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 passed the wagon, and scanned its occupants until they turned towards the right to pass 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.
It might be somewhere in the woods, or jogging innocently along a dirt road. It was no longer an object to the searchers. He believed the woman and child had left it, intending to rejoin it at some appointed place when all excitement was over. He said he thought he had the very woman and child back here a piece, though they might give him the slip before he could bring anybody to certainly identify them.
“My little one 'give me the slip'!” exclaimed Mrs. Tracy indignantly.
The man said his meaning was, she might be slipped off by her keeper.