At New Carlisle, a sleepy little village where the dogfennel was wonderfully advanced for June, Zene took the gray from the wagon and hitched him to the carriage, substituting Old Hickory. The gray's shoulder was rubbed by his collar, and Zene reasoned that the lighter weight of the carriage would give him a better chance of healing his bruise. Thus paired the horses looked comical. Hickory and Henry evidently considered the change a disgrace to them. But they made the best of it and uttered no protest, except keeping as wide a space as possible between themselves and their new mates. But the gray and white, old yoke fellows at the plough, who knew nothing of the dignity of carriage drawing, and cared less, who had rubbed noses and shared feed-boxes ever since they were colts, both lifted up their voices in mournful whinneys and refused comfort and correction. The white turned his head back over his shoulder and would have halted anywhere until his mate came up; while the gray strained forward, shaking his head, and neighing as if his throat were full of tears every time a tree or a turn in the road hid the wagon.
The caravan moving to this irregular and doleful music, passed through another little town which Zene said was named Boston, late on a rainy afternoon. Here they crossed the Miami River in a bridge through the cracks of which Robert Day and Corinne looked at the full but not very wide stream. It flowed beneath them in comparative silence. The rain pricked the water's surface into innumerable puckers.
“Little boys dancing up,” said aunt Corinne, in time-honored phrase.
“No; it's bees stingin' the water,” said her nephew, “with long stingers that reach clear out of the clouds.”
These sky-bees stung the dusty road until it lay first in dark dimples and last in swollen mud rows and shallow pools. The 'pike kept its dignity under the heaviest rains. Its very mud was light and plaster-like, scarcely clinging to the wheels or soiling the horses' legs. Its flint ribs rung more sharply under the horses' shoes. Through the damp dusk aunt Corinne took pleasure in watching the fire struck by old Henry and the gray, against the trickling stones. They pulled the carriage curtains down, and Grandma Padgett had the oilcloth apron drawn up to her chin, while she continued to drive the horses through a slit. The rear of the wagon made a blur ahead of them. Now the 'pike sides faded from fresh green to a general dulness, and trees whispering to the rain lost their vistas and indentations of shade, and became a solid wall down which a steady pour hissed with settled monotony. Boswell and Johnson no longer foraged at the 'pike sides, or lagged behind or scampered ahead. They knew it was a rainy October night without lightning and thunder, slipped by mistake into the packet of June weather; and they trotted invisibly under the carriage, carrying their tails down, and their lolling tongues close to the puddles they were obliged to scamper through or skip. Boswell and Johnson remembered their experiences at the lonesome Susan house, where they lay in the deep weeds and were forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with apprehension lest the grinding of the wheels should cease, and some ghostly wall loom up at one side of their way, unlighted by a single glimmer and unperfumed by any whiff of supper. It was a fine thing to be movers' dogs when the movers went into camp or put up in state at a tavern. Around a camp were all sorts of woodsy creatures to be scratched out of holes or chased up trees, or to be nosed and chewed at. There were stray and half-wild pigs that had tails to be bitten, and what could be more exhilarating than making a drove of grunting pigs canter like a hailstorm away into deep woods! And in the towns and villages all resident dogs came to call on Boswell and Johnson. At every tavern Boswell picked a fight and Johnson fought it out; sometimes retiring with his tail to the earth and a sad expression of being outnumbered, but oftener a victor to have his wounds dressed and bandaged by Boswell's tongue. There was plenty to eat at taverns and camps, and good hunting in the woods; but who could tell what hungry milestone might stand at the end of this day's journey?
Grandma Padgett herself was beginning to feel anxious on this subject. She drove faster in order to overtake Zene and consult with him, but before his attention could be attracted, both carriage and wagon reached a broad belt of shine stretching across the 'pike, and making trees in the meadow opposite stand out as distinct individuals.
This illumination came from many camp-fires extending so far into the woods that the last one showed like a spark. A great collection of moving wagons were ranged in line along the extent of these fires, and tents pitched under the dripping foliage revealed children playing within their snug cover, or women spreading the evening meal. Kettles were hung above the fires, and skillets hissed on the coals. The horses, tied to their feed-boxes, were stamping and grinding their feed in content, and the gray lifted up his voice to neigh at the whole collection as Grandma Padgett stopped just behind Zene. All the camp dogs leaped up the 'pike together, and Boswell and Johnson met them in a neutral way while showing the teeth of defence. To Boswell and Johnson as well as to their betters, this big and well-protected encampment had an inviting look, provided the campers were not to be shunned.
A man came up the 'pike side through the rain and kicked some of the dogs aside.
“Hullo,” said he most cheerfully. “Want to put up?”
“What is it?” inquired Zene cautiously. He then craned his neck around to look at Grandma Padgett, whose spectacles glared seriously at the man.