Gilbert started out alone, and overtook Hannah and Jake Sawyer straying along the dusty roadside, early for once in their lives, having been spurred to the unusual achievement by the energy of the orphans.
Little Joey trotted between them, but Tim had gone to the show in the morning, with Keturah, the cow, and Isaac and Rebekah and the pumpkins; and the twins were far ahead, their parents knew not where. Gilbert took Hannah and Joey in with him, and they joined the long line of vehicles that had already formed and was winding swiftly down the highway.
Overhead the sky was deeply brilliant, and near the horizon a tender, misty blue. The golden landscape was lit with patches of gay woodland, and here and there by the roadside a scarlet maple, a clump of flaming sumach, or the blood-red vine of the woodbine. High up on the top of a dead tree-trunk, in the center of a smoky hollow, a flicker was shouting out derisively, "Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut!" in scorn of all this frivolous humanity gone a-fairing.
The procession crossed the railroad track just as the afternoon express went thundering past. The conductor caught sight of the doctor's buggy, and blew him a salute that set all the horses upon their hind legs in indignant alarm.
A smart vehicle dashed past in a cloud of dust. It was Miss Long, driving her own horse, with Sawed-Off Wilmott by her side, his chestnut driver having been sent on ahead in charge of a friend.
"Ella Anne's goin' to show her horse," said Hannah admiringly. "She's took first prize every year for ever so long. She's a wonderful driver."
"Dere's Lorry!" screamed Joey, pointing to a little tousled black head peeping from between Malcolm Cameron and his sister, just a little in advance.
"Elsie's awful good to her," said Hannah gratefully. "Her an' Arabella Winters jist makes a pet o' that child. Lorry says they've got a secret, the three o' them, and she feels that big about it you never saw the likes! Why, that's Lenny's voice, ain't it?"
From a buggy a little farther down the line greetings were being shrieked back to the black-haired twin. Hannah drew a deep sigh of content.
"Well, now, there's every single one o' them settled," she exclaimed happily. "If Jake jist gets a chance, now, an' Timmy gets a prize for his pumpkins, we jist won't have anythin' more to ask."