“I don't like to think about it yet,” remarked the toll-woman, cooling her tea and intent on enjoying her own story. “'Twasn't so very long ago, either. First comes word from this direction that a toll-gate keeper and his wife was tied and robbed at the dead o' night. And then comes word from the other direction of an old man bein' knocked on the head when he opened his door. It wouldn't seem to you there'd be enough money at a toll-gate to make it an object,” said the woman, looking at Zene's cross eyes with unconcealed disfavor. “But folks of that kind don't want much of an object.”
“They love to rob,” suggested Bobaday, enjoying himself.
“They're a desp'rate, evil set,” said the toll-woman sternly. “Why, I could tell things that would make your hair all stand on end, about robberies I've known.”
Aunt Corinne felt a warning stir in her scalp-lock. But her nephew began to desire permanent encampment in the neighborhood of this toll-gate. Robber-stories which his grandmother not only allowed recited, but drank in with her tea, were luxuries of the road not to be left behind.
“Tell some of them,” he urged.
“I'll tell you about their comin' here,” said the toll-woman. “'Twas soon after father's death. They must known there was a lone woman here, and calculated on findin' it an easy job. He'd kept me awake a good deal, for father suffered constant in his last sickness, and though I was done out, I still had the habit of wakin' regular at his medicine-hours. The time was along in the fall, and there was a high wind that night. Fair time, too, so there was more travel on the 'pike of people comin' and goin' to the Fair and from it, in one day, than in a whole week ordinary times.”
{Illustration: THE TOLL-WOMAN.}
“I opened my eyes just as the clock struck two and seemed like I heard something at the front door. I listened and listened. It wasn't the wind singin' along the telegraph wires as it does when there's a strong draught east and west. And it wasn't anybody tryin' to wake me up. Some of our farmers that buys stock and has to be out early and late in a droviete way, often tells me beforehand what time o' night they'll be likely to come by, and I set the pole so it'll be easy for them that knows how to tip up. Then they put their money in the box, and tip the pole back after they drive through, to save wakin' me, for the neighbors are real accommodating and they knew father took a heap of care. But the noise I heard wasn't anybody droppin' coppers in the box, nor raisin' or lowerin' the pole. The rope rasps against the hole when the gate goes up or down. It was just like a lock was bein' picked, or a rattly old window bein' slid up by inches.
“I mistrusted right away. It wouldn't do any good for me to holler. The nearest neighbor was two miles off. I hadn't any gun, and never shot off a gun in my life. I would hate to hurt a human bein' that way. Still, I was excited and afraid of gettin' killed myself; so if I'd had a gun I might have shot it off, for by the time I got my dress and stockin's on, that window was up, and somethin' was in that front room. I could hear him step, still as a cat.
“I thought about the toll-money. Everybody knew the box's inside the door, so I was far from leavin' it there till the collector came. I always took the money out and tied it in a canvas sack and hid it. A body would never think of lookin' where I hid that money.”