This hospitable traveller wore a red shirt and a slouched hat, and had his trousers tucked in his boots. He pulled off his hat to shake the rain away, and showed bushy hair and a smiling bearded face. No weather could hurt him. He was ready for anything.
“Light down,” he exclaimed. “Plenty of room over there if you want it.”
“Who's over there?” inquired Zene.
“Oh, it's a big camp-meeting,” replied the man. “There's twenty or thirty families, and lots of fun.”
“Do you mean,” inquired Grandma Padgett, “a camp-meeting for religious purposes?”
“You can have that if you want it,” responded the man, “and have your exhorters along. It's a family camp. Most of us going out to Californy. Goin' to cross the plains. Some up in the woods there goin' to Missoury. Don't care where they're goin' if they want to stop and camp with us. We're from the Pan Handle of Virginia. There's a dozen families or more of us goin' out to Californy together. The rest just happened along.”
“I'm a Virginian myself,” said Grandma Padgett, warming, “though Ohio's been my State for many years.”
“Well, now,” exclaimed the mover, “if you want to light right down, we'll be all the gladder for that. I saw you stoppin' here uncertain; and there's the ford over Little Miami ahead of you. I thought you'd not like to try it in the dark.”
“You're not like a landlord back on the road that let us risk our necks!” said Grandma Padgett with appreciation. “But if you take everybody into camp ain't you afraid of getting the wrong sort?”
“Oh, no,” replied the Virginian. “There's enough of us to overpower them.”