“Well, Zene,” said Grandma Padgett, “I guess we'd better stop here. We've provisions in our wagon.”
“How far you goin'?” inquired the hospitable mover.
“Into Illinois,” replied the head of the small caravan.
“Your trip'll soon be done, then. Come on, now, and go to Californy, why don't you! That's the country to get rich in! You'll see sights the other side of the Mississippi!”
“I'm too old for such undertakings,” said Grandma Padgett, passing over the mover's exuberance with a smile.
“Why, we have a granny over ninety with us!” he declared. “Now's the time to start if you want to see the great western country.”
Zene drove off the 'pike on the temporary track made by so many vehicles, and Grandma Padgett followed, the Virginian showing them a good spot near the liveliest part of the camp, upon which they might pitch.
The family sat in the-carriage while Zene took out the horses, sheltered the wagon under thick foliage where rain scarcely penetrated, and stretched the canvas for a tent. Then Grandma Padgett put on her rubber overshoes, pinned a shawl about her and descended; and their fire was soon burning, their kettle was soon boiling, in defiance of water streams which frequently trickled from the leaves and fell on the coals with a hiss. The firelight shone through slices of clear pink ham put down to broil. Aunt Corinne laid the cloth on a box which Zene took out of the wagon for her, and set the cups and saucers, the sugar and preserves, and little seed cakes which grew tenderer the longer you kept them, all in tempting order. They had baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in wet wads of paper, and roasted them in the ashes. A potato so roasted may be served up with a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while the butter melts through it you wonder that people do not fire whole fields and bake the crop in hot earth before digging it, to store for winter.
{Illustration: BOBADAY'S CANOPIED THRONE.}
Zene had frequently assured Robert Day that an egg served this way was better still. He said he used to roast eggs in the ashes when burning stumps, and you only needed a little salt with them, to make them fit for a king. But Robert Day scorned the egg and remained true to the potato.