The contents of that pocket she piled upon her seat; she raked the interior with her nails, then she looked at Robert Day with dilating eyes.
“My gold dollar's gone!” said aunt Corinne. “That little old man with a bag on his back—I just know he got into the barn and took it last night.”
“You put it in and took it out so many times yesterday,” said Bobaday, “maybe it fell on the carriage floor.” So they unavailingly searched the carriage floor.
The little old man with a bag on his back was now fixed in Corinne's imagination as the evil genius of the journey. If he spirited out her gold dollar, what harm could he not do them! He might throw stones at them from sheltered places, and even shoot them with guns. He could jump out of any culvert and scare them almost to death! This destroyed half her pleasure as the day advanced, in watching boys fish with horse-hair snares in the runs which trickled under culverts. But Robert felt so much interest in the process that he was glad to have the noon halt made near such a small fishing-place. He took his lunch and sat on the bank with the boys. They were very dirty, and one of them had his shirtsleeve split to the shoulder, revealing a sun-blistered elbow joint that still worked with a right good will at snaring. But no boys were ever fuller of out-door wisdom. They had been swimming, and knew the best diving-hole in the world, only a couple of miles away. They had dined on berries, and expected to catch it when they got home, but meant to attend a show in one of their barns that afternoon, the admission price being ten pins. Bobaday learned how to make a slip-knot with the horse-hair and hold it in silent suspense just where the minnows moved: the moment a fish glided into the open snare a dexterous jerk whipped him out of the water, held firmly about the middle by the hair noose. It required skill and nice handling, and the split-sleeved boy was the most accomplished snarer of all.
{Illustration: BOBADAY LUNCHES WITH STRANGE BOYS.}
Robert shared his lunch with these youths, and parted from them reluctantly when the horses were put in. But aunt Corinne who stood by in a critical attitude, said she couldn't see any use in catching such little fish. You never fried minnies. You used 'em for bait in deep water, though, the split-sleeved boy condescended to inform her, and you could put 'em into a glass jar, and they'd grow like everything. Aunt Corinne was just becoming fired with anxiety to own such a jarful herself, when the carriage turned toward the road and her mother obliged her to climb in.
About the middle of the afternoon Zene halted and waited for the carriage to come up. He left his seat and came to the rear of Old Hickory, the off carriage horse, slapping a fly flat on Old Hickory's flank as he paused.
“What's the matter, Zene?” inquired Grandma Padgett. “Has anything happened?”
“No, marm,” replied Zene. He was a quiet, singular fellow, halting in his walk on account of the unevenness of his legs; but faithful to the family as either Boswell or Johnson. Grandma Padgett having brought him up from a lone and forsaken child, relied upon all the good qualities she discovered from time to time, and she saw nothing ludicrous in Zene. But aunt Corinne and Bobaday never ceased to titter at Zene's “marm.”
“I've been inquirin' along, and we can turn off of the 'pike up here at the first by-road, and then take the first cross-road west, and save thirty mile o' toll gates. The road goes the same direction. It's a good dirt road.”