Old Caravan Days

by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Aunt Corinne with some sharpness assured the Virginia children that her nephew and herself were indeed above such suspicion; that Ma Padgett and brother Tip had the most money, and even Zene was well provided with dollars; while they had silver spoons among their goods that Ma-Padgett said had been in the family more than fifty years!

Jonathan and Thrusty Ellen accepted this information with much stolidity. The grandeur of having old silver made no impression on them. They saw that Grandma Padgett had one pair of horses hitched to her moving-wagon instead of three pairs, and they secretly rated her resources by this fact.

It was very cheerful moving in this long caravan. When there was a bend in the 'pike, and the line of vehicles curved around it, the sight was exhilarating.

Some of the Virginians sat on their horses to drive. There was singing, and calling back and forth. And when they passed a toll-gate, all the tollkeeper's family and neighbors came out to see the array. Jonathan and Robert rode in his father's easiest wagon, while Thrusty Ellen, and her mother enjoyed Grandma Padgett's company in the carriage. As they neared Richmond, which lay just within the Indiana line, men went ahead like scouts to secure accommodations for the caravan. At Louisburg, the last of the Ohio villages, aunt Corinne was watching for the boundary of the State. She fancied it stretched like a telegraph wire from pole to pole, only near the ground, so the cattle of one State could not stray into the other, and so little children could have it to talk across, resting their chins on the cord. But when they came to the line and crossed it there was not even a mark on the ground; not so much as a furrow such as Zene made planting corn. And at first Indiana looked just like Ohio. Later, however, aunt Corinne felt a difference in the States. Ohio had many ups and downs; many hillsides full of grain basking in the sun. The woods of Indiana ran to moss, and sometimes descended to bogginess, and broad-leaved paw-paw bushes crowded the shade; mighty sycamores blotched with white, leaned over the streams: there was a dreamy influence in the June air, and pale blue curtains of mist hung over distances.

But at Richmond aunt Corinne and her nephew, both felt particularly wide awake. They considered it the finest place they had seen since the capital of Ohio. The people wore quaint, but handsome clothes. They saw Quaker bonnets and broad-brimmed hats. Richmond is yet called the Quaker city of Indiana. But what Robert Day and Corinne noticed particularly was the array of wagons moved from street to street, was an open square such as most Western towns had at that date for farmers to unhitch their teams in, and in that open square a closely covered wagon connected with a tent. It was nearly dark. But at the tent entrance a tin torch stuck in the ground showed letters and pictures on the tent, proclaiming that the only pig-headed man in America was therein exhibiting himself and his accomplishments, attended by Fairy Carrie, the wonderful child vocalist.

Before Bobaday had made out half the words, he telegraphed a message to aunt Corinne, by leaning far out of the Brockaway wagon and lifting his finger. Aunt Corinne was leaning out of the carriage, and saw him, and she not only lifted her finger, but violently wagged her head.

The caravan scouts had not been able to find lodging for all the troops, and there was a great deal of dissatisfaction about the rates asked by the taverns. So many of the wagons wound on to camp at the other side of the town, the Brockaways among them. But the neighborly Virginian, in exchanging Robert for his wife and daughter at the carriage door, assured Grandma Padgett he would ride back to her lodging-place next morning and pilot her into the party again.

“I thank you kindly,” said Grandma Padgett in old-fashioned phrase. “It's growing risky for me to sleep too much in the open night air. At my age folks must favor themselves, and I'd like a bed to-night, if it is a tavern bed, and a set, table, if the vittles are tavern vittles. And we can stir out early.”

So Thrusty Ellen and Jonathan rode away with their father, unconscious of Robert and Corinne's superior feeling in stopping at a tavern.

In the tavern parlor were a lot of sumptuous paper flowers under a glass case. There were a great many stairs to climb, and a gong was sounded for supper.