ever been on the table before at once. Yet the dinner was soon over.

Grandma Padgett said she had intended to go a piece on the road that afternoon anyhow, but she could not feel easy in her mind to go very far until the child was found. Virginia folks and Marylanders were the same as neighbors. If Mrs. Tracy would take a seat in the carriage, they would make it their business to dally along the road and meet the word the men out searching were to bring in. Mrs. Tracy clung to Grandma Padgett's arm as if she knew what a stay the Ohio neighbors had always found this vigorous old lady. The conveyance which brought her from Indianapolis had been sent back. She was glad to be with, the Padgetts. No railroad trains would pa.s.s through until next day. William Sebastian helped her up the carriage steps, and aunt Corinne set down reverently on the back seat beside her. Zene was already rumbling ahead with the wagon. Mrs. Sebastian came down the steps of log and put a hearty lunch in. It was particularly for the child they hoped to find.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. TRACY MAKES INQUIRIES.]

"Make her eat something," she counselled the mother. "She hardly tasted a bite of supper last night, and according to all accounts, she ain't in hands that understands feedin' children now."

"The Lord prosper all thy undertakings," said William Sebastian, "and don't thee forget to let us know what hour we may begin to rejoice with thee."

The lawyer touched his hat as Hickory and Henry stepped away on the plank 'pike. He remained in Greenfield, and was to ride after them if any news came in about Fairy Carrie.

CHAPTER XXII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY-SCHOOL.

However we may spend our Sabbath, it is different from the other days of the week. I have often thought the little creatures of field and woods knew the difference. They run or sing with more gladness and a less business-like air. The friskiest lambs, measuring strength with each other by stiff-legged jumps, are followed by gentle bleats from their mothers, and come back after a frolic to meditate and switch their tails. The fleecy roll of a lamb's tail, and the dimples which seem to dint its first coat, the pinkness of its nose, and the drollery of its eye, are all worth watching under a cloudless Sunday sky.

As the carriage and wagon rolled along the 'pike, they met other vehicles full of people driving for an outing, or going to afternoon Sunday-school held in schoolhouses along the various by-roads.

Mrs. Tracy leaned forward every time a buggy pa.s.sed the wagon, and scanned its occupants until they turned towards the right to pa.s.s Grandma Padgett.

The first messenger they met entered on the 'pike from a cross-road some distance ahead of them, but was checked in his canter toward Greenfield by Zene, who stopped the wagon for a parley. Mrs. Tracy was half irritated by such officiousness, and Grandma Padgett herself intended to call Zene to account, when he left the white and gray and came limping to the carriage at the rider's side. However, the news he helped to bring, and the interest he took in it, at once excused him. This man, scouring the country north and south since early morning, had heard nothing of the show-wagon.