Their buzz increased to a roar. Robert Day woke keenly up to find the old white and the old gray just creeping across a railroad track, and a locomotive with its train whizzing at full speed towards them.
CHAPTER VIII. LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK.
A breath's delay must have been fatal. Robert had no whip, but doubling the lines and shouting at the top of his voice, he braced himself and lashed the gray. The respectable beast leaped with astonishment, dragging its fellow along. The fore wheels cleared the track, and Bobaday's head was filled with the prolonged cry of the locomotive. Zene sprang up, and the hind part of the wagon received a crash which threw the boy out at the side, and Zene quite across the gray's back.
The train came to a stop after running a few yards further. But finding that no lives were lost, it put on steam and disappeared on its course, and Zene and his trembling assistant were trying to prop up one corner of the wagon when Grandma Padgett brought her spectacles to bear upon the scene.
One hind wheel had been splintered by the train, the leap of the gray turning the wagon from the road. Grandma Padgett preserved her composure and asked few questions. Her lips moved at frequent intervals for a long time after this accident. But aunt Corinne flew out of the carriage, and felt her nephew's arms and wailed over the bump his cheek received, and was sure his legs were broken, and that Zene limped more than ever, and that the train had run straight across their prostrate forms.
Zene busied himself with shamefaced eagerness in getting the wagon off the road and preparing to hunt a shop. He made piteous grimaces over every strap he unfastened.
“We cannot leave the goods standing here in the wagon with nobody to watch 'em,” said the head of the caravan. “It's nigh dinner-time, and we'll camp in sight, and wait till we can all go on together. A merciful Providence has brought us along safe so far. We mustn't git separated and run ourselves into any more dangers than we can help.”
Zene lingered only to pitch the camp and find water at a spring running down into a small creek. Then he bestrode one of the wagon horses, and, carrying the broken wheel-hubs, trotted away.
Grandma Padgett tucked up her dress, took provisions from the wagon, and got dinner. Aunt Corinne and her nephew made use of this occasion to lay in a supply of nuts for winter. The nuts were old ones, lying under last autumn's leaves, and before a large heap had been gathered, aunt Corinne bethought her to examine if they were fit to eat. They were not; for besides an ancient flavor, the first kernel betrayed the fact that these were pig-nuts instead of hickory.