“I don’t mean that,” said the man, softly.
“No,” said Mary, “you mean this, away over here.” She pointed across the fields, almost straight away in front.
“’Taint so scandalous far ‘awa-a-ay’ as you talk like,” murmured the man, jestingly; and just then a fresh breath of the evening breeze brought plainer and nearer the soft boom of a bass-drum.
“Are they coming this way?” asked Mary.
“No; they’re sort o’ dress-paradin’ in camp, I reckon.” He began to draw rein. “We turn off here, anyway,” he said, and drove slowly, but point blank into the forest.
“I don’t see any road,” said Mary. It was so dark in the wood that even her child, muffled in a shawl and asleep in her arms, was a dim shape.
“Yes,” was the reply; “we have to sort o’ smell out the way here; but my smellers is good, at times, and pretty soon we’ll strike a little sort o’ somepnuther like a road, about a quarter from here.”
Pretty soon they did so. It started suddenly from the edge of an old field in the forest, and ran gradually down, winding among the trees, into a densely wooded bottom, where even Mary’s short form often had to bend low to avoid the boughs of beech-trees and festoons of grape-vine. Under one beech the buggy stood still a moment. The man drew and opened a large clasp-knife and cut one of the long, tough withes. He handed it to Mary, as they started on again.
“With compliments,” he said, “and hoping you won’t find no use for it.”
“What is it for?”